Weekly Studio Update - Modern Christmas Songs - 25/11/19

A bit "grinchy"...

This past weekend I had my first (very early) Christmas Party of the year with my wife's family in Toowoomba. My father-in-law loves the function of being able to speak in to his television remote control to search for videos on YouTube, and the phrase "Christmas Music" was used liberally that evening. YouTube served up a real mix of pop classics (All I Want For Christmas is You, Last Christmas) as well as more traditional carols. After the third time, Mariah Carey was eliciting groans from everyone present, and it led to the conversation of whether there has been any good modern Christmas music released lately.

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Being that I was raised in a house where Christmas meant a decorated gum tree branch and a distinct lack of religious observations, my knowledge of Christmas music is fairly meagre, so there are a lot of classics that I don't know! However, I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of pop music, so when there are crossovers with my favourite artists making Christmas music, I'm usually a little bit curious. So, in no particular order, here are a few modern Christmas songs that you may not have heard that you can add to your holiday playlist this year:

• Joel the Lump of Coal by The Killers
• Lonely Christmas Eve by Ben Folds
• Puppies are Forever by Sia (she released a Christmas album two years ago)
• Christmas in L.A. by Vulfpeck
• Boom Tinkelinketty Christmas by Pomplamoose
• Christmas is Here by Sports Fan (we were commissioned to write a Christmas song by our Japanese distributor for their annual compilation)

Now it's your turn - let me know your favourite modern Christmas songs! They can't just be re-recordings of old song either, brand new original songs only!

I've already had a few people asking about my closing dates over Christmas - the studio will be closed from Friday the 20th of December and reopening on Monday the 6th of January.

Things I've been watching/listening to this week:

1. Lots of new music has been released, so I've been soundtracking road trips with new Coldplay, Ryan Lerman and Beck.
2. Housework soundtrack brought you by albums beginning with the letters E & F: Ball Park Music (Every Night the Same Dream), The Finn Brothers (Everyone is Here), Regina Spektor (Far), Cake (Fashion Nugget), Fear of Pop (Fear of Pop - a Ben Folds side project from 1998), The Fearless Flyers (The Fearless Flyers EP), Jackson Jackson (The Fire is on The Bird), N.E.R.D (Fly or Die), Fall Out Boy (Folie A Deux)
3. Seems to be that I listened to so much music that I didn't get to watch a lot of things on YouTube, although I am looking forward to checking out the live performance that Coldplay did in Jordan for the release of their album when I get the chance.
4. A new episode of my podcast Hook Club has been released, this episode we talk about the Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes duet "Senorita" - please be aware that this episode does contain adult themes and is only suitable for mature audiences.