Top 8 Rubbish Christmas Songs

8. Basshunter - Jingle Bells

Obviously I have nothing against Jingle Bells. I do have something against it being turned into yet another piece of chart trance shit. This doesn't even have a hint of tongue in cheek about it.

7. Ronan Keating & Moya Brennan - Fairytale Of New York

When the original is so good, why would you bother to remake this Christmas song? Especially in such a bland, sanitised way. It's always going to be compared to the original, and when this actually makes the song sound like nothing special that's never going to be a good thing. Awful, but more importantly, totally pointless. This is what The Pogues episode of Glee would sound like.

6. Cliff Richard - Millennium Prayer

Cheap and nasty Y2K cash-in from Cliff Richard. He didn't write the music (it's "traditional", so Cliff didn't even have to pay to use it) or the words (those would be God's, and I'm sure he didn't ask for any royalties either). Fair enough it was for charity, but that doesn't stop it being pants. Still rears its ugly head around Christmas time every so often. Would be higher if it had more exposure today.

5. John & Yoko And The Plastic Ono Band With The Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

A controversial choice I suppose, but I always skip this when it crops up on my Christmas compilations. I have my reasons. For one, it's just really dreary. Slow, almost dirge-like in places. Second, it's pretty depressing. I'm sorry, but I don't want to think about war at Christmas. I can think about how terrible war is and what I can do to help the rest of the year, but I don't want two hippies preaching at me through a Christmas song about it. Band Aid did it the right way in the '80s, but Lennon misses the mark here. Thirdly, Yoko Ono "sings" on it, and any Christmas song warbling all over it can just bugger off as far as I'm concerned.

4. Robson & Jerome - I Believe (Click here)

Awful, just awful. The only reason this isn't higher is that it seems to have sunk without a trace in recent years (along with R&J's music careers), but it's still cropped up on a few Crimbo compilations in its time. The only claim this can have to being a Christmas song is having a bloke dressed as Father Christmas in the video and Robson and/or Jerome stating the fact that it's meant to be Christmas. It wasn't even Christmas number 1.

3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - The Power Of Love

Nothing to do with Christmas, apart from the tenuous link that Christmas is a time for love. I'm pretty sure this one only crops up on Christmas compilations because of the music video, which is Christmassy, although apparently only because the song was released near the festive season. Also, it's dreary and just boring, and that's not what I look for in my Christmas songs.

2. East 17 - Stay Another Day

Crappy boy band ballad sung by four blokes who clearly had a hand in the creation of chav culture. No part of the song has anything to do with Christmas in any way. The only thing that links the song to Christmas is that it happened to be 1994's Christmas number 1. And no, putting on parkas, shoving some snow over the top of your music video and some tubular bells at the end of your record doesn't change that. I really really wanted to put this as my top pick, but I just couldn't put the atrocity that's there anywhere else...

1. The Wombles with Roy Wood - I Wish It Could Be A Wombling Merry Christmas Every Day

A "mash up" which essentially destroys two 1970s Christmas songs at the same time: one that's pretty forgettable (A Wombling Merry Christmas by, well, The Wombles surprisingly); and, much more distressingly, one that's undoubtedly a modern Christmas standard - Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. Have a listen if you've never heard it before. Starts harmlessly, if pointlessly, enough. Roy Wood sounds like someone doing a bad karaoke version of his own song, which is pretty pathetic. But then we get to the chorus. Oh dear lord, the chorus! THE CHORUS!! How did anyone hear that travesty of bodged lyrics and crowbarred extra notes that simply don't fit, and think this was worthy of releasing? It's just dire. It makes my skin crawl. This one has so much wrong with it that it beat East 17 to the top of my list - that's how much I hate this one.

Crimbo Choons 4, 5 & 6

For my next selections for my top Crimbo tracks, I've gone down the slightly more mainstream route. These three songs are solid Christmas compilation CD fodder that you're more than likely to hear as you walk into a shop/cafe/funeral home over the festive period. But that shouldn't take away from them as selections of top quality Christmas songs.

Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry


The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping


Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas


So, why have I grouped these three together? And, more importantly, why have I selected them at all? Without doing a detailed analysis of each song, here's a few points that relate to all three songs. Firstly, they're all most definitely festive, but they also sound like "proper" songs too. Lots of Christmas music gets caught up in novelty or twee-ness, but all of these actually have some substance to them. True, The Waitresses song is somewhat cheesy, and the Chris Rea track is very cheesy, but they maintain a credible level of cheesiness which is all the more acceptable when coupled with Christmassiness (which is now unofficially a word).

