Starbucks and holiday commercial jingles aside, the holiday season is continually marked with joyful holiday albums and Christmas songs sung by classic belters like Bing Crosby or Josh Groban. This year's record sales and album releases, however, may prove this old tradition to be one of the past. The rise in indie music and its infiltration into American society has been swaying teenage populations for the last several years, and this holiday season marks one of the very first where “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” may not be heard in the traditional manor. Aimee Mann, an indie rocker whose solo talents have taken her eons away from her ‘80s new wave pop group ‘Til Tuesday, has been basking in this success of the indie Christmas phenomenon, and many other underground rock groups are right on her heels.



Proving that indie lovers don't have to fall into the ordinary mold to get into the holiday spirit, acts such as Sufjan Stevens, Rosie Thomas, the Raveonettes, Merge and more are knocking down the doors of the recording industry with great avail in recording and producing some of this season's best-selling holiday albums. Aimee Mann's One More Drifter in the Snow, a 2006 holiday compilation, has sold more than 39,000 copies since its release, while Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas, another eclectic spin on holiday tunes, has sold 81,000 copies since its release in '06. Mixing the traditional with the inventive, Mann has arrived at a clever middle ground in between traditional Christmas and modern indie music, using her ‘40s/'50s appeal to chirp songs like “Whatever Happened to Christmas,” “I'll Be Home for Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “White Christmas,” all included on One More Drifter in the Snow.

Before she was known for her holiday music and ‘40s charm, Aimee Mann was seen clawing at the charts with her post-new wave pop band ‘Til Tuesday, a clever effort broken up after three albums were released in the 1980s. Continuing to forge the music industry as a solo act, Mann breezed into the ‘90s with her first solo release Whatever, an album that gained her much popularity in the pop underground. Earning the respect of musicians like Elvis Costello, Difford & Tilbrook and Andy Partridge, Aimee Mann went on to release a smash single entitled “That's Just What You Are” in 1995. The song was included on the soundtrack to the television show Melrose Place, but before Mann could become the star she was waiting to be, her record label Imago filed for bankruptcy, leaving the vocalist out in the cold.

After enormous efforts in the late ‘90s to reroute her track, Aimee Mann made a strong comeback in the early 2000s, starting with the soundtrack to the film Magnolia in 2000. Albums Bachelor No. 2 (2000) and Lost in Space (2002) illuminated her star, and Mann's 2005 release The Forgotten Arm even earned a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. Mann successfully tried her hand at a holiday album in 2006's One More Drifter in the Snow, and her most recent album @#%&*! Smilers is currently blowing up the charts. Mann's incredible holiday release sparked an annual Christmastime tour, and you can find Aimee Mann tickets for the show at http://www.stubhub.com/aimee-mann-tickets.