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- Prestige Format Picks 🎄23 December 2025
Prestige Format Picks 🎄23 December 2025
a ton of Christmas music you've never heard
Ryan Ruppe
December 23, 2025 • Read this in about: 8 minutes
It’s the holiday season
here’s something to help you make it through
Slightly different format this time out: I’ve got a huge amount of seasonal music for you
this isn’t even all of Sufjan’s Christmas output
Christmas Albums from One Artist
Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas albums:
Songs for Christmas - The first 5 of his annual Christmas albums, originally recorded just for his friends annually, starting around 2001.
Silver & Gold - The next 5 of his annual Christmas albums, maybe his last.
Chopped & Scrooged - A hip-hop mixtape of some tracks from Silver & Gold
Ronnie Martin’s Christmas albums:
Formerly as Joy Electric (there’s also a Joy Electric Christmas album on streaming), Ronnie Martin has been obsessed with three things for a long time: perfect pop songwriting, analog synthesizers, and Christmas.
Christmas Albums from a band
Ash Reiter - Christmas in California
Perfectly sunny Christmas pop
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - It’s a Holiday Soul Party
Incredible vintage funk/soul sound. Don’t miss Funky Little Drummer Boy
Rosie Thomas - A Very Rosie Christmas
Gentle and adorable, a good mix between quiet songs and some more upbeat classics
Josh Garrels - The Light Came Down
Captures something sacred and homemade about the holidays
Bifrost Arts - Salvation is Created
Just in case you wanted your Christmas hymns to be extra haunted and gorgeous
Instrumental Electric Guitar Christmas (no shredding)
I can’t get enough of these honestly
Joel Paterson - Hi-Fi Christmas Guitar and The More, The Merrier
Reminds me a lot of Les Paul with a classic 50s sound.
Delicate Steve - The Christmas Album
Incredibly lyrical guitar playing, very much like if Sleepwalk by Santo & Johnny was a Christmas song.
This band made an entirely original Christmas album
You won’t know any of these songs!
The Rosebuds - Christmas Tree Island
They did it. They captured the perfect songwriting style and instrumentation of a post-jazz “timeless” Christmas song. Literally all of these are classics.
Candy Claws - Warm Forever
Now they have a band called Sound of Ceres, but hear their noisy dream pop holiday songs!
xmas movie soundtrack
There’s no movie! This only exists to exist and it’s magic.
Christmas Albums In A Style
Das Moniker - Merry Krautmas
Instrumental Christmas songs in the style of 70s German bands. This is much more in-depth than it needed to be. I think Neu! Joy to the World is my favorite.
Jherek Bischoff - Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire Walk With Me
Instrumental Christmas songs done in the style of Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundtrack.
Those records are lathe-cut snowflakes (“snow-lathes”) and I have one
Unhinged Label Compilations
Joyful Noise Recordings Holiday Parties
These are wild and wooly and have a very broad interpretation of “holiday”. See if you can find No Joy covering No Doubt.
A Familyre Christmas
Daniel Smith of Danielson Family’s Christmas compilations. Full of incredible stuff, including some of the first official releases of Sufjan’s Christmas music. Five compilations and a very ambitious version of Handel’s Messiah.
The Holidays Don’t Have To Be So Rotten
Chill Mega Chill
2010’s indie weird Christmas. Tape Deck the Halls has a special place in my heart but I like Totally Righteous Holiday Special too.
Excelcis: A Dark Noel
A 1995 compilation from goth/ambient label Projekt Records. Holds up.
Last Year We Didn’t Sing
A pretty downer holiday drone album from label Thor’s Rubber Hammer.
The 8bits of Christmas
Christmas songs created on actual 8-bit chips. Each song is from a different device!
Two Fantastic Covers of Modern Classics
Sinkane - Christmas Wrapping
The classic track from The Waitresses played by Sinkane and some friends (like Money Mark!) with Nancy Whang (LCD Soundsystem, The Juan Maclean) on vocals and keys.
Hooray for Our Side - All I Want for Christmas is You
A killer ska cover of the Mariah Carey song from my favorite local ska band.
Previous Christmas Album Posts
I’ve done so many of these. Expect duplicates and A LOT of linkrot.
That’s it! More music in 2026.
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