It’s December, which round these parts means it’s time once again for The Joyzine Advent Calendar! This year we’re celebrating our 20th edition, so we’ve scoured the archives to mix in some calendar classics along with a few fresh festive cuts from our favourite artists.
As always every track on the calendar will be absolutely free to download, and we don’t force you to sign up for our mailing list (though you can if you want, here) or hand over all of your personal data. The calendar is our Christmas gift to the world (or at least the part of it that enjoys seasonal songs by obscure indie musicians), but if you’re also in the giving mood we’d love you to make a donation to our chosen cause, the excellent anti-racism charity HOPE not hate, which you can do here.
On with the free festive tunes!
Christmas is a time for catching up with old friends, so we’re kicking off this year’s calendar with a festive favourite from advent calendar veteran MJ Hibbett, a man so imbued with the spirit of the season that he has an entire Christmas Selection Box of yuletide tunes available via Bandcamp (and it’s not got any of those nasty fondant-centred ones either).
We’ve picked our favourite of the bunch, ‘I Got You What You Want for Christmas’, which first featured on the calendar more than a decade ago and is well worth regifting for our 20th edition. As a bonus, alongside the free download we have not one but two accompanying videos – see below for the single version and scroll down for the extended Macho Megamix! We caught up with MJ to find out how 2023 has been treating him.
What have you been up to this year?
I finished my PhD last year so this year’s been mostly embroiled in academical activities, slicing off chunks of thesis for publication. I have done a bit of ROCK though, including my 1,000th gig back in February when I did sets solo, with my first ever band, with Mr S Hewitt, and with The Validators. I had a bit of a sore throat the next day!
What have you got planned for 2024?
My book “Data and Doctor Doom: An Empirical Approach to Transmedia Characters” is out in January from Palgrave Macmillan! This is the book of my thesis and I am VERY excited about it. It’s an academic publication so will cost approx A MILLION POUNDS but I’m planning to do some live shows explaining it all later in the year.
Tell us about your track
“I Got You What You Want For Christmas” was originally written as an attempt to get on the John Lewis Christmas ad about 14 years ago – the fools didn’t choose me, and where are they now eh? It’s based on MANY Christmases as a kid getting presents people thought you SHOULD like, rather than just getting what I actually WANTED, an experience that means these days if people ask for vouchers I don’t complain!
I asked people on my mailing list to send me videos of them holding up signs saying what they wanted for Christmas, and in the end I got so many back that I had to make TWO videos, one for the main song and then another with a whole other bunch of people on a longer megamix version. I hope some of them actually DID get what they wanted!
This year Joyzine has been celebrating our 20th birthday – what were you up to in 2003?
I moved down to London on New Year’s Day 2003 so it’ll be my 20th Anniversary here soon. That was the year when I first learned that in London people go to the pub straight after work rather than having their tea first then going back out again, so it was also the year I got very drunk an awful lot on an empty stomach!
Any New Year’s resolution?
Same as ever – 256×192 pixels!*
*sorry
Download ‘I Got You What You Want for Christmas‘
Make a donation to HOPE not hate
Check out MJ Hibbett’s official website
Check back tomorrow for another free festive download!
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