An Alternative Christmas Mixtape For An Alternative Christmas Holiday

So, the flaming, election-rigging, mask-wearing, diseased elephant in the room: 2020. If you've survived so far - which you must have done if you're reading this - then well done. It's been quite the struggle hasn't it? Christ's Mess (or whatever holiday name you would like to call this time of year) should be the break we all need - hell, we all deserve - after this omnifuck of a cluster-shamble. Bring on the booze and food I say, and don't hold back on the gravy. JUST POUR IT INTO MY GAPING MOUTH. Oh the world is burning, both literally and metaphorically? Put on the Christmas music: I'm going to dance until I cry.

I wonder what Christ would think of all this if he were around now? Would he be too busy showing off at swanky parties with his water-to-wine tricks and numerous fish ors d'oeuvres to notice, totally buying into the shallow middle-class lifestyle that we thought we'd left behind in the 80s but actually secretly followed us into the 21st century like a cancerous cell hiding from the scalpel during a tumour removal only to grow into a 4kg beast that makes it difficult to breathe? Or perhaps he's on social media right now, having an argument with a Twitter Bot called Dave098889987793 about how he's NOT a Communist and that Socialism is quite different from Communism actually and besides, what's wrong with just wanting to help people? And the Twitter Bot called Dave098889987793 just replies to him with a gif of David from Schitt's Creek but in a totally ironic way, and Christ just gives up and puts on his Christmas Hits album to stop the urge to hang himself. But the problem is that he's heard all the songs on it before, many many times. Too many times. And that rope is looks pretty tempting, particularly when Paul McCartney starts singing about having a wonderful- aah fuck, too late. He's already dead. Thanks Paul McCartney, your utterly mediocre yet overplayed Christmas song murdered Jesus.

Cheese: Delicious but rarely served at one of Christ's dinner parties.

The problem with Christ's Mess / Holiday music is that it's usually always the same old shit. John Lennon banging on about war being over (it isn't), or a super band featuring most of the popular artists of the mid-80s singing the obvious (of course there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas - it's Africa). You've heard them every Christmas and you know you'll hear them every other Christmas too. And it's boring. So very, very boring.

Well, this year, we've got you covered. Each member of our team selected several of our own personal favourite "Christmas tunes" that were slightly less mainstream than your Bing Crosby's and Chris Rea's. And then I - that is, me - compiled them into a delicious two-and-a-half hour alternative Christmas mix called "Our Alternative Christmas Mix!" 

Containing a veritable smorgasbord of genres, from funk to punk, metal to motown, J-Pop to jazz rock and even some avant-garde to ambient (not to mention one or two video game soundtracks), the mix is our way of saying thank you. Thank you for supporting us over this utter ball-bag of a year. Thank you for being patient with us when some of our releases were delayed. Thank you for putting up with the slow delivery service and, while we're on the subject, thank you to the postal workers who still carried out their duties during the effluence-hurricane of 2020 (without them, no-one would be getting their boutique media deliveries at all), and thank you for just being awesome and surviving and not murdering everyone around you, tempting as it may have been (or, at the very least, not getting caught murdering everyone around you).

You can listen to Our Alternative Christmas Mix! right here, or by using the handy widget below! It's completely free to stream, so listen to it as many times as your stomach will allow. I've put the tracklist at the bottom of the page in case you wondering what the hell songs these are, but as usual I would advise going in blind for your first listen.