Worst and Best Christmas Music
 

What are your choices for worst Christmas song, and best Christmas song (or piece of music). There's plenty of good and bad out there, I wonder how many in the worst list will also feature in the best list ;)

For me the worst has to be,
Nat King Cole ~ I'm The Happiest Christmas Tree,
it's just sooo iritating (the rest of his Christmas album is very good however).

The best songs IMO are,
Greg Lake ~ I believed in Father Christmas and
Bing Crosby & David Bowie ~ The Little Drummer Boy

_Malc :D

Little Drummer Boy is a great piece of music no matter who does it. I also like the Hallejulah Chorus in Handel's Messaiah , Hark! the Herald Angels Sing and most anything from The Nutcracker. On a more contemporary note, John Lennon's Happy Christmas is nice.

In other holiday music, I got to see the Klezmatics do some of the songs from Happy, Joyous Hanuka, their album of Woody Guthrie's Hannukah songs recently and that was fun and I recommend it to anyone who likes klezmer music and wants some fresh Hannukah music to listen to.

I would say the barking dogs are pretty annoying. Same goes for the cats.

I agree w/ Malc44 for a couple of the most tolerable,
I'd add,
Billy Squier: Christmas Is the Time to Say "I Love You"
Dan Fogelberg: Same Old Lang Syne
Trans- Siberian Express also released a great Prog-Rock version of holiday faves a few years back.

Worst?.. That P McCartney / Wings: "Simply Having a Wonder..."
A bad idea which got worse upon creation......

Surely one of the worst is Sir Cliff Richard's Millenium Prayer?  Apart from the fact that it was released for Christmas 1999/2000 (a year too early, unless you regard the "Millennium" as having been the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, in which case it was an estimated 4-7 years too late), it was so dire that even BBC Radio 2 banned it. :D

It's one of the very few Christmas songs which is too dire to come back and haunt us every December. ;)

One of the MIDI files I downloaded last year (thanks again, dragon1) was a particularly lovely version of Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy.  (At least, it sounds great on my friend's SoundBlaster Pro with 4.1 channel output — it probably won't sound so good on my cheap SB clone.)  It sounds so good, I'm thinking of doing a game level especially to accommodate it. ;)

One of my favorites is "Dominic the Donkey." A silly song, but humorous nonetheless.

Is it not too commercial feeling at times?
 

I've heard Country singers do it kind of from the heart so it sounds very real.

But the whole genre is too commercial to me.

But I liked the MTV version of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey doing a duett of O holy night. Too wailing maybe but kind of typical for them. Not as commercial as many others that don't seem to really feel for it.

Both Dad Simpson and Nick Lachey seem very patient husbands to their sometimes emotional wifes.

trew

turn up your sound... guaranteed to move you.
catchy tune

Yesterday my employer gave its christmas party, and it was so classical: "Last christmas I gave you my heart" by Wham (:mad: ) got played SEVERAL TIMES !! :mad: :mad:


Great Christmas songs ? Can't think of one. But when you take the whole period in consideration, I'd say "New Year's day" by U2 is the only great song suiting these times of the year.

^ Reminds me of the satirical programme which was on BBC Radio 4 one Christmas; one segment was a spoof "Christmas chart rundown":

:D

I love The Nutcracker too.

Jeff

George Michael should hide in a basement out of shame for having brought us such a childish tune. And saying that it is the same man who brought us quality songs such as "Fastlove" or "Jesus to a child" (which are also not really my style but much better than what he did with Wham)

What's wrong with Wham's Last Christmas? It was one of the best tune during those days and because they are good, everyone starts to make covers. Blame it on those people that overplay the song instead.

hate to sound "highbrow" or pretentious, but give J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio a listen. It's got some of the greatest music ever, Christmas-oriented or not...especially moving to me is the final section of the whole work, the chorus "Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen"