The Top 10 Christmas Albums of 2023

Why does it feel like it’s been a bumper year for Christmas albums this time around? Not since, probably, 2018 has there been a year when so many qualitatively good albums that vie for positions in the top ten, and it’s been a genuinely difficult task pruning the list to just ten entries. (Let’s pretend that’s why this article has arrived so late.) Perhaps that’s why, then, this year’s playlist of albums is a fair bit longer than usual – containing a good 25 more albums than what fits into this cream of the crop. With that said, here are the very best I was able to eke out:

10. Brandy – Christmas with Brandy

Even though it’s been a good two decades since 90s R&B legend Brandy last had a chart hit of note, her vocal approach remains as beguiling as ever. Always soft, yet with melismatic runs creating an array of colourful harmonies, it’s surprisingly well-suited to the seasonal material. On her  first Christmas album (Spotify), the approach creates some particularly poignant moments, even if it sometimes can go overboard. Accompanied by distinctly contemporary if sometimes unimaginative arrangements, she pushes melodies to their fascinating limits.

9. Velocity – Quantum Christmas

If you try to imagine a genre of music that is totally anathema to the spirit of Christmas, progressive jazz fusion is probably not far down the list. Sophisticated, cold, city-slick and too clever but half, it just shouldn’t be able to work at all. And yet this instrumental album (Spotify) out of Tacoma, Washington takes it material so seriously it’s hard to turn away – who doesn’t feel a tinge of childish delight at a hyper-fast 7/4 hot jazz version of Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here”? It’s so serious it’s silly, but that’s part of the delight of this campiest of holidays.

8. Christian Sands – Christmas Stories

This album (Spotify) is a stylistic mishmash, but sometimes that just doesn’t matter. Jazz pianist Christian Sands and a host of guest performers swing wildly from fun bebop to devastatingly emotional cool. Sometimes it’s wrapped in electronic synth mats, sometimes it’s wilfully retro, but there’s a virtuosity and a tightness throughout that makes even the most eclectic material shine. Best of all: the versions, in true jazz fashion, get to extend to far beyond pop length, exploring the material and its intertwined connections in exciting new ways.

7. Anna Järvinen – Suomalainen Joulu/Finsk Jul

Singer-songwriter Anna Järvinen has spent almost 30 years exploring sophisticated pop sounds in Swedish, before taking an interesting turn into examining her Finnish heritage in recent years. This sheer, beautiful little album (Spotify) is actually a pair of mirrored EPs, containing interpretations of Finnish Christmas carols and palms in both languages. Hearing every song twice may sound like much, but the mesmerising voice and scaled down jazz trio backing keeps the interest up, no matter the amount of seeming repetition.

6. Moya Brennan – Nollaig Gaelach

Now 71 years old, former Clannad star (and sister of Enya) Moya Brennan hasn’t stopped digging deeper into the possibilities of Irish folk music. On her second Christmas album (Spotify) she tackles traditional and modern carols with verve and sensitivity, mostly in Irish. Her ageing voice brings a wavering gravitas to the material, and the production is mercifully free of the kind of overwrought cheesiness that characterises much of her career. Instead, she opts for a skilled, smaller band that is able to create a much more familial and indeed Christmassy atmosphere.

5. Cher – Christmas

Talking about ageing performers still going strong, Cher has just released her first Christmas album (Spotify) at the sprightly young age of 77. Her strength in resources – whether vocal, economic, artistic or contact-based – has allowed her to pull together a truly rich mix of finely-produced covers and originals. Repeatedly, the original singers of Christmas classics are brought back to cover their own material together with Cher, with arrangements threading a fine line between faithful and modernised. A polished gem.

4. The Gesualdo Six – Morning Star: Music for Epiphany Down the Ages

You’re probably never going to find an album that covers as large a segment of the history of Christmas music as this one (Spotify). From medieval plainchant to modernism, this Cambridge-based British sextet offers up pure, clean, a capella vocal music of seemingly every age with equal verve and elegance. Add to that an especially nerdy pinpoint focus on epiphany, one of the holidays during Christmas that is less often given a musical treatment, and this is truly a treat for anyone interested in the entirely of the holiday’s oevre.

3. Greg Laswell – Silent Night

Sometimes the very best christmas albums are the purest ones, the ones that really take on the holiday’s cultural context without commentary. California singer-songwriter Laswell does include a couple of decent originals on his first Christmas album (Spotify) and covers two standards well, but the meat of this album are the most often sung carols possible. Beautifully, intelligently arranged, performed with genuine pathos and taken with every gram of seriousness they deserve, this may be the finest collection of these classic carols in years.

2. Darling West – Lights

Behind the self-anointed genre name of “cosmic folk americana” (that Norwegian band Darling West uses) lies gentle, mostly acoustic, country-tinged indie pop. And on their first Christmas album (Spotify) you can see just how perfectly suited this kind of music is to the holiday. With a fantastic original in the title track opener, and an ear for suitable material that brings together a magical selection of Norwegian psalms and more-or-lesser-played British, Canadian and American Christmas hits, this is equal parts innovative and cosy.

1. The Second Hand Orchestra – So This is Christmas …

Primitivism is not a common musical trope, because getting it right is so difficult. John Fahey did it quite well in Christmas music terms, but often what you get just comes across as contrived or unpleasant. But here (Spotify), what at first sounds like a middle-school band struggling with wildly overambitious arrangements unfolds into perfectly balanced warmth, intelligence and beauty. At first confounding, then revelatory, then addicting, these highly wonky and unorthodox instrumental takes on holiday hits ooze with charm and familial energy.

A playlist with all of the top 10 Christmas albums of 2023, plus an assortment of other interesting new Christmas music, is available to listen to here on Spotify.

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