Every year from October onwards we start receiving Christmas songs, and every year we collect all these into a playlist that we put out on Christmas Eve, like a musical tin of Quality Street.

Here Marina Florance and Del Osei-Owusu unwrap some of these treats and let you know what’s inside.

DEL OSEI-OWUSU

It’s Christmas 2022, and Marina and I have a great bunch of 21st century Christmas songs curated! We’ve even written our own, do check it out, and if you can please make a donation to your local food bank.

Thank you.

As is always the tradition – no mince pies just an apple pie or three and a cup of hot chocolate to get this started… I did promise Steve our admin no bad jokes this year, but hey it’s Christmas and I have been good!

Did you hear about the man who thought he was a supermarket?

He felt that way since he was Lidl.

Oh come on, that one always kills!

Sorry Steve.

Everyone please give a round of applause and raise a glass to our legendary FOTN admin, the dude who runs the bits you don’t see behind the scenes Steve Harris. The best.

Right. On with the show!

All the submissions stood out to me but my favourites have got to be:

BEN P WILLIAMS – Time To Go Home
This has a touch of Paul Simon to it with some really sweet harmonies in there, accompanied with guitar, piano, strings, this is gorgeous, the arrangement choices are stunning… this would be lovely in a film!

CAUTHAUS – A Little Christmas
I love the organ to begin this, the vocals are strong, there’s some 80s synths in there so there’s a bit of everything in there for everyone! Love the singalongability (It’s a word!).

CODEWALKERS – Santa Is A Pimp
Santa is a pimp? This could change the course of history forever! But the title of. This made me chuckle regardless, probably my favourite track of the whole collection, I wonder if we could pitch it to Snoop Dogg as a Christmas film, Pimp Santa! I don’t think Disney will go for it, but it’s worth a try…

GODDAMIT JEREMIAH – Where’s My Presents?
This is so short, but it’s another one that put a smile to my face with the shout of “Where’s my presents?” and then the “there they are” to end it. 29 seconds long. One for the TikTok clips I reckon!

KIFFIE AND JAMIE JAMAL – The Night Before Christmas
Knowing how often Kiffie releases music, I’m thinking that Kiffie may end up doing an entire album with Jamie Jamal next year seeing how good this collaboration worked out to be. Being very kind souls they’re donating the funds from this release to help the homeless if you purchase it from Bandcamp – if you can please do so by hitting up the link and donating what you can – so far they’ve raised £222.00 at time of writing.

Honourable mentions go to Madison Leigh and Joe Holtaway (I love the original song and this!).

We will be back in January, so bring more great tunes and we will be waiting.

You want one more bad joke? Are you trying to get me fired?

Tom, Steve, the people want what the people want.

Okay. Here we go:

What do you call a line of people getting their haircut?

A barber-queue…

See you in January!

MARINA FLORANCE

It’s that time of year again, me and Del are having a delve into the Christmas tracks submitted to Fresh On The Net. Christmas is becoming somewhat of a Marmite time of year, there’s people like me and Del that LOVE it and people that hate it. The tracks submitted reflect those extremes and everything in-between.

I’m listening to the lower half of the playlist, 25 tracks that if you played on repeat you’d find yourself dancing round the living room in your PJs ho ho hoing along.
Songs that caught my attention:

MICHAEL VICKERS – I Still Believe
This could be a soundtrack to any Christmas movie, Michael’s voice has such feeling, he paints pictures that help us to reflect on what Christmas means to you.

PAUL GOODWIN – Christmas, Single (feat. Polly Paulusma)
Is full of sadness and honesty, defying the Christmas ads that portray wonderful times that none of us can ever expect to emulate, no matter how hard we try.

SPACEACRE – Into The Dust
Have to give this one a mention, a wonderful track full of melancholy, beautiful vocals and a slight feeling of impending doom.

THE HAPPY SOMETHINGS – Kind Of True (a ‘C’ Word Song)
Bring us a lovely Christmas offering and in their words “it never feels like Christmas when I’m not with you”. That sums it up for me. Could it be true that all we really need for a special Christmas is to be surrounded by people we love…

That’s it I’m just off to the kitchen for a mince pie and a coffee, thanks for reading this far, all that’s left to say is I hope you have a jingly jangly Christmas.

Click here to open the playlist in a new window.

Track List:

1. ANALOGUE ELECTRONIC WHATEVER – What’s For Christmas
2. BEN P WILLIAMS – Time To Go Home
3. BURNING BRIDGES – Christmas Alone
4. CARMEN AND DICK – Little Baby Jesus
5. CAUTHAUS – A Little Christmas
6. CERTAIN ANIMALS – Christmas Miracles
7. CHRIS FRETWELL – A Christmas Song {Thank You So Much}
8. CODEWALKERS – Santa Is A Pimp
9. COLLARS – Christmas In The 90s
10. DAFFY (STEPHEN DAHILL) – Santa Claustrophobia
11. ELBROOK COURT – Christmas Time 22
12. FUJIUJI – Gift To You (This Christmas)
13. FUNKY PYTHONS FEAT. PIMLICAN – Christmas Punk
14. GARETH RHYS – Christmas Time
15. GODDAMMIT JEREMIAH – Where’s My Presents?
16. GOODBYE VICTORY ROAD – Feels Like Christmas
17. GOODNIGHT BERLIN – This Christmas
18. JAIME JAMAL AND KIFFIE – The Night Before Christmas
19. JIM PEARSON – Mr Santa
20. JIMMY & VERONA – Almost Christmas
21. JOE HOLTAWAY – I Saw Three Ships
22. KEYTAR KIDS – Broken Heart For Christmas
23. LACH – Hark, The Bad Man And The Angel Sing
24. LES BICYCLETTES DE BELSIZE – Christmas Shopping
25. MADISON LEIGH – This Christmas
26. MARINA FLORANCE FT PAULINE ALEXANDER – Love Came Down At Christmas
27. MARK STANLEY – Rudolph’s Tale
28. MICHAEL VICKERS – I Still Believe (That’s What Christmas Means To Me)
29. NINI BONG – Christmas Time (Here It Comes Again)
30. PAUL GOODWIN – Christmas, Single (feat. Polly Paulusma)
31. PETER ALLAN – Hey Santa (Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho)
32. PETER LESLIE – If I Could Freeze Christmas Day
33. REN LAWTON – Cold Afternoon
34. ROBB MURPHY – Christmas Eve
35. ROCKET KINGS – Christmas Without You
36. S J DENNEY – Wishful Thinking
37. SALLY CROSBY – Like Christmas
38. SPACEACRE – Into The Dust
39. SYNTHETIC VILLAINS – Carolyn, Out In The Snow
40. SYNTHETIC VILLAINS – We Three Kings
41. TERRY NAYLOR – It’s A Christmas Thing
42. THE AUTOCLAUS – The AutoClaus
43. THE FERNWEH – What’s Jesus For?
44. THE HANNAH BARBERAS – Dancin’ Santa
45. THE HAPPY SOMETHINGS – Kind Of True (a ‘C’ Word Song)
46. UKULELE BAILEY – No Christmas Pud
47. VALENTINA WAY – The Advent Calendar
48. VOODOO WHITE CHRISTMAS – Snow Falls Down On North Road
49. WINTERVAL – I Love You More Than Christmas Day
50. ZACHARY FRIEDERICH – Pray For Peace (On This Christmas Night)

Previous Years:

• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels