Eight underestimated Christmas songs for your festive playlist

The holiday season brings a lot of things: precious family time, glorious food and, more often than not, the urge to push your thumbs in your eyes when you hear those abandoned Christmas carols for what seems to be the billionth time.

There is a special cannon of Christmas melodies that always wake up from their 11-month hibernation and dominate the airwaves as Christmas approaches.

But there is no reason to be a musical Scrooge at this time of the year, as there are many underrated Christmas songs that are pretty good and that will surely plunge you into the seasonal movement of things.

So, forget about Mariah, Cliff, Slade and all the rest: these are the songs you really need in your festive playlist.

Last Christmas from Future Islands

Jimmy Eat World, Cascada, Eliza Doolittle, Carly Rae Jepsen, Gwen Stefani and even Olly Walls covered last Christmas. Suffice to say that their quality varies quite a bit, but this Future Islands effort is one of the best. Released on Christmas Eve 2015, it is a sublime synthesis delight, with singer Samuel Herring's baritone giving it a whole new sense of melancholy. And, in what can only be described as a Christmas miracle, the song can be downloaded for free.

All I want for Christmas by RuPaul

Ho Ho Ho, RuPaul's Christmas 2009 album, is exactly what you'd expect from a RuPaul Christmas album: fun, subversive and ridiculously fun. The drag icon offers absolute upheavals, from RuPaul, the red-nosed reindeer, to I Saw Daddy, a Santa Claus kiss, but the best track must always be All I Want For Christmas. While all that Nat King Cole wanted was his two front teeth, RuPaul wanted a little more: liposuction, cheek implants, bad lift, nasal puncture, toothpicks, chops removed – all shabang. Jingle Bells, that's not it.

Alone at Christmas by Darlene Love

We all heard Darlene Love's famous Christmas tune, Christmas, but did you know she has many other festive songs? The best of them is undoubtedly All Alone For Christmas. It follows roughly the same formula – centered on a grand stone choir, overflowing with Christmas emotion – but which was actually written and performed by members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band (Clarence Clemons, undisputed king of solo Sax, arrives with a real doozy at 2.34). He released in the soundtrack of the second movie of Home Alone in 1992 and presents a rather awesome movie Macaulay Culkin in the video.

Santa Claus goes straight to the Snoop Dogg ghetto

California may not be the first place you think of when you're thinking of a winter scene, but that does not mean we can not turn to West Coast hip-hop for inspiration. Christmas playlist. This Snoop Dogg song is an absolute gem, with a captivating rhythm, inspired by Isaac Hayes, and a catchy vocal hook of Nate Dogg. The verses present various rappers evoking the Christmas of the yesteryear, while Snoop offers its own interpretation of an ideal shindig for the holidays ("distribute gifts, burst chips", etc.).

Christmas time is here by Khruangbin

This one may be underestimated because it was released just a month ago, but it will definitely pique the ear of any warned guest if you put it on your Christmas reading list . It's a casual funk piece, thanks to the funk's casual masters, Khruangbin. This is a loose cover of the clbadic jazzy of the same name, released in the album Charlie Brown Holiday Hits Vince Guaraldi in the 60s.

Silent Night by Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin's had long had the ambition to release a Christmas album and that's what she did in 2008. The release, This Christmas, is an interpretation of festive clbadics from Hark! The Herald Angels sing in the silent night. The latter was immersed in lush instrumentation with a chorus on the album, but this year a new, streamlined version was released – featuring Franklin and his piano. It's glorious, with the space found that allows his voice to fly. At the end of the year Franklin pbaded away, it reminds us in an incredibly poignant way how majestic it was.

Christmas card of a whore in Minneapolis by Tom Waits

If most Christmas songs are supposed to give listeners a warm, soft feeling, then … well, it's just the opposite. Tom Waits' drunk and grizzly grunt does not absorb all the gaiety of the season and the resounding piano that he sings on this track releases a slippery resonance – a composed air, when he weaves it with a morose interpretation of Silent Night. The lyrics tell the story of a prostitute who, via a Christmas card, writes to "Charlie" to tell him about his life. At first, everything looks rosy: she has a boyfriend and has kicked into drugs. But shortly after she leaves the act and tells the truth about her deplorable state. It stems from something that many of us might be tempted to experience at this time of year: the loneliness and expectation of the song contrast sharply with the creeping and force-fed joy of the season.

It was the worst Christmas of my life! by Sufjan Stevens

For years, Sufjan Stevens made folk recordings of his favorite Christmas songs and gave them to friends and family. In 2006, he decided to share them with the world, by grouping 62 songs and distributing them in a box of five CDs. There are covers of clbadics, from Amazing Grace to The Little Drummer Boy, all really fresh and enjoyable. There are also many originals, including "It's the worst Christmas of all time!", Which is probably what stands out, a gloomy, yet warm reflection of his childhood.

Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande

First of all: We know that tagging a song with more than 150 million views on YouTube as "underestimated" seems slightly ridiculous, but listen to us. When he was released in 2014 as a single single, he has largely escaped control, not even being one of the top 40 American charts – yet he is still not considered one of Ariana's best songs great. A parody, because it's a real banger, with its instrumental R & B and contagious earworm melodies. Forget Mariah this Christmas and hit Ari a bit.