Christmas songs that MUST DIE!

[XCashier]

Sleigh Ride. I've loathed that song for as long as I can remember.

Ugh, yes! Especially that one version (I think it's Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme?) where the woman is singing "SLEIGH Ride! SLEIGH Ride! SLEIGH Ride!" over and over, and her "background" vocals are louder than the man's lead vocals! She sounds like an ambulance siren, it's awful.

We had Christmas carols interspersed with regular music, so it wasn't so bad, but I think the carols are getting more and more frequent. And they don't play anything good like Trans-Siberian Orchestra, or Mannheim Steamroller, or a good classical instrumental, it's always the pop crap like that sleazy-sounding "Santa Baby" or Andy Williams' schmaltzy sludge.

[fireheart]

Deck the Halls - This one is so goddamn annoying! If I'm stressed with money problems for buying presents, I really don't want to hear, "Tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la la la la la la!" Those "Falas" get really annoying in their own right.

Ooh yes, I agree....I want to throw the writer to that "carol" in here: :woodchip:

I also cannot stand "Silent Night". Mostly because very rarely do I hear it sounding GOOD. most of the time, when they go "All is calm, all is bright", the interval from "night" to "all" is WAY WAY WAY too steep.

[NotAlBundy]

"Hey Santa" by Carnie and Wendy Wilson. So far I haven't heard it in our holiday Muzak rotation this year, but I have heard strains of it out in the mall.

[PepperElf]

Most interesting covers I have - and actually listen to! - are ...

1) A Dark Noel - Gothic Christmas songs. Highlights include "Happy XMas (War is Over)" performed by the Crüxshadows, and "Peace in the Holy Land" by Voltaire.

Although there's a couple of different versions of the album available... tho strangely neither actually match the one I bought exactly. weird.

2) A Tool Box Christmas - what the title says. Music played on tools. Little known fact about me... I really DO think the saw is a perfectly acceptable musical instrument.

[Ree]

I love Christmas music.
I can't help myself. LOL

My coworkers think I'm weird. (OK. They think I'm weird for other reasons, too, but loving Christmas music just adds to it. )

I must say, though, that "Christmas Shoes" song makes me want to gouge my ears with a butter knife. Talk about f***ing depressing!

Another on the "Least Favourite...OK I actually hate it list" is "The 12 Days of Christmas." I don't care who sings it, I really hate every version.
That damn song goes on forever and is so repetitive.

There are some Christmas songs I admit that don't care all that much for, but I can't really say I hate them. Other than the two mentioned, there aren't any Christmas songs that make me want to take a hammer to the radio or whatever.

I do love Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and my favourite of theirs is the "Christmas Canon" in both the regular and "rock" versions.

[BeeMused]

Deck the Halls - This one is so goddamn annoying! If I'm stressed with money problems for buying presents, I really don't want to hear, "Tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la la la la la la!" Those "Falas" get really annoying in their own right.

Try this version of that song. It's save for work, might give you cuteness overload, though.

[Merriweather]

Ok, I have to admit, in general, I love hearing Christmas music. However, no matter how much I like a song, once I've heard it for, oh, say the hundredth time this month, it does begin to grate on me to the point of wishing I lived somewhere cold enough to put on heavy ear muffs and leave them on til Epiphany.

When I was a teenager, I worked one Christmas for the Salvation Army, standing kettles. Eight hours a day on Saturdays, and eight hours every day the last week before Christmas when school had let out for the holidays. In front of a department store that had their very own compilation record album (ok, it was a long time ago) of Chistmas songs by various artists. Which they sold in the store. And which they played over the loudspeakers, both inside the store, and out into the carpark. Every day. Over and over and over and..... That's ALL they played. At least when you're working in a store you can hope to keep busy and talk to customers and sort of "tune it out" a bit, at least for brief periods. But when all you're doing is standing in one spot, ringing a bell, and smiling, now and then saying thank you to people who dump in the excess change theyve been given at checkiout and don't want anyway, you aren't occupied enough to be distracted or tune them out in the least. I still, after more years than I'm willing to admit to have passed, know each and every one of those songs by heart, and can tell you when I hear them that they were on that album from that department store in that year. Sign.

