Office party breakdown

Xmas is for everyone, as these
seasonal sounds suggest

by RAF KATIGBAK

Christmas - for some, it's the most wonderful time of the year. I'd have to agree, unless of course you ever leave the house. Then this "wonderful time" turns into "a test of your musical endurance." Every year like clockwork, right after Halloween, shops dust off the holly wreaths and Santa cut-outs and get ready to put the Hall & Oates version of "Jingle Bell Rock" on perpetual play. The season also marks the annual return of the oft-dreaded office party. While fights over the boombox can make or break fragile office alliances, this year's selection of new Christmas albums will have a little something for just about everyone in the office.

San Fran house label Om have just released Home for the Holidays, featuring downtempo versions of "Winter Wonderland," "What Child Is This" and "O Christmas Tree" performed by beatmeisters like King Kooba and Kaskade. Perfect for that party-hardy secretary that only answers in the affirmative with the words "groovy" or "funky."

For that "dude" down in tech support who's always offering to "twist up a dubester" for you after work, Six Degrees offers up an album of X-mas crooner classics by Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong remixed by Dan the Automator, Rise Ashen, Robbie Hardkiss and Attaboy among others. While some of the houseier cuts up the cringe factor to about 11, the more laidback tunes should be having you guys high-fiving each other over a "splifferino" in no time.

For that bespectacled, pony-tailed guy in accounting, there's no better gift than a prog-rock CD. While he may have every album King Crimson ever made (including the highly prized 1984 Russian bootleg collection), he's probably been too busy trying to score front row tickets to the Musical Box to pick up Jethro Tull's latest Christmas Album. With their own swingin', pseudo-funked-out rock take on traditional carols and some of their own classics reworked in a Christmas stylee, one listen will have Ye Hobbit Lorde of Accounts Receivable exclaiming, "It's flute-tastic!"

Maidens & Mistletoe

Remember when you went to the tam-tams last summer and you swore you thought you saw that girl in shipping with one of those foamy swords, bashing it up with those medieval revivalists? Well, you were right, that was her. You know because she showed up to the Christmas party in the same corseted handmaiden's dress she wore that day. Your suspicions were further confirmed when she brought the latest Mediaeval Baebes' CD Mistletoe & Wine (Nettwerk) and started doing the same "Gaia dance of fertility." This cunning observation means +2 intelligence points for you and +5 charisma for her.

The aging swinger trying to "get hip with the kids" will appreciate the Genuine Houserockin' Christmas comp put out by Alligator. Eager to show the "homeboys and homegirls" how he "got jiggy" back in his day, he'll probably throw this album on and proceed to do the dance that's come to be known as "the white man's overbite." This consists of keeping the feet firmly planted on the ground and pivoting the upper body left and right, often with arms to the sides and bent slightly to permit silent fingersnapping.

This year's alt-pop comp Maybe This Christmas Too? is the follow-up to last year's scorching hit Maybe This Christmas? From Rufus Wainwright's original "Spotlight on Christmas" to Avril Lavigne & Chantal Kreviazuk's rousing rendition of "O Holy Night" to the Barenaked Ladies' touching and life-affirming "Green Christmas," this Can-con Christmas comp is maybe the most diplomatic choice of the bunch. Joy to the world!