Ten Alternative Christmas Songs

As anyone familiar with Conor Oberst will tell you, America’s poster-boy for angsty, lo-fi indie rock is not one you’d expect to release a Christmas song. Heck, there's no way this post-modern misery guts even believes in Santa. Get this, though, the prolific Omaha native put out an entire album of Christmas songs over a decade ago as a fund-raiser for the Nebraska AIDS project. The tone throughout the record is wonderfully melancholy as Oberst and his pals capture the spirit of Christmas without resorting to the cheap Christmas song gimmicks - so no sleigh bells, no jingle bells, and no ho ho hos. Among the highlights of the 11-song collection is Bright Eyes’ distortion-filled rendition of Little Drummer Boy. Check it out.

Mark Linkous’ dark, poetic lyrics and unmistakable sound earned Sparklehorse an army of admirers - among them Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Michael Stipe and Thom Yorke. He was a fragile genius, though, and in 2010 he shot himself through the heart, aged only 47. Brutal, huh. Anyway, among the many melancholy gems he left us with is this 2008 cover from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, on the Nightmare Revisited album. The collection featured contributions from a wide range of other acts, but none so beautiful as Linkous’ effort.

The Strokes frontman is as cool as Christmas itself. The New Yorker’s festive cracker was recorded as an ITunes/Amazon bonus track for his 2009 solo debut album, Phrazes For The Young, and it quickly became a big favourite with the indie crowd. “It was a fun thing to do,” said Casablancas back then. “Everyone seems to do a Christmas song at some point, so I always said I’d do one.” Great though it is, it seems I Wish It Was Christmas Today was a one-off from the man so cool he sounds like he’s singing through a walkie-talkie. “I now checked that off the list of things to do,” he said. Bah - and furthermore - humbug.

Forget Christmas, when it came to releasing brilliant songs Prince was the gift that kept on giving. The Minneapolis maestro put out Another Lonely Christmas as the B-side to the single I Would Die 4 U. A real fan favourite though this track is, the little purple fella only played this song live once, though fittingly on 26 December 1984, at the St Paul Civic Centre in Minnesota. RIP, wee man.

Everyone’s favourite Las Vegas indie band (sorry Imagine Dragons, sorry Panic! At The Disco) release a charity record every Christmas, and this year Brandon Flowers and the boys have really pushed the sledge out by putting all 10 of their festive numbers onto the one album.

Critics darling Laura Marling can seemingly do no wrong, and here she captures the wishes of a nation - hey, we all like a white Christmas, right? - in this snow-meltingly gorgeous ode to an English countryside covered in lots of the white stuff. “You were so smart then, in your jacket and coat / My softest red scarf was warming your throat / Winter was on us, at the end of my nose / But I never love England more than when covered in snow.” Beautiful.

He's a festive kind of guy, Tom Waits. Talking about Christmas Card For A Hooker in a rare interview, he said: "I was in Minneapolis. It was 200 degrees below zero... the police cars would go by and they'd wave, 'Merry X-mas, Merry X-mas, Merry X-Mas'. Anyway, I got caught in the middle of pimp war between two kids in Chinchilla coats. They couldn't have been more than 13 years old, and they're throwing knives and forks and spoons out into the streets. It was deep, so I grabbed a laddle. And Dinah Washington was singing Our Day Will Come, and I knew that was it." Quite what that's got to do with anything, we've no idea. But hey, it's a great song.

The Glasgow indie outfit released this lovely Christmas song in 2007. It's festive, but not too sickly sweet. As well as Stuart Murdoch and co, it features guest vocals by Celia Garcia, double bass by Dave McGowan, and saxophones and clarinet by James Swinburne and Helen Macleod. The song blends B&S's trademark twee harmonies with playful lines like: "Are you coming over for Christmas? / Leave your friends, I don't think they'll miss you much / It's not that you aren't pretty or funny / It's just that they've got plenty more money".

Relax, this ain't no Mariah Carey cover. The New York art-rockers are waaaaaaaaaay too cool for any such shenanigans, and this is a brilliant track, with distorted guitars, jingle bells, and Karen O's unmistakable vocals. In fact, it's one of the best Christmas songs on this list. Nuff said, right? Thought so.

Many Radiohead fans are blissfully unaware that Thom Yorke and Co ever recorded a Christmas song. And some fans even claim it's not them on Winter Wonderland. It most certainly is, though. Back in December 2002, Radiohead performed an unusually festive webcast on their official site called Inside Out Night. Granted, it's neither the best song in their back catalogue nor is it especially cheery, but it sees the normally self-serious band loosening up and having fun. Stick with it through Yorke's shout-out of "It's the Smurfs! It's the Smurfs!" at the start - it's a grower.