Christmas songs that suck

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Barbara Streisand's overly hyperactive cover of Jingle Bells may be one of the single greatest Christmas atrocities ever recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzgrYeSI7vs

Also, The Christmas Shoes.  Christmas is supposed to be a joyous time, a happy time.  Who TF writes a Christmas song about a kid's mom dying?  Like seriously, WTF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJcPVB-we7g

[Crow]

there are Christmas songs that -don't- suck?

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Well, yeah.  Dominick the Dunkey.

[ZKX-2099]

there are Christmas songs that -don't- suck?

Fp bp

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Freezing point boiling point?

[Kotowboy]

Nearly all of them.

Except "Christmas Time ( Don't Let The Bells End ) " By The Darkness.

[Phoenix87x]

The paul mccartney one

[Anguyen92]

I like most Christmas music I hear on radio on KOST 103.5 FM where they always play Christmas music non-stop during this time.  However, the one song that I just absolutely cannot endure is Santa Baby, especially Madonna's version.

[?]

there are Christmas songs that -don't- suck?

[Bertielee]

there are Christmas songs that -don't- suck?

[Stadler]

I LOVE Christmas songs.  LOVE THEM. 

The few that I can't abide:

- The Madonna version of "Santa Baby" (her voice sounds like she sucked helium before she sang)
- Any song by some rich rock star reminding us how bad Christmas is for many

The ones I LOVE:
- Linus and Lucy (one of my favorite songs of all time any genre)
- Snoopy and the Red Baron (also one of my favorite songs of all time any genre, and the walk-off music of my favorite musician, Ritchie Blackmore)
- All I Want for Christmas (Is You) - Vince Vance and the Valiants, not Mariah Carey
- Father Christmas - Any of the three versions that are out there, because all have Greg Lake singing.
- Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) - the U2 version
- Last Christmas - Wham!

[hefdaddy42]

For me, I find that most Christmas songs written longer than 50 years ago that are still around are at least tolerable, if not really good.

Most Christmas songs written & recorded in the last 50 years suck.

[j]

The paul mccartney one

^Yes, that one is terrible.  Second worst Christmas song I can think of, just barely loses out to "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

-J

[pogoowner]

For me, I find that most Christmas songs written longer than 50 years ago that are still around are at least tolerable, if not really good.

Most Christmas songs written & recorded in the last 50 years suck.

Hef is correct. As someone who has spent a great deal of time in retail, where I'd hear Christmas music non-stop 10+ hours a day, 5+ days a week from November 1st through the end of December, I loathe Christmas music. But it's the newer stuff and bad covers (which is most of what they'd play at my store) that got on my nerves the most. The classic material still holds up.

[nicmos]

The paul mccartney one

lol. this is what I thought of the minute I saw the thread title.

[Zook]

99% of them. The only Christmas music I like is the orchestral stuff. Rudolph and Frosty can go fuck themselves.

[rumborak]

I don't think any of them are really all that bad (with a few exceptions), they're just so horrendously overplayed.
The only one that I still fully enjoy hearing is the Peanuts Theme.

[TheCountOfNYC]

Baby It's Cold Outside (although it's technically a winter song and not a Christmas song).

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Baby It's Cold Outside (although it's technically a winter date rape song and not a Christmas song).

FTFY

[twosuitsluke]

Nearly all of them.

Except "Christmas Time ( Don't Let The Bells End ) " By The Darkness.

Basically the only credible Christmas song (even though it's so tongue in cheek).

[hefdaddy42]

The only one that I still fully enjoy hearing is the Peanuts Theme.

The entire soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas is fantastic, easily one of my favorite Christmas albums.  The Vince Guaraldi Trio is smokin'.

[Stadler]

I am a Christmas music apologist, the Beatles are my favorite band ever, and Paul is my favorite Beatle (I literally cried when I saw him play "Yesterday" live in 2012), but even I have to concede the McCartney one.  That is horrible. 

[hefdaddy42]

I am a Christmas music apologist, the Beatles are my favorite band ever, and Paul is my favorite Beatle (I literally cried when I saw him play "Yesterday" live in 2012), but even I have to concede the McCartney one.  That is horrible.

Indeed.  That song is puke-inducingly bad.

[Orbert]

I think both John and Paul's Christmas songs blow.  Paul's is "Wonderful Christmas Time" and I can't even think of John's, but it keeps going "So this is Christmas, and what have you <something>?" and then the children start singing, and if I'm not in charge of the tunes, I leave the room/building/county.

Technically, "Linus and Lucy" ("the Peanuts theme") isn't a Christmas song, but it's on the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is easily the great Christmas album ever.


Ever.

