Elis and John: 6 Alternative Christmas Playlist picks

It’s that festive time of year – Slade, Wham, Wizzard et al are jingling in your ears for weeks on end. Some people love it, and that’s fine. But at 5 Live HQ, we thought our vibe-tasters might want something a little bit different.

The mission was crystal clear: Elis James and John Robins to select a playlist of alternative Christmas songs for BBC Sounds, for fans and non-fans alike to enjoy.

Elis understood the brief, delivering solid festive bangers, closing with an indie classic from Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas.

John decided to play things icy cool, choosing songs that weren’t even about Christmas… but WERE about winter and snow. That’s how alternative this playlist is.

“As much as we like Wizzard, and I do like Wizzard,” Elis says, “We’re not going to give it to you.”

So here it is – six of those choices for you to add to your overlooked festive banger collection. For the full 12-track playlist, listen to Elis and John’s Alternative Christmas Playlist, available now on BBC Sounds.

John’s first choice is Neko Case's Ragtime - from the uniquely titled album, The worst things get, the harder I fight, the harder I fight, the more I love you.

The descriptions of watching snow fall in the city really captured John’s imagination.

“When you think about snow, you're always thinking about the countryside… unbroken white rolling hills of snow… whereas this is a more urban expanse.”

“She says it [the snow] always moves sideways in the city as if it's being generated by the earth's core and coming out of the streetlamps.”

“She's able to create very evocative imagery in very few words… and I’ve loved her for 25 years.”

Elis picks a nostalgic cover by Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield, which brings back festive memories.

“James Dean Bradfield performing ‘Last Christmas’ [is] something I vividly remember from the Christmas 1996 episode of TFI Friday,’ Elis says.

“He’s played it live a few times… it's ended up on Lipstick Traces, which is the Manics’ album that's B-sides and demos and rarities and things.”

Elis in particular loves Bradfield’s choice to cover such a commercially successful song, by a pure pop band like Wham.

“One of his great gifts,” Elis notes, is Bradfield “brought a few bands into life that I think – as an indie-shmindi teenager, I didn’t think it was fine to like – and then to realise that it was.”

“One thing I’ve never understood about Christmas is Whamaggedon. Why would you not want to listen to a good Christmas song at Christmas? Baffles me.”

One of John's more “overt” Christmas choices is by satirical post-punk band Half Man Half Biscuit.

The message of the song – pouring scorn on people who performatively hate Christmas – is what has led it to be his favourite festive number.

“I love the fact that [lead singer] Nigel Blackwell is able, in his voice, to represent that slight whine of someone who's being cynical,” says John.

“He starts slightly flat on purpose, I think to represent the sort of drone of someone who's being very anti-Christmas.”

Elis “agrees 100% with the sentiment” of the song, from 2000 album 'Trouble over Bridgwater', noting how “easy” it is to slip into grumpiness.

“I think I might have done it when I was younger, but now I just love it [Christmas],” Elis says. “I think [Blackwell] absolutely nails it in this.”

Elis was keen to share this standalone Kate Bush number from 1979 on the playlist.

It conjures up images of a true winter wonderland, accompanied by Bush’s ethereal voice and spellbinding lyrics.

“I tell you what hasn't changed,” Elis says, “My love for Kate Bush.”

“That's remained constant since I heard Wuthering Heights, which would have been the first Kate Bush song I heard.”

“This is an absolute cracker in December.”

John’s final choice on the playlist is another weathery number with an usual twist - where snow is falling in California for the first time in 30 years.

It's taken from Hard Nose the Highway, the seventh studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1973.

“Snow is falling in this very hot part of the world,” John says, “And there's a suggestion in the lyrics that actually there's sort of some drug-related experience going on… it's never quite made clear what's happening.”

The “really beautiful’ prog-style composition with chamber orchestra harmonies really caught John’s attention.

“Very strange song, but one of Van Morrison's great songs from his golden era… in which time, I believe him to have been the greatest singer-songwriter in the history of music.”

Elis describes the track as “creatively vague”.

Although Elis loves his final choice, by Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, the pair find the song conceptually challenging.

“It would be a nightmare if it was Christmas today,” John says.

“If you went into the average UK household on the 20th of December and said it's Christmas Day today, you would get short shrift… and someone will have to wash the air frier because it hasn't been washed for ages.”

Elis agrees: “It sounds like a prank show running out of ideas.”

“As much as I love this song, I don't think Julian Casablancas has thought it through. And also, if he has thought it through, to me, that speaks to the privilege of being a rock star.”

“Same with Wizzards’s ‘I Wish it could be Christmas Everyday’ – it would be hell.”