Christmas is almost certainly the holiday with the greatest quantity of specially-crafted pop culture to back it up. Christmas movies, tv specials, and music albums are all common in our commercially viable holiday season (seriously, have you heard Bootsy Collins' Christmas Is 4 Ever? I think you should...), and, of course, there's no keeping chiptune out of this. Last week, Cole pointed out the new 8-Bit Jesus album from Doctor Octoroc, but today we're taking a stroll down memory lane for me.
Five years ago, when I was first getting into chiptune as more than just a retro novelty, the 8bitPeoples released their second-ever compilation, The 8bits of Christmas (their first ep was all covers of the Beverly Hills Cop theme). Eight different chiptune musicians, each using a different piece of game hardware, each doing their own spin on a Christmas classic. All eight are delightful, and the EP quickly became a staple of my holiday playlist. Here now, my personal favorite, goto80's take on Wham!'s contemporary classic "Last Christmas," recorded using a Commodore 64:
Of course, if you enjoyed this, please download the entire 8bits of Christmas EP for free right here. It also includes 61FPS faves Nullsleep and Bit Shifter doing their renditions of "Silent Night"and "Let It Snow", repsectively.
Have a happy holiday, all!
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