Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas, Vols. 6–10 is a five-EP box set of Christmas-related songs and carols recorded by Sufjan Stevens between 2006 and 2012. It is a follow-up to Songs for Christmas, which was released six years prior.
On October 2, 2012, it was announced that Stevens would release Silver & Gold on November 13, 2012, in digital format, CD and LP boxset. On October 24, 2012, a claymation music video, animated by Lee Hardcastle, was released for "Mr. Frosty Man".
Contents
Reception
The album has received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Pitchfork giving it a 7.8 out of 10. As Keelan H. of Sputnikmusic writes,"[T]he album exists on [a] plane where introspection meets with group sing-a-longs, depression meets with joyous outbursts, traditional meets with left-field kookiness." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 76, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In popular culture
Chicago radio personality Lin Brehmer mentions the Christmas unicorn in episode of the "Review" episode of The Bear TV series. "Christmas Unicorn" is a 12-minute, 28-second song, the last track on the box set. Stevens wore a balloon-based Christmas unicorn costume to perform the song at a December 2012 concert at the Metro Chicago concert venue. The song examines "the many conflicting aspects of Christmas—Christian holiday, pagan heresy, celebration of crass materialism (to name a few)." Stevens says he hates Christmas. The Silver & Gold box set is a series of Christmas albums he made for his friends over a period of years.