Sufjan Stevens
Worst Christmas Ever!
ASTHMATIC KITTY
Sufjan Stevens has released over 100 Christmas songs, but his relationship with the holiday has always felt more nuanced than “Sufjan Stevens really loves Christmas.” Rather, being the friend-to-esoterica, obsession-driven artist he is, Stevens is fascinated by the way “Christmas music gets to the heart of the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane.” That’s a brief with mileage. Hence 100-plus songs. Until now, those were collected on two bloated archival compilations. Songs for Christmas covered five EPs released between 2001 and 2006, while Silver & Gold took in another five up through 2012. Nobody has time, especially around the holidays, for a close listen to all of that—the problem Worst Christmas Ever! solves.
This is a greatest-Christmas-hits primer: 16 songs (covers and originals), a vindication of the holiday album form, and a bonus journey through the disparate chapters of Stevens’ career. You’ve got the Age of Adz–era stuff like “Christmas in the Room” and the arcade blip-blops and 8-bit crushed drums of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” whereas the staid opener “Silent Night” transitions into the rambunctious “Put the Lights on the Tree,” Illinois-style. The latter’s clunky low-end piano, blizzard woodwinds, and call-response vocals recall the way “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!” kicked that 2005 record into gear.
Likewise, Worst Christmas Ever! presents contrasting visions of the holiday: kind and emotional, holy and reverential, silly and toy-shop. Stevens cuts the intensity of the title track with the innocuous pep of “Sleigh Ride,” its goofy spaceship synths perfectly integrated with choral vocalizing and Vince Guaraldi piano-ing. Both modes are delivered with the same conviction. Stevens has said that “Christmas, in general, is ultimately about mortality and the fact that we are all eventually going to die.” Whenever the album starts to get particularly heavy, though, he changes direction. Not to avoid bumming us out—we were never meant to hear these songs, written as gifts for friends and family—but because it’s the truth. His Christmas exists in the gray.
The compilation also works as an album, with an emotional arc anchored by two particular standouts. Brittle banjo plucking leads 2006’s “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” as “our father yells, throwing the gifts in the wood stove.” But in time the snow and Lord will rise, Stevens sings. Even those doing a secular Christmas will find a poignant, powerful story about taking solace in something beyond comprehension or control. Then there’s “Sister Winter,” written three years later, which feels like its sequel. It crescendos from a cold, forlorn requiem into a mountaintop explosion of sleigh bells, rolling snares, and soaring brass. You can picture Stevens swooping his arms around at the head of an orchestra that, per the lyrics, aims “to wish you a happy Christmas.” I wonder if his sister was able to top that present the following year.
There are some key omissions to this collection, such as his collab with the Dessner brothers. The physical release nixes the essays, ornaments, posters, and temporary tattoos of previous boxsets (boo!). And it sadly doesn’t have the power to make you feel like a kid again. Even so, real-world, grown-up miracles are still possible: Stevens recently returned to the stage after an eight-year hiatus. Guillain-Barré syndrome had left him unable to walk. His partner died the same year. Reviving the form so integral to his practice that he once introduced himself as a “Christmas songwriter,” Stevens found something more to say—or maybe Christmas said it to him.
With the album’s sole new addition, “On This Christmas (It Only Gets Better),” he weighs the power of hope against the distraction of darkness, and concludes that getting better is possible in the end. After several worst Christmases ever, it’s more than enough to believe in.