[hefdaddy42]

^This guy knows what's up^

[Stadler]

Lennon:  Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

[MirrorMask]

Snob, closeminded metalhead response: every song which isn't from Trans-siberian orchestra or the metal projects that revisit in a rock / metal way the songs 

But more seriously... I can live with the occasional Christmas song that is being played at the mall or in a Xmas market, but I really, absolutely and totally CANNOT stand that atrocious abomination that is Mariah Carrey's All I Want for Christmas is You.

There's something about the song and the way that she sings it that it makes it sound so corny and sugary, that I really cring each time I hear it. I would sit through one hour of Everything is Awesome from the Lego movie than that song.

[TheCountOfNYC]

Baby It's Cold Outside (although it's technically a winter date rape song and not a Christmas song).

FTFY

That's the number one reason why I hate it. Hell, there's even a line where the girl says "hey what's in this drink?" yet people everywhere ignore the fact that this guy won't take no for an answer (the definition of rape) and sing this song gleefully.

[Stadler]

Snob, closeminded metalhead response: every song which isn't from Trans-siberian orchestra or the metal projects that revisit in a rock / metal way the songs 

But more seriously... I can live with the occasional Christmas song that is being played at the mall or in a Xmas market, but I really, absolutely and totally CANNOT stand that atrocious abomination that is Mariah Carrey's All I Want for Christmas is You.

There's something about the song and the way that she sings it that it makes it sound so corny and sugary, that I really cring each time I hear it. I would sit through one hour of Everything is Awesome from the Lego movie than that song.

The song isn't the worst in the world, but she sings it in that overly-melismatic way that just annoys the crap out of me.   I blame American Idol for that.  When the last great extinction comes, and aliens come to do the autopsy on the Earth, they will date the beginning of the end of the human race on the point at which singing two syllables in a melisma became the standard by which someone tries to show "they can sing".   Freddie Mercury pisses on that. 

[hefdaddy42]

Baby It's Cold Outside (although it's technically a winter date rape song and not a Christmas song).

FTFY

That's the number one reason why I hate it. Hell, there's even a line where the girl says "hey what's in this drink?" yet people everywhere ignore the fact that this guy won't take no for an answer (the definition of rape) and sing this song gleefully.

I don't know, I think that's an overly cynical way of looking at it.

Sure, the lyrics show a guy being persistent, and a girl showing reasons she shouldn't stay.  But it's a product of it's time.  She doesn't want to stay, not because it's wrong, but because of what people might say or think.  Nowadays, no one would say shit, so there wouldn't even BE a song.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

The guy won't take no for an answer.  So it's basically a celebration of every guy who ever tried to get laid in the history of time. 

If I have to hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" one more fucking time, I'm going to lose my shit.

[hefdaddy42]

The guy won't take no for an answer.  So it's basically a celebration of every guy who ever tried to get laid in the history of time. 

Yeah, kinda 

If I have to hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" one more fucking time, I'm going to lose my shit.

I understand the feeling, but that's not a Christmas song.

[Stadler]

Baby It's Cold Outside (although it's technically a winter date rape song and not a Christmas song).

FTFY

That's the number one reason why I hate it. Hell, there's even a line where the girl says "hey what's in this drink?" yet people everywhere ignore the fact that this guy won't take no for an answer (the definition of rape) and sing this song gleefully.

I don't know, I think that's an overly cynical way of looking at it.

Sure, the lyrics show a guy being persistent, and a girl showing reasons she shouldn't stay.  But it's a product of it's time.  She doesn't want to stay, not because it's wrong, but because of what people might say or think.  Nowadays, no one would say shit, so there wouldn't even BE a song.

yeah, since you said it, I'll hop on the bandwagon.  I don't see this as a "date rape" song, but rather a song of it's time.  With the "really can't stay", I think she's being coy more than she's being "GET ME OUT OF HERE!".  And the "what's in this drink?" is an idiom of the time, not a Bill Cosby moment.   Though having said that, the original lyrics have the male part labeled as "Wolf" and the woman's as "Mouse".  So who knows...

[Stadler]

The guy won't take no for an answer.  So it's basically a celebration of every guy who ever tried to get laid in the history of time. 

If I have to hear Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" one more fucking time, I'm going to lose my shit.

Leonard Cohen is one of those guys that I am convinced most people like because it's perceived as cool to do so.  Every time I think of him, I envision 250 hipsters looking like the guys from "Death Cab For Cutie" standing around in the Viper Room in "L A" trying to look bored and disinterested. 

There are only two LC songs I really like, and they are specific versions:   "Everybody Knows", by Concrete Blonde (I do not like the Don Henley version) and "Light As The Breeze" from Billy Joel.  "Suzanne", by Peter Gabriel, is okay, as is "Hallelujah" by Bono.

[hefdaddy42]

I always viewed Cohen kind of like Dylan - an extremely talented songwriter/lyricist, and I would rather hear their songs performed by other artists than by them.