Modern Christmas carol renditions that aren't mediocre CCM?
'Tis the season, and it's nice to sit down and listen to some traditional Christmas carols in a cozy candle-lit room with plenty of biscuits. And sometimes it's nice to hear more modern takes on these ancient (and not so ancient) classics.
Unfortunately, whenever I look for this sort of thing, what I usually find is really bland CCM — some woman breathily singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" so slowly I can feel my life draining from me with every beat, a completely unnecessary modern bridge replete with painful key change, and so on. I know this stuff can be done right — Annie Lennox's Christmas album is a great example of taking classic carols and setting them to new music in such a way that it can completely change how you hear them. But finding more stuff in that vein is surprisingly hard.
So does anyone here have any suggestions or ideas for modern takes on classic carols that actually try and do something interesting?
English traditional folk artists could potentially be up your alley! Christian carols and folk music have a lot of overlap here, but they needn't be dreary. Kate Rusby is putting out a Christmas album this year. I saw her live in concert a couple of years ago, and she's such a delight. These go really traditional though, so there are a bunch of songs in there that you may not have heard of. Sometimes the tunes are familiar, or the lyrics seem to overlap with existing carols. But she's got a lovely voice, and the arrangements (at least in a live setting) are delightful.
Glad Christmas Comes by Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden is in heavy rotation for me at the moment. This album veers a lot more traditional, and that might not be to your taste. Solo vocal performances in the folk milieu can be... interesting. There's definitely a few tracks I'm less keen on on this album, but I cannot stop listening to The Good Doctor; it's so good!
Jon Boden also did a project a few years back called "A Folk Song A Day" in which he recorded and put out 365 folk songs. Most, if not all of December in that collection are Christmassy. The delivery is once again quite traditional, but I enjoy it a lot! I can't find a working link, but you might have some joy finding it on a streaming service.
Bonus recommendation: O Holy Night by Ben Caplan. It's a fabulous rendition of a traditional carol, and I love it. It's dark and moody and gravelly. It's very fun, give it a try :)
I don’t have anything to add. But is the idea here that you want modern artists singing Christmas carols untouched? Like no change on the way they’re supposed to be sung.
Sounds like the opposite, OP wants them to do something new with them
I read that but I listened to some of the album he gave as a reference and it sounded pretty traditional overall. He also said he didn’t want modern bridges and whatnot.