Stevens Sufjan – Worst Christmas Ever! (Translucent Red Vinyl)

Sufjan Stevens' Worst Christmas Ever! gathers his holiday music into a single, approachable LP for the first time, drawing from the box sets Songs for Christmas and Silver & Gold. That long-running project began in 2001 as a homemade Christmas gift for friends and family, then grew over the years into a huge body of seasonal recordings made in short December bursts, often at home and with friends dropping into the sessions.

Rather than a full archival sprawl, this set distills more than 100 Christmas recordings down to 15 favourites, mixing traditional songs with Stevens originals. It also adds “On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better),” his first new original Christmas song in nearly fifteen years. That balance is what makes this compilation useful: you get the carols, but also the offbeat, intimate side of Stevens’ festive writing, from the melancholy pull of “Sister Winter” to the family-drama storytelling of the title track and the warmth of “Only at Christmas Time.”

For anyone who has been curious about Stevens’ famously expansive Christmas catalogue, this is the compact version that makes the story clear. It shows how his seasonal recordings moved beyond novelty into something stranger, funnier and more emotionally mixed than most holiday albums, shaped by homemade beginnings and a circle of collaborators that included Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Gabriel Kahane, Cat Martino and members of Danielson.

Reviews

• Few contemporary alt-rockers are more of a natural fit for Christmas music than Sufjan Stevens - The A.V. Club
• handsomely sprinkled with moments of musical beauty - The Guardian