I do keep CD's in my car player during the holiday season for long drives, ones I've made myself from various sources, we play them when driving around to see Christmas lights, going off to visit people at a distance, etc. Lets us hear what we want, rather than the handfull of songs the radio stations tend to play each year, repeatedly. Though we do have to be careful which ones we put on at times, as our favourite is definitely NOT to be played when the granddaughter is in the car, it's an assortment of very, um, unusual Christmas songs, of the Dr. Demento type and worse

And my favourite use of a mainstream Christmas song was an office supply store, that used one in their late summer ads. They played the beginning of the one that starts "It's the most wonderful time of the year", then just the music with no lyrics, and showed parents celebrating getting the kids out from underfoot, and went into back to school ads

As for the Hippo song, I got my very first record player (yep, I'm THAT old, small little thing that looked like a suitcase when closed) for Christmas when I was six years old, and that song was in the stack of 45's that I got with it. Later my daughter loved it, and it became a family joke to now and then give others some sort of hippo figure in a stocking.

And for those mentioning the 12 Days of Christmas, I like the craative ones with other gifts rather than the traditional. My favourite is by Allen Sherman, it's definitely an old one, as the frist gift is a "Japanese transister radio".

[Ghel]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, but there's a song that I HATE that seems to get put on Christmas albums, even though it doesn't really have anything to do with Christmas.

Elvis Presley's "Mama Liked the Roses"

Gawd, that song is so depressing, and the only connection it has to Christmas is a mention of winter. Blah.

[Divra]

It would probably be easier for me to list the Christmas songs that don't drive me into fits of apoplectic rage. Put simply, if you wouldn't sing it in church, it doesn't pass muster.

[Ashaela]

I love Christmas time and Christmas music, and will sing along with almost any version of almost any song.... with a few exceptions.

The Christmas Shoes - this is the only one that I will turn off or change the station immediately - the rest usually at least get past the first chorus before they get on my nerves too much. This one, I don't want any part of (for all the previous posters' reasons).

Any version of "Last Christmas" that isn't Wham!.

Any version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" that isn't Dolly Parton/Rod Stewart - theirs is the only one that doesn't give me super-skeevie assault vibes. Plus the song itself is just kinda dumb to start with if you ask me.... Although I can't stop wondering what a remix between that and "Let It Snow" would sound like.

Faith Hill's "Where Are You, Christmas" - for the very snarky and nit-picky reason that the word "changing" does not and should not have three syllables.

Now, I do especially love Mannheim Steamroller, any kind of Weird Al-style Christmas parody, and most of all Trans-Siberian Orchestra. (We got to see them live last year, and it was absolutely bar none the most amazing concert I've ever been to!)

[taxguykarl]

Put simply, if you wouldn't sing it in church, it doesn't pass muster.

For the large part, I agree.
My least favorites: Do You Hear What I Hear? and Baby It's Cold Outside. Sleigh Ride gets seriously overplayed, especially on the (self-proclaimed) Chicago's Christmas Music Station--which starts that music when the leaves start chainging color it seems

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Just thought of another Christmas song I wouldn't mind never hearing again.

Don't who sings it, but it's a woman and chorus goes "All the icicles, falling, falling, faaaallllllliiinnnnngggg...."

[Marmalady]

Last Christmas a friend e-mailed me this:

http://youtu.be/FlFjR2vUy3M

Possibly NSFW depending on your boss's sense of humour.....

[Catwoman2965]

Any and all that have already been mentioned.

Plus these gems:
Feliz Natividad - not only do we have Jose's version, but some other one as well

mele kalikimaka - (Hawaiian Christmas song)
Christmas Island
I'm Happiest Christmas Tree
And the one I cannot get out of my head - we Need a Little Christmas

One that was particularly horrific, which thankfully isnt' there this year, was a 16.5 minute jazzy version of My Favorite Things. we actually timed it.

And anything that's new, modern, or a classic covered by a current artist.

[AyreBiskits]

least favorites:

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY hate hate hate hate this song, it just drags on and on

any modern christmas song, usually made for a commercial for soda or phones or something, then you hear it non-stop on the radio

and somehow this lyric :

It's the holiday season
With the whoop-de-do and hickory dock
And don't forget to hang up your sock
"Cause just exactly at 12 o'clock
He'll be coming down the chimney

well, i usually don't hear the line after sock because i'm filling in my own line and yeah, it rhymes with sock. sorry, my mind wallows in the gutter.