Five (more) modern Christmas classics

If you're searching for tunes to get you in the Christmas spirit without resorting to either admirable but played-out classics or modern middle-of-the-road cheese, have no fear: there are plenty of good Christmas songs out there, and maybe a few that you haven't heard yet, so Metromix Jersey Shore is here to help.

Last year, I gave you the rundown on five modern Christmas classics by artists such as the Ramones, the Pogues and the Kinks, and I'm back again this year to give you the gift of five truly great holiday tunes. Have any suggestions of your own that didn't make either of my lists? Let me know in the comments below.

1. "Must Be Santa" by Bob Dylan (2009): Forget for a second that Bob Dylan is a shape-shifting iconoclast who's one of history's finest songwriters, and realize that at one time he was also a kid growing up in Minnesota in the 1940s, and this barn-burning holiday polka suddenly makes much more sense. It's a rip-roaring good time that sounds like someone spiked the eggnog at the midwest's rowdiest Christmas party and Bob's leading the mayhem.

2. "A Christmas Duel" by Cyndi Lauper and the Hives (2008): It's doubtful that Santa would have enough coal to cover the amount of naughty deeds racked up by the band behind "Hate to Say I Told You So" and the singer who gave the world "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" over the course of this song. "I bought no gift this year and I slept with your sister" sings Swedish Jagger sound-alike Howlin Pelle Almqvist, and Lauper responds by wrecking his father's car and doing something even more inappropriate with his mother. It's a fun, dirty tune that puts the X in Xmas.

3. "Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects" by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (2009): Any time the Queen of Funk and the baddest band in the land drop a new single, it's a cause for celebration, and this hot-off-the-presses track deserves to be in heavy rotation all year long. Atop a bed of the Dap-Kings' usual brand of ace retro-soul, Jones lays out a tune that sounds like it could be the perfect theme song for a bad-ass Blaxploitation flick set on Christmas Eve. (To read my recent interview with Jones, click here.)

4. "Blue Christmas" by Bright Eyes (2002): As if Conor Oberst needs any prompting to be a sad sack (he doesn't) it turns out he's facing the prospect of being all alone on Christmas and as Darlene Love has taught us, nobody wants that. Under his Bright Eyes moniker, Oberst has taken this holiday standard popularized by Elvis Presley and turned it into a tears-in-your-beer country shuffle, perfect for any hipsters feeling lonely this season.

5. "A Sight for Sore Eyes" by Tom Waits (1977): OK, so technically this track from "Foreign Affairs" really is a New Year's song, what with it borrowing the tune from "Auld Lang Syne" and all. But really, this is the perfect song for the time of year when a lot of us will be heading home and surrounding ourselves with the ghosts of our pasts: there will be some boasting, plenty of drinking and tales of friends married, in jail or long gone, and all before the bartender brings the next round.