Secondly, the Christmas factor in them is more subtle. The songs aren't actually about Christmas, but use Christmas in telling their story. Jona Lewie wishes he could be home for Christmas, but isn't actually there yet; The Waitresses are actually telling a modern love story over twelve months that culminates at Christmas; Chris Rea is driving home for Christmas, but like Mr. Lewie previously, he hasn't reached it yet. The relative subtlety in the use of Christmas in the songs sets them apart from all the songs about reindeer, Santa and mistletoe you hear for the rest of the festive season. But at the same time, they are actually related to Christmas (which some other Christmas songs, weirdly, are not).

And lastly, they are, for want of a more descriptive word, jolly. They bounce along putting a smile on your face. They're not sombre or serious (although Jona Lewie's track does have a somewhat serious undertone, but not in a way that takes away from the celebratory mood of the song, largely provided by the brass band sections featured throughout the song). Another key element that some Christmas songs sorely lack.

So, there we go. In the last of these entries, which will come sometime before Christmas Day itself, I'll round things off with my all-time best and worst Christmas songs. Until then, keep enjoying the Crimbo choonage.

Crimbo Choons 3: "Jingle Bells"

The Brian Setzer Orchestra - Jingle Bells [Instrumental Version]


For me, Jingle Bells as a traditional Christmas song sits there with all the other traditional Christmas songs. I like it, but that's about as far as it goes. Traditional Christmas songs are an integral part of what Christmas has become for many people in the modern day, but many of them have been around so long that any festive image or sentiment they may contain has become faded and cliched to the point of them becoming almost meaningless.

The Brian Setzer Orchestra's instrumental version of Jingle Bells completely wipes out any of this. Setzer injects life and fun into the well-worn tune transforming it from just another Christmas song into a rocking, swinging, brash and cool rock & roll big band number. The whole piece from start to finish is infectious, building to an irresistable finish that simply blows you away. Never has Jingle Bells had such attitude and swagger. Just awesome.

Crimbo Choons 2: "A Merry Jingle"

So, what do you get when you mix together Thin Lizzy, The Sex Pistols and some traditional Christmas ditties? Well, this...



For some reason, A Merry Jingle by The Greedies (a one-off band made up of members of the two aforementioned bands) really hasn't caught on as a mainstream Christmas track, and I honestly don't know why. Maybe it has just a bit too much of a hard rock sound. Maybe it doesn't have the same cheesy value as more popular Christmas tunes. Or maybe it's just never received enough exposure to really grab people's attention. Who knows. But it's a track, thanks to my dad, that has been part of every one of my Christmases since I was very little. It brings back a lot of memories and it's one of those Christmas songs that, when I hear it, signifies to me that Christmas really has arrived. Listening to this song has become as important as eating my first mince pie of the year or putting up the Christmas tree. So, that's the first reason why it's on my list of top Crimbo choons.

Also, it just rocks. You've got a combination of two of the most legendary rock groups bashing out a medley of We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Jingle Bells as if this might be the last Christmas they get the chance to do it. It's simple but very effective, and whilst falling firmly into the novelty cash-in pile of Christmas singles, it's neither nauseatingly commercial nor excruciatingly awful. As I said before, it just rocks. So stick a Santa hat on and bang your head to the festive beat.

Does your granny always tell yer that the old songs are the best...?

I've wanted to do an entry on Christmas music for a week or so now. I've started writing one a couple of times now, but each time when I read back what I've written it just sounds, for want of a better phrase, wank. So I'm biting the bullet tonight and just going for it. I love Christmas music; it's one of my most favourite things about this time of year. Christmas music has produced some of the most memorable songs ever written. It's also produced some of the most painfully awful words and music of all time. As with a great many things, I have opinions to share on the subject of Christmas music, and I intend to share them here song by song in the run-up to Christmas.

The first Crimbo song I've chosen to share is one introduced to me fairly recently, and is an absolute festive corker:



I could write a huge long analysis of why this is such a brilliant Christmas song. I could go into great detail about the musical credentials Bob Dylan brings. But I don't need to. I defy you to listen to that song and not start smiling and wanting to dance around in a Christmas frenzy. It's just that awesome.

So, keep reading for more Christmassy musical type musings.