The weeks leading up to winter break in College Park tend to fall a bit on the bleak side. And who is in better position to recognize that truth than Barenaked Ladies, a band consisting of four dads, one of whom plays double bass? BNL’s cover of charity supergroup Band Aid’s 1984 original is gloriously uncool and unpretentious - a feat ruled impossible for Band Aid by virtue of featuring Bono. There’s nothing suave or cultured about owning the Now That’s What I Call Christmas! two-disc set, and caroling at a retirement home effectively destroys a carefully crafted veneer of nonchalance. Christmas music, on the other hand, is anything but. Christmas sweaters, however improbably, are cool. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” – Barenaked Ladies At its well-deserved best, it squares off against Ashley Tisdale’s “Last Christmas” as the finest holiday cover of all time. At worst, it’s a better-than-passable twist on the beloved single.
The Shins add a pinch of indie quirk that’s refreshing rather than nauseating - see Christmas with Weezer - while still channeling the former Beatle to near perfection. Frontman James Mercer released this cover of Paul McCartney’s 1979 Christmas classic on the heels of 2012’s Port of Morrow, and his band’s penchant for jangly guitar pop translates remarkably well into a not-quite-reimagining of the holiday standard.