Christmas music I can do without: 2011 edition

Cafe Society
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I’m not a Christian, but I enjoy listening to some Christmas music at this time of year. In fact, some of my favorite Christmas songs are explicitly religious ones, like Do You Hear What I Hear?, or Joseph, Better You Than Me, or Christmas Must Be Something More. There’s something heartwarming and inspirational and nostalgiac and wonderful about it all.

I say this so that I won’t sound like a grinch when I say that there are certain Christmas songs which are a cancer on radio playlists this time of year, which drive me up the walls and which make me wish I had a time machine so I could go back and stop the songwriter’s parents from ever meeting. In the spirit of griping about the holidays, I thought it might be fun to start a thread where we can list off the songs that we just wish would go away, and why.

I’ll throw out a few;

Christmas in the Northwest. I loathe this song. I wish there was a song about Christmas in my adopted homeland of the PNW that I could enjoy, but this song is the musical equivalent of a Thomas Kinkade painting - overwrought, overproduced, clumsily written, cliche, banal, kitschy, glurgey, overemotional to the point of being emotionless, annoying DRECK. If God could hear this song, He’d say “Christmas in the northwest might be a gift I wrapped in green, but this song is the work of Satan himself.”

Feliz Navidad. I suspect that the only reason this song is in Spanish is because someone repeating “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, have a happy and prosperous year” for 3 minutes would be boring as hell.

Silver Bells. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in New York City in the '40s, but the only bells I associate with Christmas are the ones the Salvation Army volunteers ring in front of Safeway. And that’s not really inspiring song material.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. This song basically just lists off a bunch of things you’d probably rather be doing than sitting here listening to this song, and leaves me wondering why the tradition of Christmas ghost stories never caught on in America.

The Little Drummer Boy. Lyrically I like this song; my beef is with the way it’s performed. As I mentioned in the Justin Bieber thread, this is a song about a drummer, narrated by a drummer, who sings about playing a drum, and yet, almost every single recording of the song DOES NOT HAVE DRUMS IN IT. I’ve never liked the “pa-rum-pa-pum-pum” thing, and i’ve always thought it would sound MUCH better if someone just played an actual drumroll between the lines. There ARE good versions of this song out there - I like the Bing Crosby/David Bowie version, though I prefer the “Peace on Earth” counter-melody there to the original song.

What Child Is This? “Greensleeves” is a classic piece of music that’s simple, elegant, and beautiful. This is just clumsy songwriting horning in on a public domain melody rather than bothering to write one of its own.

Christmas Shoes. Patton Oswalt put this much better than I could.

Santa Baby. Now I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t messin’ with no broke spirits of holiday goodwill.

Who else wants to throw some in?

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Right now, I’d sayy all the music I heard yesterday while running errands. Holy cats, it isn’t even Thanksgiving! Up to a couple years ago they at least had the decency to keep the music off until the Friday after. But that is another subject.

I’ll see your list and raise you a My Favorite Things, a song whose tie to Christmas I’ve never understood.

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Christmas sShoes - I agree! Hate it!
Mary Do You Know - creepy
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer - my grandmothers were sweet old ladies, so no.

As the season starts and I hear more I will probably post again.

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I love Christmas and every thing about it. So there isn’t much I don’t like.

I guess the all musical ones don’t work for me, I need lyrics.

I know Feliz Navidad can be boring, but it holds a special place in my heart. It was a favorite of my moms.

I’d probably go with the grandma got run over song as most irritating.

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We Wish You A Merry Christmas. There’s a version I think by Robert Goulet, in which he makes a demand in his sonorous voice for ‘figgy pudding’.
We Need A Little Christmas. I need a little Christmas to the OVER - January 9 can’t come soon enough.
Feliz Navidad. Because I loathe Jose Feliciano.

There are probably others but these three make my skin crawl. STFU!

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Wow! Five posts and you guys have already hit the three that I can’t stand:

Little Drummer Boy
The Christmas Shoes
Feliz Navidad

Well done, everybody!

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Paul McCartney. Have Yourselves a Wonderful Christmas Time, or whatever it’s called.
Pimping out his name/rep to hype a crap song. Death to this song.

hh

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** Last Christmas ** it so damn pervasive, every day, all day, everywhere, radio, TV, shops. George Michael is second on my hitlist for when I get a time machine.

** Christmas A Come ** by Chaka Demus which is a Christmas song I doubt many people know or hear regularly, but my family members use this as a bespoke version of Rickrolling, because I hate it…so…much [It combines two of my least favorite things: Christmas songs and Raggae]

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I have two that I hate: *The Twelve Days Of Christmas *(with bonus hatred for any joke versions) and Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.

There are others that I have varying degrees of dislike for, but those two I hate.

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I forget, what about Joan Jett’s? Surely Joan Jett is entitled to a rum-pa-pum or two?

Three I don’t want to see in this thread, as I like them (but only once each per year):

Two Front Teeth

I Yust Go Nuts

Santa’s Comin’ in a Whirlybird.

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Grandma Got Run Over Me I Want A Hula Hoop Woof Woof Woof I Want A Hippopotamus And My Two Front Teeth…

In other words, any Christmas novelty song.
mmm

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I cannot stand “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas.” One of the most grating, whiny voices ever to me.

Same goes for “Santa Baby.” She certainly sounds like a gold-digging…uh…woman who gets around.

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Deck the Halls / Jingle Bells by Michael McDonald. The guy sounds like a self-absorbed, drunken, mental defective.

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Here’s the rule of thumb. EVERY non-religious carol SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.

A goodly number of the religious carols are less than stellar, but most of them are OK, at least in moderation, and some are outstanding.

This, by the way, is a musical judgement, not an opinion based in my own religious belief or lack thereof.

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ANY commercial that changes the worlds of a traditional holiday song to sell there product.

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Yeah I’m gonna go with the Paul McCartney one too. (I think it’s called “Wonderful Christmastime”.) I’m a big fan but come on. It sounds like he wrote it on the back of an envelope on the way to the recording studio.

I have mixed feelings about “Do You Hear What I Hear?” I like it ok now but as a kid the “A child, a child, crying in the night” line used to traumatize me for some reason. “Won’t somebody HELP him???”

My faves however are “It’s the Holiday Season/Happy Holidays” by Andy Williams (So deliciously cornball!) and bizarrely enough, “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys. It’s so over-the-top, exaggerated, BEACH BOYS-y.

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Warm woolen mittens, wrapped packages, and snowflakes. Yeah, it’s not really all that much of a connection. I happen to like the song, though, so I don’t mind too much.

My absolute least favorite Christmas song is “We’re simply having a wonderful Christmas time”. Out of all the songs I hate, it’s by far the most earwormy: Once you get it into your head, you can’t get it out for weeks.

The hippopotamus song was fun, once. Not once per year; once ever. We’ve all heard it now; we can put it away for a few decades until it’s time for the next generation to hear it once.

And most of the traditional and/or religious songs are pretty good, but one exception I’ll point out is “Do you hear what I hear”. Someone wasn’t paying attention in Sunday school: “Listen to what I say, said the king to the people everywhere. A child, a child, under five years old, so let’s just slaughter all of them to be on the safe side and be sure we get him.”

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I’m going to take a stab in the dark and guess that the Boney M Christmas album is not a huge tradition anywhere else in the civilized world. Count yourselves very, very lucky.

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Mary’s Boy Child* isn’t completely awful. Admittedly it needs a good dose of seasonal cheer to appreciate it.

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I hate, hate, hate this song with a passion even I don’t understand. It’s not a Christmas song.