Sufjan Stevens released about 20 Christmas songs in the past couple years. My favorite ones are his rendition of “O Holy Night” and an original titled “Let’s All Boogie to the Elf Dance” or something like that.
I can’t stand most Christmas music but this is great.
[Nitpick] Clarence Clemmons is The E-Street Band saxophone player.[/nitpick]
I don’t think that’s what the OP is looking for. 
I’ll third the Sufjan Stevens set…it’s really good, if you’re into his style. I love “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” And “Get Behind Me Santa” is really funny.
I’m also a big fan of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Man, I could listen to that over and over again. I like the Charlie Brown and the Tijuana Brass Christmas albums - lots of good tunes there. Believe it or not, kids’ troubadour Raffi has a nice Christmas album - our boys like it, and some of the arrangements are pretty catchy.
Dar Williams’ The Christians and the Pagans which is my favorite contemporary Christmas song
Aaron Neville’s album Soulful Christmas, especially “Such a Night.”
I suggest “A Very Special Christmas” volumes 1 through 5, which are available via iTunes. Here are their respective pages at Amazon:
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
Vol. 4 (recorded live)
Vol. 5
There’s also a CD for country fans, featuring Earl Scraggs picking “Jingle Bells” and Ralph Stanley’s rendition of “Christmas Is Near”.
I recently bought a Christmas album by a band called “Reliant K”. I did not know that they were a X-tian rock band. Well they bill themselves as X-tian Punk Rock band, but clearly they do not know what they are talking about when it comes to punk.
Anyway, I enjoy the album. (Let it Snow, Let it Reindeer) They have some very up-tempo ‘rock/pop’ versions of some carols. They get through 12 days of Christmas in 3:30 and some of the original songs are good as well.
The Nation, one of our two English-language dailies, ran this article yesterday (Monday). This may be what the OP is looking for. In the hard copy, the album covers are shown, but not on the website version.