Welcome to the 2025 Heistmas Advent Calendar, a daily drop of pop culture Christmas icons, oddities, and joy. Check back every day from now through December 25 for each daily entry!
Christmas duets are a tradition that yields pop culture artifacts both divine (David Bowie and Bing Crosby) and cursed (Jon Bon Jovi and R2-D2). Funnily enough, neither of those parenthetical duos covered "Baby It's Cold Outside," the most notorious and ubiquitous holiday duet ever. Still, none of those songs compare to my personal favorite Christmas duet: the one, the only, "A Christmas Duel."
Released in 2008, "A Christmas Duel" teams Swedish garage rockers The Hives with foundational '80s pop dynamo Cyndi Lauper. Does the pairing make sense? On paper, no. In practice? Abso-f'ing-lutely. Howlin' Pelle Almqvist is a crooner and a sonic screecher of the highest order, and he has the bravado to stand up to Lauper, possessor of one of the most powerful voices in Top 40 radio history. He's a scrapper and she's a supernova. Together, they make Christmas magic.
They make R-rated Christmas magic, actually. "A Christmas Duel" is not a family friendly Christmas song, as it's about an apocalyptically toxic couple whose endless breakups and makeups have a bodycount (R.I.P. Pelle's record collection — although, uh, the elder Mrs. Almqvist gets some action out of the ordeal). Your mileage may vary on the lyrics, but you can't argue with the arrangement, which sounds like if Brenda Lee's backing band was on speed, and the fact that it is an absolute blast to sing along with.
So go ahead — crank it up, learn every filthy line, and spend spend spend this Christmas with the Hives and Cyndi Lauper.
Check back tomorrow for even more Heistmas Advent Calendar Goodies!
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