Best Little Drummer Boy covers

Have to admit Little Drummer Boy is one of my favourite traditional Christmas songs. I even like the much maligned Bing Crosby and David Bowie version weird as that combination is. Here's my top ten of the best Indie Alternative versions. As ever let me know what you think below or on twitter @xmassongblog.

Firstly some honourable mentions for versions that didn't quite make the list. Lindstrom's epic journey is great but maybe grates a little by the 5th minute of incessant drum machine on the edited version. I'll admit I never saw through the 42 minute original!. Sufjan Steven's gave us a version (of course he did) and it's lovely (well of course it is) and Cerys Matthews of Catatonia did a version and I'm a sucker for it but none of them made the list so who did?

10 Iggy Pop is on crooner duty here. I've said it before full Christmas album by Mr Pop would be fantastic. Very few people have the spoken word expression he does.



9 Iain Archer once a member of the rather fantastic Reindeer Section with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol but also a fine solo artist in his own right is wonderfully gentle on this version.



8 The creators of so many peoples favourite Christmas album of all time string this version out to within an inch of it's life. With all the droning organ and feedback it's rather reminiscant of this years Double Negative album.



7 Mark Kozelek gives us his version not for once on my favourite Christmas album. It's a live version and it's so sweet and gentle.



6 Beck Little Drum Machine Boy
It's not a straight verion anyway but it retains the chord progression in the main so I'm having it. Beck's lazy rapping loops round until it seems just to fit. It's fair to say this is the version that most split the crowd in our house.



5 Bright Eyes goes lo fi and distorted on his version.



4 Flaming Lips have a done a couple of version to my knowledge but thsi version released only this year is fantastic as is the batshitcrazy video



3 Luke Sital Singh's version is really nice so I find it difficult to undrstand why I find it so hard to find a link for you all this link to the bbc is the best I got and that's a short preview.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/tracks/n4vzr2

2 Dandy Warhols did a version that was included on the XFM/Big Issue compilation that started me with all this, still sounds great to me.



1 The Polyphonic Spree, another band another psychedelic video and another great version of this song. Really give the video a watch it's worth it and enjoy the version of the song it's classic and still different enough to be exciting stringing it out to epic proportions in the best traditions of the Polyphonic Spree.


Ok so that's my list let me know your favourites in the comments on @xmassongblog on twitter.