Christmas time has come and gone for 2010 and I’m sure plenty of us spent the majority of our vacation plopped on a couch watching television and generally spacing out. I sure did.

Well, amidst the reruns and obligatory Christmas specials (Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!) some new entertainment emerged in the form of Hyundai car commercials featuring catchy renditions of classic Christmas songs. And if you watched more than 10 minutes of TV this holiday season, you likely saw at least one of these ads, as Hyundai seemed to be airing them during almost every commercial break on every station.

In case somehow you didn’t see them, here they are:

Up on a Housetop:

Deck the Halls:

Jingle Bells:

I found the upbeat versions of these tunes to be enjoyable enough to search online to find out who this band was that Hyundai was plastering all over the airwaves. It turned out to be a pair of musicians (Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte) who call themselves Pomplamoose and apparently I was a few million people behind on the times.

Pomplamoose has found extreme popularity on YouTube as a result of their quirky covers of hit songs, often improving on them (in my opinion). Their most popular covers, each with millions of YouTube views, include Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)”, but I’m partial to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”:

But in reading more about this musical duo, I came to discover that the Internet is full of hate and a bundle of hidden jealousy. Okay, I already knew that, but it was especially evident in reading comments about Pomplamoose, their musical stylings and, more often, their enthusiasm (or lack thereof) in their music videos.

While vocalist Nataly Dawn appears to sing with as little effort as possible, barely moving her body, mouth, or even blinking, backing musician Jack Conte (who plays at least 400 million different instruments on each of their songs) smiles, jumps around, and generally makes a fool out of himself -- in a good way. But those who have grown weary of being inundated with the Hyundai-sponsored Christmas songs over the past few weeks seem to have come up with every conceivable reason why these two should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Dawn has been compared to a female version of Justin Bieber due to her swoopy hair style and slightly androgynous looks and many have concluded that Conte must be homeless for his slobby look and scratchy beard. But more often than not, the duo have been referred to as “hipsters,” which apparently has become something of a derogatory term(?). They say they’re not hipsters, but instead are just two normal people who enjoy making real music.

Most of their videos are what-you-see-is-what-you-get, literally. If you hear a sound in their song, you see it on your screen. There are no production tricks and nothing is phony. In an interview with NPR, Conte explains, “I guess I kinda don’t like how there’s such a pedestal for music culture and especially for band culture. It just feels fake; it feels like smoke and mirrors. I feel like music doesn’t have to be like that. It can be something that’s very normal and very accessible.” And I completely agree, which must be why I have become partial to Pomplamoose and their musical stylings. Yeah, it’s a bit too cutesy for my tastes, but at least it’s real. And their videos are fun to watch, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

And to all who badmouth creative individuals like the Pomplamoose pair, I say: Stop complaining and go create something yourself. Maybe then you’ll see how much work goes into making something look so effortless.

Oh, and isn’t it great that two people with some home equipment can land a gig producing music for a national ad campaign with total creative control? Gotta love the Internet sometimes -- minus the hate.