PPA - Christmas Underground

Undressing Underground/Platonic Polyamory

We were very excited to talk to the guy (forgot to ask his name) behind the blog christmasunderground.com, which is currently on its 10th year. People that know Brandon and I know we love Christmas music, though we tend toward Culturcide, The Frogs, and a guy impersonating Randy Newman performing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" on YouTube that got DMCA'd a few years back and now is impossible to find (outside of my hard drive). Jennifer likes the Sufjan Stevens albums and I'm actually not sure what all else. But she's a real Christian, so, there's that.

But today we got to talk about the unfathomable depths of original Christmas music available on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, MySpace, and countless CD compilations and albums from the last 20+ years. We're not even touching on the history of R&B and novelty 7"s, the original run of classic records, the local music from nearly every industrialized nation, and so on. There is so much fucking Christmas music out there. If you want to know more about that, check out the documentary our guest mentions, Jingle Bell Rocks! The link will take you to JustWatch, which lists everywhere it's available to rent or stream (I signed up for a free trial of Fandor to see it).

Christmas Underground focuses more on the sincere, indie side of things. There's a new mix posted a few days before Christmas each year and 50+ posts about his assorted finds leading up to that. He even touches on some new standards brewing in the underground that even I wasn't familiar with (most notably, So Much Wine by Handsome Family).

Listen to the episode and when you're done check out the following links to Christmas Underground to hear and learn more about his favorites.

Phoebe Bridgers - So Much Wine

Traveller - Christmas Eve at Kroger

Annie Booth - Christmas Time (Keep It Together)

Charlie Hand Movement - Baubles

Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas (compilation)

Sorry about everything I was wrong about again this episode. See everyone a few more times this month for more of the annual Christmas music nonsense.