Not Your Standard Christmas Music: Something New for the Holidays

Christmas music! How can anyone resist Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas," or Andy Williams' bubbly "It's the Most Wonderful Time of The Year?" The classics bring us back to our childhood and stir so many happy memories

But really, how many times can you hear the same standards over and over before you start to crave something really different?

That's when you head for the record store or your favorite legal download site to pick up some new Christmas specials like these, which still offer many of those same old favorites in many cases, although it may take you a while to recognize the new arrangements!:

For the Rockabilly fan: Reverend Horton Heat, "We Three Kings," features the group's inimitable takes on such classics as "Frosty the Snowman," "Pretty Paper," and "Silver Bells," none of them done the way you remember them from childhood, but all maintaining the same Christmas cheer.

For those who like to rock: "Twisted Christmas," by Twisted Sister, is the perfect heavy metal Christmas album. Rock out to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Twisted style, and then settle in for Heavy Metal Christmas, which is The Twelve Days of Christmas for those who prefer gifts of silver crosses, tattered t-shirts and Ozzy tattoos to partridges and pear trees.

The blues lover will treasure "Merry Christmas, Baby," with tunes by Charles Brown, Big Joe Williams, and other blues masters belting out holiday blues classics like "Please Come Home for Christmas," "Merry Christmas, Baby," and other soulful songs for getting down with the holidays.

Do you prefer Zydeco? Every song on "Alligator Stomp: Volume 4: Cajun Christmas," is a winner. The manufacturer has discontinued it, but you can still get a copy on Amazon if you're lucky, or try to find the tunes to download on Emusic or Itunes. Beausoleil, Henry Fontenot, Belton Richards (belting out "Please Come Home for Christmas," in Cajun French,) and all the rest of the artists here will have you up and dancing unless you're dead.

Maybe you are tired of sentimentality, even at a different pace, and just want to hear something completely non-serious and totally off the wall.

Well, for Christmas humor, Bob Rivers can not be beat. And the one collection you really need, if you get no other, is the 1993 classic, "I Am Santa Claus." It was genius to set Santa's story to Black Sabbath's "I Am Iron Man," and it is still my favorite humerous Christmas song. "Walking Round in Women's Underwear," is the second classic from this album, but most of the others have stood the test of time remarkably well. This one is not recommended for kids!

There are literally hundreds of other great, amazingly diverse Christmas collections out there, from monster ballads to punk to blues, bluegrass, Celtic, zydeco, and any other musical genre you can imagine.

So enjoy the old favorites, and then get out of the rut and get moving with a Christmas tune of an entirely different type!