Welcome to Magnatune's second Christmas music compilation. We're now 2014, and what a long way we've come since our first compilation in 2007, when we could barely cobble together a collection of somewhat-plausibly Christmas related songs.

This album is a free download, our Christmas gift to you!

Here are the download links, in all the various audio formats we offer: mp3, mp3 high quality, wav, aac, alac, flac, ogg, opus.

Although interesting and wide ranging, that 2007 compilation wasn't exactly everyone's idea of Christmas music.

On the other hand, this compilation was surprisingly easy to create, in that I had hundreds of truly Christmas tunes to pick from, but hard in a way, because there was so many weird and wonderful things to chose among. Virtually all the songs on this album come from an entire record of Christmas music by each musician: if you like one of the songs by an artist, by all means go explore what other songs they have on the Christmas album!

Among other gems, you'll find:

a) Two very different versions of Noel Nouvelet. Galliarda's version is an instrumental and lively renaissance version, which Stephane Potvin's version is choral.

b) Ralph Rousseau Meulenbroeks playing popular Christmas tunes on the baroque viola da gamba.

c) Harper's Hamper doing a solo operatic What child is this, as well as what sounds like a group of drunk Victorian Brits meeting a folk band in a dark alley, doing their version of Jingle Bells.

d) And speaking of Jingle Bells, no Christmas would be complete without Anup's Indian/Electronica fusion version of that song.

e) An electro/Chinese version of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

f) A lyrically revised version of Wassail, capturing what our homeless might want for their Christmas meal.

g) and many other interesting, sparkly treats!

Enjoy!

from John Buckman, Magnatune's founder/gardener/janitor