A Santa Cause: It's a Punk Rock Christmas, various artists (Immortal)

I guess these folks who donated tracks to this 2000 benefit album are what the business considers punk rock, but there's actually a bit of a spread in musical style here. Not everybody is thrashing it old school punk on this collection. Nevertheless, today's audience will recognize a lot of these acts as part of the genre. Quite a few originals are part of this package, which alone makes it worthwhile. I had a little trouble figuring out the story behind "Mookie's Last Christmas" by Saosin, but enjoyable originals are turned in by Something Corporate with "Forget December," MxPx offering "Christmas Night of Zombies," The Matches with "December is for Cynics," New Found Glory with "Ex Miss," Jason Gleason with the almost lounge-y "Sleigh Bells and Wine," Punchline's "Icicles," and Mighty Mighty Bosstones' "This Time of Year." Plenty of covers too, with Acceptance doing "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" (credited as "So This Is Christmas" on the cover), The A.K.A.s doing Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis," Far featuring Chino Moreno doing Band Aid's "Feed the World," and so forth. Gatsby's American Dream does the least sappy version of "Christmas Time is Here" I've heard, Stand Still joke around with "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus," and The Red West take us out with "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." Well, almost; the hidden cut on this album is Nerf Herder's original "Santa's Got a Mullet," possibly the best thing here. The album benefits the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The disc remains in print, click the cover, but there's a double-disc set with this album and Vol. 2 packaged together that's also in print.