Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs of the Last 25 Years: #14 - Ice Choir, “It’s Different Now”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots or Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #14, and a holiday chairty single done right by Ice Choir.

#14: Ice Choir, "It's Different Now" (2014)

"Last Christmas." "Fairytale of New York." "Christmas Wrapping." The '80s were a great decade for holiday music, but that legacy often gets unfairly smudged by the glut of truly terrible charity singles that populated the airwaves back then. I'm already on the record as being generally fine by the sentiment, but if you're going to attempt a holiday charity single in 2014, you've got to bring it harder than Sir Bob Geldoff ever did.

Based on his new entry into the holiday game, Ice Choir's Kurt Feldman is more than up to the task. On his new 7", aptly titled Pure Holiday, the synth-pop cypher ignores the "Do They Know It's Christmas?" crowd and distills the essence of those great '80s holiday tunes into a track that comes with all of the nostalgia and none of the casual racism.

Beneath those vintage keys and faux chimes also rests a more relatable charitable message. Instead of making a misguided effort to save a continent he doesn't know very much about, Feldman simply reflects on his own good fortunes and realizes that sharing a bit of that with others would make everyone's season brighter.

Feldman doesn't even make a call for money in the song, simply asking for "health and peace for one more year." However, all proceeds from the sale of his single benefit the Coalition for the Homeless. It's condescension-free giving, and it makes me want to open my heart and my wallet.

Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesTop 25 Christmas Songs: #15 - Magnetic Fields, “Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree”

It's the holiday season, which means Christmas music. Lots and lots or Christmas music, most of which was written before the people listening to it were even alive. While "Jingle Bells" and "We Three Kings" are great, and resilient, we're devoting this year to finding the best Christmas song written since 1989. We continue today with #15, and a song from the world's greatest imaginary Christmas special from the Magnetic Fields.
 

#15: The Magnetic Fields, "Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree" (2010)

Much like Rufus Wainwright's entry at #20, the songs of Stephin Merritt often sound like music originating from some alternate, but faintly recognizible, past. When I hear "Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree," it feels like I'm watching the world's great lost animated Christmas special. In my mind, it's a stop-motion film created by a group of German artists waiting out their nation's Cold War troubles in a city like Chicago or Milwaukee. There's lots of fake snow, and existential forest animals, and even a later musical interlude about the Space Race (which is hinted at in the song's German section). It's charming and ramshackle and earthy, which was the vibe Merritt was going for on the Fields' back-to-basics record Realism. It's also more than a little melancholy, asking its audience to forget their troubles, even the big ones, even for just a single day. Like all carols, the song from this imaginary film is a flickering pinprick of light in an otherwise dark season. I'd pay Merritt good money to write the rest of that soundtrack.