Every year since 1989, Mike Wilkins has been digging through archives, compilations, vinyls, B-sides, cassettes, CDs and the world of digital music to put together his annual collection of underground holiday tunes.
Then Wilkins, engineer for PRX and GBH’s The World, puts together his “mixtape” — now a playlist. It features new takes on beloved classics, quirky original songs and some selections listeners would deem bizarre at best. But Wilkins said when it comes to holiday music, some artists take big swings to see what could be the next “All I Want For Christmas Is You” or, perhaps more likely, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”
“There are some people who are just like, ‘How wacky can we make it? Let’s veer from the norm a little bit.’ While others still take traditional routes. But I think — when you’re a creative, when you are a songwriter — you probably want to push the envelope a little,” Wilkins told Callie Crossley on GBH’s Under the Radar.
This year’s edition includes plenty of off-the-wall songs, like the promotional track “Charlie, The Christmas Chimpanzee” by Alice Martin, “Lucifer’s Christmas” by Glasgow artist Dale McPhail and “Zoomah, The Santa Claus From Mars” by Brookline’s own Barry Gordon. Gordon, a child star who already had a Christmas hit with his 6-year-old vocals on “Nuttin’ For Christmas,” went on to become an actor and the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Less head-scratching selections include the upbeat retro-pop track “Ready for Christmas” by Tabitha Meeks, the funky “Merry Christmas Baby” by Short Stuff, a surf-rock instrumental version of “Winter Wonderland” and a psychedelic, East-meets-West rendition of “Jingle Bells” by Canadian band Bhopal’s Flowers.
Given the wide range of genres and time periods featured, Wilkins isn’t just looking for an interesting song — he’s looking for an interesting production. He often uses vinyls and 45s, which means digitizing the analog format in order to get the songs on the playlist. And sometimes that includes the imperfections heard on the vinyls transfer to the usually flawless digital version.
“I usually would like to clean them up, make them sound a little more pristine, and [friends] say, ‘No, keep it in there. It’s warm, it’s inviting, it’s how we listen to records.’ And so, when you hear the clips and pops, I did think about it, but I also thought that hopefully you would enjoy hearing that,” Wilkins said.
And as the process of finding the music has changed from solely physical acquisitions to an increase in digital finds, Wilkins said his selections may have also started to mellow out since he began this annual tradition.
“I’m not as aggressive; there’s far less punk and metal. And I think maybe that’s just me getting old and soft,” Wilkins jokes. “Maybe I’m going for more melodic and truly unusual.”
Although this year marks Wilkins’ 36th edition of his holiday music collection, he said he still finds joy in putting it together and sharing it with family and friends.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have fun,” Wilkins said.
Guest
- Mike Wilkins, PRX and GBH’s The World engineer
