” It began a Christmas tradition, culminating in 1980s beautiful, horrible The Yobs Christmas Album. slang for “ a rude, noisy and aggressive young person. In 1977, the great underrated British punk-pop outfit the Boys issued a punk-up of Berry’s Yuletide gasser “Run Rudolph Run.” They inverted the “B” and “Y” in their name, transforming it to the U.K. With that, Alternative Press brings you our pick of punk’s 10 greatest Christmas songs. Some bands took the classics and kicked them about, the way Sid Vicious trashed Frank Sinatra ’s “My Way.” Others composed their own nasty Yuletide rockers. Whether future punk carollers realized it or not, the Wailers set the tone for Christmas punk future with their three-minute protest track. “But I think it’s one of our presidents, ain’t it?” Read more: Here’s why ‘Never Look Back’ feels like a classic Goldfinger album The Wailers gave the collection its heart by savagely slashing at the season’s green heart with a Bob Dylan -influenced sneer, “Christmas Spirit?” Bassist Buck Ormsby casts about a jaundiced eye, seeing department store Santa Clauses that are a “dime store commercialized manufactured product directly descended from a saint.” Finally, he stops the first person he sees on the street to ask whose birthday it supposedly was. The Pacific Northwest’s powerhouse garage combos all contributed to a vinyl Yuletide sampler from Etiquette Records, Merry Christmas.

A healthy cynicism for the festivities’ rampant commercialization goes back to the ’60s protopunk era. Think of Elvis Presley ’s “Blue Christmas,” or Chuck Berry ’s “Run Rudolph Run.”įrom punk rock’s mid-’70s birth, it wasn’t immune to joining the seasonal festivities, even if it was just to trash them. And rock ’n’ roll, upon its 1950s birth, almost immediately had its own bopping Yuletide ditties. Many jazz musicians have also interpreted them. The early 20th century’s awash with hokey Tin Pan Alley Christmas standards, sung by crooners such as Bing Crosby.

You have the ancient carols, full of religious imagery, usually sung by hoary old choirs. Not everyone digs the varying styles of seasonal music, though it’s a genre unto itself. Christmas is quite possibly the most musically controversial holiday of the year.

Dom kennedy yellow album track list