Get your weird on this holiday season with eight of the weirdest, most festive albums.
8. Bright Eyes – A Christmas Album
A non-sarcastic Christmas album from Conor Oberst, one of the most staunchly anti-religious emo-folk icons? Yes, this is real life. “A Christmas Album” has Oberst covering typical Yuletide fare such as “Blue Christmas” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” infusing them with his trademark ‘I constantly sound like I’m about to burst into tears but never actually do’ voice.
7. Sufjan Stevens – Silver & Gold
Sufjan Stevens’ arranging abilities are legendary for transforming a handful of simple chords into layers upon layers of symphonic sheen. On Silver & Gold, Stevens’ 58 song Christmas opus, he transforms Christmas classics into his own sonic beasts featuring dense orchestral arrangements, sing-a-long choruses and noisy electric breakdowns. He also offers original Christmas tunes in the mix, proposing that perhaps someday the world will sing tracks like Lumberjack Christmas and Christmas Unicorn by the fireplace.
6. The Flaming Lips – Christmas on Mars
Christmas on Mars is a soundtrack to The Flaming Lips’ surreal, Lynch-ian film of the same name. The movie explores the first Christmas on a freshly colonized Mars, saved by a mysterious martian (lead singer Wayne Coyne) who fills the Santa Claus role in a Christmas pageant. The soundtrack alone captures little rays of the film’s festive weirdness, with tracks bearing family friendly names like In Excelsior Vaginalistic and The Gleaming Armanent of Marching Genitalia.
5. Twisted Sister – A Twisted Christmas
The music video for Twisted Sister’s cover of Oh Come All Ye Faithful opens with a woman horrified to find her Christmas tree surrounded by 80s gender-bending heroes Twisted Sister (complete with drums, amps, and massive hair), who manage to bring out her inner-headbanger after all. A Twisted Christmas is Twisted Sister’s benevolent attempt to prove that the Christmas spirit meshes perfectly with the heavy metal spirit of nonsensically kicking stuff around and thinking leopard-print vests are a good idea.
4. Duck Dynasty – Duck The Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas
I love watching the zany (but probably scripted) redneck antics of the famed bearded businessmen as much as the next person with too much time on their hands, but do I love them enough to listen to them croon on Christmas covers? I don’t, but apparently the majority of America does as Duck The Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas recently debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts.
3. Death Row Records – Christmas on Death Row
Nineties West Coast gangsta rap probably isn’t the first thing people associate with Christmas, but that didn’t stop legendary (and now-defunct) label Death Row Records to release their own holiday tribute: Christmas on Death Row. Most of the tracks are forgettable filler from one-off artists like Danny Boy and Michelle, but the album’s standout comes from trusty Snoop Dogg on the track Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto. Snoop makes the album’s existence justified with lines like, “Now on the first day of Christmas, my homeboy gave to me/ A sack of the krazy glue and told me to smoke it up slowly.”
2. John Waters – A John Waters Christmas
Surreal-film mastermind John Waters is perhaps the most unexpected artist to join the Christmas album game. A John Waters Christmas doesn’t contain any original compositions, but instead a collection of Yuletide tunes handpicked by Waters to represent whatever bizarro Christmas spirit rests in his bones. Waters shows a love for lo-fi doowop, unsettling monologues and campy musical novelties such as Tiny Tim and Alvin and the Chipmunks. It’s the perfect soundtrack for any ironic Christmas parties, assuming they actually exist.
1. Meco Monrado – Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album
As 1981 approached, the world was arrested in Star Wars fandom. Numerous attempts were made to cash in on the franchise, but none were so lovably ludicrous as producer Meco Monrado’s Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album. Anthony Daniels, aka C-3PO, voices and narrates most of the album, which includes, but is not limited to: ruminating on a Wookie’s Christmas list, a conversation between droids and Santa Claus’ son, and the first professional appearance of Bon Jovi.
