Houstonist iMix: December (Holiday edition)

Now that it’s the first week of December, we’re officially firmly planted in the holiday season. Of course, compared to others, we’re way behind the time on Christmas music (which its annual kick-off has seemed to creep into October now). Still, with Thanksgiving and Black Friday fresh on our minds, you can’t blame us for getting into the holiday spirit a little bit. We promise, we’ll be as sick of it as you are in two weeks.

So, to open our second annual Houstonist Holiday iMix, we have a classic from the only singer on our iMix that may have been black listed as a communist at one time, Burl Ives. Other classics include Elvis’ version of “Winter Wonderland” (which has recently been re-released on a new “Duets” album), a rather racy (by 1949 standards) version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” an instrumental version of “O Tannenbaum” from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the odd 1977 pairing of Bing Crosby and David Bowie, and The Monkees covering a 16th century Spanish traditional tune.

A holiday album isn’t complete with only songs sung by dead people, so we also included some artists that are still with us. Alexi Murdoch brings a calm, acoustic touch to “Silent Night,” George Michael (with Wham!) is represented with their own composition from 1985 (“Last Christmas”), English glam-rockers Slade’s 1973 “Merry Xmas Everybody” is included, along with Sufjan Stevens' version of a classic hymn, Sarah McLachlan’s cover of Joni Mitchell, and the iMix is rounded out with The Pretenders 80’s update of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

If you have iTunes on your computer, you can now download our iMix, or, if you want to pick and choose, you can download the tracks individually. Enjoy, and happy holidays!