New Music Mix: Holiday Edition! Fred Schneider of the B-52s, Coldplay, Indigo Girls, and Glee all show us their Holiday Best!

Ho Ho Ho! Welcome to the Holiday Edition of Afterelton's Music Roundup. This holiday season we've been blessed with fresh albums by artists who had yet to venture into the holiday album arena including Annie Lennox, Indigo Girls, and the B-52's Fred Schneider. Like a gift at a Pink Elephant party, we've also been given second attempt albums by those artists who should probably just stick to their original (I'm talking to you Mariah!).

With everyone from Train to The Killers to Coldplay churning out holiday hits at the last minute, there's much to discuss.On the flip side, we'll pick back up with new non-holiday material (Cee Lo Green, Adam Lambert, Joe McElderry and Real Housewives of Atlanta's Kandi Burrus) all worth a listen, so let's get started.

HOLIDAY HIGHLIGHTS

Train has surely made a comeback this year. The San Francisco-based band took a three-year hiatus after their 2006 album For Me, It’s You turned out to be a commercial flop. The group must be feeling good these days with the announcement they’ve been nominated for a 2011 Grammy for a live version of their hit “Hey Soul Sister.” To kick off the holiday season, Train has teamed up with Coca-Cola and released the single “Shake Up Christmas”. The song is a return-to-roots effort reminiscent of the hits that made them famous – “Meet Virginia” and “Drops of Jupiter.”

Watch "Shake Up Christmas" here.

Mississippi raised singer-songwriter Dave Barnes, whose 2004 hit “Until You” is a personal favorite, has released his first Christmas project Very Merry Christmas. The standout track is a duet with Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott on “Christmas Tonight”. The music video features Jennifer Love Hewitt, and if you’re the romantic type, you’ll fall in love with the song on the spot.

Barnes gives Mariah Carey a run for her money on his cover of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and shines on his bluesy original “Very Merry Christmas.”

Watch "Christmas Tonight" here. 

What better way to get into the Christmas spirit than a new Coldplay song? On December 1^st Coldplay released the video for their song “Christmas Lights,” which features violin-playing Elvises and was filmed on Thursday, November 25^th, a working day in England, since the Brits don’t believe in Thanksgiving. Watch the video here or download the track over here. 

The Killers have released their first and only song for 2010 with the holiday track “Boots.” All proceeds from “Boots” will be donated to (RED), the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. This is The Killers fifth Christmas release in conjunction with the organization and just because they’re on a hiatus they didn’t want to let their tradition fall by the wayside, said frontman Brandon Flowers.The single will be available to download on Dec. 7 while the video, directed by Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, is only viewable on Starbucks.com/Share. Starbucks is contributing five cents for every view the video receives.

If you were fooling around on iTunes last week, you likely grabbed a copy of Neon Trees excellent holiday hit “Wish List,” as it was featured as the free iTunes "Single of the Week." The Utah-based indie-quartet has been riding high this year with the release of their debut album Habits and their hit single “Animal” reaching #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Wish List,” the group’s first holiday single, is about longing to be with loved ones during Christmas, and is inspired by the U.S. troops.

B-52's frontman Fred Schneider has released 11 party friendly, completely original holiday songs with his Orlando, Florida-based side project The Superions. Their first holiday album Destination... Christmas! holds true to Schneider's famous sprechgesang and the lyrics are hysterical. Along with numerous tracks, the Superions have created videos akin to those bad Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga parody videos that popped up everywhere this year.

The videos for "Santa Je T'aime" (filled with men dressed in pink Santa costumes with enormous fake breasts), "Fruitcake" (all about that famous questionably edible dish "Your family don't want it, give it to a neighbor"), "Crummy Christmas Tree" (which is already stuck in my head), and "Santa's Disco" (see if you can spot the fruitcake!) are all well worth the watch.  

You would think that after 25 years as a group and with 11 studio albums under their belts, that the Indigo Girls would have released a holiday album by now. Not so. The girls finally decided to release their first Christmas album Holly Happy Days, taking an Appalachian bluegrass spin on classic Christmas and Hanukkah favorites such as "Oh Holy Night", "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "Happy Joyous Hanukkah."

Three original songs on the album are "The Wonder Song," as well as "Mistletoe" and "Your Holiday Song," which showcases Emily Saliers's and Amy Ray's harmonious vocals. It's definitely a different approach to a Holiday album, and one worth checking out.

Just in time for Jessica Simpson's PBS Christmas Special, which aired Dec 4th, Simpson has released her second holiday album Happy Christmas, produced by The-Dream and Tricky Stewart. Simpson duets with Willy Nelson on "Merry Christmas Baby," performs an original "My Only Wish" and covers John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)."

Simpson's prior televised Christmas Special was with then-husband Nick Lachey, This year Simpson performed alongside the ninth season American Idol winner Lee Dewyze, Perez Hilton protege Travis Garland, and her younger sister Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. 

Glee gets you into the holiday spirit this season on Glee: The Music - The Christmas Album, with their dazzling renditions of holiday hits such as the gospel-filled ballad “Angels We Have Heard on High,” the Wham! cover “Last Christmas,”  and the Dr. Seuss inspired “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” featuring Grammy Award winner k.d. lang. The highlight of the album is surely Chris Colfer’s duet with Darren Criss on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Glee has much to be happy for this holiday season. The group just surpassed The Beatles 52-year record for the most Billboard Hot 100 chart appearances of a non-solo act in one year.