First of all, thanks to Whitney at Pop Candy, USA Today’s culture blog, for the 3rd year in a row, she’s been kind enough to give us a mention! If you’re visiting us from there, “hello!” and keep checking in throughout the month for amazing awesomeness. The M-Z set from 2006 is acting strange, but we’ll fix that asap.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking for sometime about the original version. Without it, we wouldn’t be here, obviously, but what sort of status does it take now that so many other artists have covered it? Is it the bar by which all other versions are measured? That’s likely debatable, as opinions are mixed on whether the original is even worth ONE cover. Has it become the Helvetica of Christmas music, the ultimate form of holiday music perfection through which all other artists are now free to express themselves? Or does it suffer the opposite, where it is now the blank canvas from which we hope other artists to work over top of? For instance, at this point, for us at LCHQ, there’s a definite plus to hearing something new being done with the song. Have we stripped the original from all it’s qualities that first made it so appealing? Are we completely over-thinking this ridiculous Christmas song? Maybe, but we wouldn’t be here without it!

Ok, now that we’ve composed ourselves, let’s get down to business…Exile must be one of Japan’s hottest acts. Their intro page claims 2008 as the year of perfection! This page even shows that their single for “Last Christmas” is already out of print and unavailable after being out for less than a month. Japan and Germany simply cannot get enough of this song, that’s for sure. At any rate, Exile deliver a pretty straightforward pop cover sung in Japanese. They sound good.

Exile – Last Christmas


Ok so, reflecting on what we were saying earlier, about what’s become of the original version, well, this next version feels like it picks up on that notion musically. And more likely, is trying to say something about pop music in general by labeling it as “Meaningless Name” and having a vocal bit at the end about people falling dead in the streets. Of course, we could be over-thinking this as well, and maybe this was made to trick people into thinking their cd players are broken.

Meaningless Name – Last Christmas


This one is labeled as Wham!, but it’s not, and we can’t place the female vocals it comes from. After three years, can you blame us?

Wham! – Last Christmas (Electro Mix)