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Santa’s sounds

Carols, jingles and more for the season

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

There’s a wealth of holiday-theme discs to wrap up this year. Barenaked Ladies offer their inimitable versions of both religious and secular Yule standards—and a trio of Hanukkah tunes—on Barenaked for the Holidays (Desperation). Kate and Anna McGarrigle round up the brood, including Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and Emmylou Harris for The McGarrigle Christmas Hour (Nonesuch), which boasts a more distinctive spread of familiar jingles, obscure holiday tunes and originals.

Bing Crosby, Vic Damone and Charlie Parker’s contributions to the Christmas canon get overhauled by the likes of Kaskade and Future Loop Foundation on Christmas Remixed 2 (Six Degrees), but if you’re up for something really retro, no “neo” attached, check out Mistletoe & Wine (Nettwerk), an old-old-old-school celebration of the holiday care of Mediaeval Baebes.

Grinches, Scrooges and general Christmas haters will crack nasty smiles when they get A John Waters Christmas (New Line). That’s right, lord of lowbrow John Waters selecting the weirdest, wackiest, most tasteless and tackiest holiday tunes of all time, including the Kwanza carol “Santa Claus is a Black Man” and the just plain rude “Here Comes Fatty Claus.”

Just so nobody feels left out, let us also suggest Kenny Ellis’s Hanukkah Swings (Favored Nations), a big-band blowout packing eight days’ worth of jumping, jiving Judaica.