Sufjan Stevens, Tracey Thorn and Erasure’s Andy Bell open up about the draw of the Christmas album

Just why are serious artists making Christmas music again? And how are they finding fresh ways to tackle such a well-worn topic?

Tracey Thorn has come out with a deluxe edition of 2012's Tinsel and Lights for this Christmas season.

For decades, the traditional role of the Christmas album has been a cheap and cheerful stocking filler, high on glitter but generally low on substance. No longer, it seems.

Last year, the indie-rock darling Sufjan Stevens put out a hefty five-disc box set, Silver & Gold, collating almost a decade’s worth of Christmas-themed EPs. Kate Bush released the wintry 50 Words for Snow in 2011 and Bob Dylan made Christmas in the Heart in 2009.

This year, there are excellent seasonal records by artists as diverse as Nick Lowe, Erasure and Tracey Thorn, who has compiled a deluxe edition of 2012’s acclaimed Tinsel and Lights. In keeping with Lowe’s Quality Street and Erasure’s Snow Globe, Tinsel and Lights mixes standards such as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas with quirky covers and new originals. There are no office-party anthems along the lines of The Pogues’s Fairytale of New York or Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody. It’s a little more subtle and downbeat than that.

“Christmas is a very emotionally heightened time,” says Thorn. “Because it’s a time of year when we’re saturated with images of togetherness and family harmony, any story of separation or loss takes on extra poignancy. If you get it right, you can make a record which has a very powerful resonance and that resonance grows year on year. Some of these albums have a tinge of hipster irony about them, which is OK in small doses, but I wanted mine to be obviously sincere.”

Seasonal beats

For Stevens, Christmas offers a range of possibilities. Silver & Gold runs the gamut from reverent versions of seasonal hymns to jokey originals (Lumberjack Christmas) and deconstructed adaptations of classics such as Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

“Christmas is a Hollywood blockbuster,” says Stevens. “Consider the details: angel visitations, teenage pregnancy, shotgun wedding, the massacre of the innocents, the wise men following an astrological phenomenon; gold, frankincense and myrrh. Mix all that with contemporary pop adaptations: Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, the Grinch, and you have a veritable chopped salad of sacrilege. Not to mention the elements of capitalism and consumerism the western world has imposed on it. My EPs are desperate to find meaning in all of that – both sacred and profane.”

Thematic talk

Meaning is key to many recent Christmas records. Erasure’s Snow Globe is partly an attempt to reclaim the more solemn, ancient magic of winter from the gaudy excesses of rampant consumerism. “The one thing that’s still sacred about the day is the stillness,” says the Erasure singer Andy Bell. “I love the idea of singing carols in the darkness, rather than the big, noisy Christmas we’re all drowning in. That’s why we didn’t want any production bells and whistles on this album. Even the classics like White Christmas are done in that way that suggests cold and stillness.”

The Christmas album is also an opportunity for artists to attempt new things. “I liked the idea of a themed album, where you have a definite set parameter,” says Thorn. “It’s a way of giving a record a shape and identity.”

Within those boundaries, there’s fun in playing around with the hallmarks of the genre. “In terms of Christmas clichés, you have to decide how many sleigh bells, really,” says Thorn, laughing. Her favourite Christmas album is Phil Spector’s 1963 classic A Christmas Gift for You.

“There have to be some sleigh bells, but not too many. It’s a fine line. Also, children singing. My three kids joined in doing backing vocals on Joy and I wanted it to sound like a group of carol singers. It’s a cliché, but quite a nice, homemade one.”

In terms of the bigger picture, Christmas albums adds to a band’s catalogue. Bell says he sees Snow Globe as “a different card in the deck”.

“When you collect a classic artist, it’s always nice to have a holiday album in there and we thought it would be good for us to have one as well.”

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