Those of you who don't mind dropping a sawbuck on Mojo magazine, the much-loved music monthly from England, might wanna grab the January 2011 issue, as the usual CD rubber-cemented to the front of the book is Mojo's Festive Fifteen, by which they mean Christmas songs. The rundown includes everything from the familiar (Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run") to the obscure (Superchunk's cover of John Cale's "Child's Christmas In Wales," Sea of Bees' "Feliz Navidad" and Hannah Peel & Tunng's "Hey Santa," all specially recorded for this disc), with other contributions from Irma Thomas, Joe Tex, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Marc Almond, R.E.M., Sufjan Stevens and The Free Design. There's even a slightly deranged lounge version of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Tony Christie. The magazine's worth the money even without the disc most months, so three unique songs are probably worth the trouble.- WXPN-FM, home of the "World Cafe," put up four songs by local Philadelphia artists for download this week. They are "Reindeer Game" by Ben Arnold, "Song For Solstice" by Hoots and Hellmouth, "Silent Tonight" by Madi Diaz and "Wake Up December" by Talain Rayne. While we're considering downloads, Paste Magazine rounded up 50 free downloads from various spots on the Web, including their own site, from obscure to familiar -- including familiar from this very site. Oh, and while I was writing this I stumbled on Silber Records' collections of Xmas tunes, also free to download. UPDATE: I'm inserting this here because it's free through the good graces of Stella Artois beer. It's "Les 12 Jours De Noël" by Rosi Golan and Human, and yes, that means "12 Days of Christmas." It's strictly lounge-jazzville, but if you still want it, help yourself. FURTHER UPDATE: And Mayer Hawthorne has a free download of "Christmas Time Is Here."
- And finally, the oft-mentioned 2010 Mistletunes mix is on its way to a select group of people, but everybody can check out the cover art, playlist and liner notes here.
A few more quick hits for the readership
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