B-Side Guys

Dutch band audiotransparent released “December Radio” in 2006, then waited eighteen years before adding it to streaming platforms—possibly because nobody wants to hear holiday complaints until they’ve survived enough Decembers to understand the fatigue. The lo-fi folk track functions as anti-Christmas song that weaponizes Christmas song clichés, transforming “let it snow” from cozy sentiment into prayer for burial.

Bart Looman’s lyrics catalog seasonal exhaustion with precision: “one more year of songs we already know,” the too-bright lights in trees, reindeers you won’t miss once they’re gone. The opening plea—”we prefer the static over songs of peace and joy”—reframes white noise as mercy, silence as genuine relief from manufactured sentiment. When audiotransparent declares they can’t survive “one more ‘All I want for Christmas is you,’” it’s not hyperbole but reasonable assessment of commercial holiday saturation’s psychological toll.

The production’s lo-fi aesthetic reinforces the protest. No glossy studio sheen, no sleigh bells or strings trying to seduce you into seasonal compliance. Just acoustic instruments and Looman’s delivery, which carries weariness without melodrama. This isn’t rage against Christmas but exhausted resistance to its commercial machinery—the Coca-Cola ads, the mandatory cheer, the way December converts every radio station into single-format nostalgia loop.

The darkest joke arrives in the final repetition: “let it snow let it snow let it snow, and bury us alive.” Looman takes that classic Christmas refrain and strips away its warmth, revealing the fantasy underneath—not cozy fireside scenes but complete obliteration, snow as anesthetic rather than decoration. After enough years of forced joy, sometimes what you want for Christmas is temporary oblivion from Christmas itself.