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 #9, and a carol you can dance to from Sally Shapiro.
#9: Sally Shapiro, "Anorak Christmas" (2006)
As Stereogum's Tom Breihan put it in his recent review of the new Christmas track by Dum Dum Girls, "If there’s any such thing as a not-great Christmas-themed synthpop song, I haven’t heard it." Neither have I, Tom, and that certainly includes this track from the mysterious Sally Shapiro. If a snow angel came to life and decided to write a danceable love song, it would probably sound something like "Anorak Christmas." Filled with a quiet passion that threatens to melt the chilly Italo synths that surround her voice, Shapiro issues a breathy plea to her newfound love. Whether or not he hears it is beside the point—when the days are short and the nights are long, even an imagined love is usually enough to keep someone going until spring.
The song also earns an extra point for the wordplay in its title; "anorak" here likely refers to both a winter coat (which Shapiro is probably wearing) and a British slang term for a person with a geeky or obsessive love or hobby (falling in love with stranger at a rock show most certainly counts). Anyone looking for a closer for their Unrequited Crush Mixtape, Holiday Edition: this one's on us.