Most/Least Favorite Christmas Songs?

[jaxadam]

 

[VGK17]

By far my favorite Christmas song.

 

[BenjaminW]

No love for Savatage/TSO Xmas stuff? I love this one:

I was convinced Mercedes-Benz used this song in a commercial a few years ago because that's where I heard this version from, but the only thing I could find that had this song in a car commercial was from Kia.

Still badass nonetheless.

 

[p0ke]

I don't mind Christmas music in general, except when the same few songs are played everywhere. There's like a million songs to choose from, so why do you always have to pick All I want for Christmas is you, Last Christmas or Jingle Bells? Nothing wrong with the songs as such, but having to hear them 10000 times every year sucks.

These are some of my favorites, I just love the melancholy:




I guess it's an "only in Finland" thing that some of the most popular Christmas songs are about death

Those are basically ancient, so there are no "original versions" of them.
There's metal versions of them too:

 

[Choop]

The best!



I honestly hate Little Drummer Boy. It's also the classic Christmas song that translates the absolute worst to a modernized version, but people keep trying it anyway. Maybe it's like a "challenge accepted" kind of thing with that song.

 

[bostjan]

The best!



I honestly hate Little Drummer Boy. It's also the classic Christmas song that translates the absolute worst to a modernized version, but people keep trying it anyway. Maybe it's like a "challenge accepted" kind of thing with that song.

Does anyone remember school Christmas concerts, or "holiday concerts?" Like, each grade of elementary school would sing a different holiday song or christmas carol one evening and all of the parents would come and fall asleep in metal folding chairs in the gym or whatever. Well, if you do, you are my people. If not, that's cool, too... anyway...

One year, I think we were around 10 or 11, this kid, let's call him "Paul," wanted to perform a solo. A little more boring backstory, sorry, but this particular kid was a teacher's son. The guy never came off as being super bright to the rest of the kids, but, that year, his mom was our home room teacher, and his older brother, let's call him "John," who seemed more normal, somehow got held back. It was really weird how the teacher seemed to favour the younger son so obviously in class every day. So when "Paul" wanted to do a drum solo for the christmas concert that year, it was no huge surprise that he was selected to be the only kid to do a solo. For a solid month, "Paul" kept bragging about how great his drum solo was going to be. I sort of expected the kid to be some sort of savant or something, since he could hardly put words into a coherent sentence, was obviously really passionate about the drums, and his mom seemed so incredibly proud of him for some reason. Well, concert came and we sang our little hearts out, and then "Paul" got his drum solo time slot, and it was just him and a snare drum and he just stood there doing mediocrely executed double stroke rolls for two minutes. Everyone in class was like "WTF is this shit?!" like we were expecting this kid to be John Bonham or something. Looking in the program, it said he was to perform "The Little Drummer Boy." After, oh I don't know, maybe a minute, everyone in the audience was looking around like they were going to find a hidden camera or something. He got ribbed pretty hard after that, and all he could say was that there was supposed to be a backing track, but the little karaoke machine that was going to play the tape with the music was broken or something, so he just decided to own it and stand there playing "brrrrraht ... brrrraht ... brraht brraht brraht" over and over with the song going in his head.

So, yeah, every time I hear The Little Drummer Boy, that whole memory plays out in my mind, without the music. Even if it comes on while I'm out somewhere, I can't even hear the music, just "Paul" and his snare drum and the most awkward drum solo grinding on for two minutes with no variation.

 

[Choop]

Does anyone remember school Christmas concerts, or "holiday concerts?" Like, each grade of elementary school would sing a different holiday song or christmas carol one evening and all of the parents would come and fall asleep in metal folding chairs in the gym or whatever. Well, if you do, you are my people. If not, that's cool, too... anyway...

Totally remember Christmas concerts -- always awkward! Also that is an incredible story about "Paul", especially the earlier part about the teacher/mom very obviously favoring the younger son lol.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Christmas concerts (and the rest of the made up horse shit songs they forced us to sing) are the bane of my existence (or at least they were as a kid). I never told my mom about them, because I wanted to spare her from it, and partly because I was embarrassed entirely. When I figured out I could just mouth the words instead of sing, I stopped showing up entirely (I think I did only two or three more after that). She did, God bless her, go to a few of them, but most of them I just felt like pulling a Bart Simpson so I could get excused entirely.

 

[Lopp]

Most: none
Least: all

Nailed my opinion. Although, I do like at least one:

 

[KnightBrolaire]

favorite: Have yourself a merry little Christmas - Frank Sinatra

2nd place is probably Baby It's Cold Outside (Leon Redbone/Zooey Deschanel version or the Lady Gaga/JGL version). I hate that the song has recently gotten a bad rap, with people calling it creepy/rapey even though in the context of the musical it came from (Neptune's Daughter) it's very flirty and played for laughs (they literally have red skelton singing the woman's part in the second rendition of the song).


Hate: All I want for Christmas is you - Mariah Carey . It's a well done song but jesus fuck is it overplayed. I want to perforate my eardrums right around this time of year just so I don't have to hear it again.

 

[zappatton2]

When I think of Christmas songs that actually don't drive me around the bend, the first two that always spring to mind are the Ramones (Merry Christmas, I don't wanna fight tonight), and Type O (Red Water).

That said, we have a bit of a tradition of putting on the South Park Christmas album on the day.

 

[Wuuthrad]

God rest ye merry gentleman is my favorite.
Play it instrumental on Electric Thrash style- Yeehaw!!!

I absolutely loathe Jingle Bells!

Anyway fuck this Christian appropriation of Nordic/Pagan tradition and turning it into a shopping frenzy! My neighbors have Xmas lights up since before Thanksgiving till the end of March! Jeeezus H!

Boxing Day ftw!

Or whatever. You do you, no disrespect.

peace on earth! (But who’s buying?)

XXX Mass anyone? Now there’s a Party!

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

God rest ye merry gentleman is my favorite.
Play it instrumental on Electric Thrash style- Yeehaw!!!

I absolutely loathe Jingle Bells!

Anyway fuck this Christian appropriation of Nordic/Pagan tradition and turning it into a shopping frenzy! My neighbors have Xmas lights up since before Thanksgiving till the end of March! Jeeezus H!

Boxing Day ftw!

Or whatever. You do you, no disrespect.

peace on earth! (But who’s buying?)

XXX Mass anyone? Now there’s a Party!

That last one brings a whole new meaning to Santa coming down the chimney to deliver a white Christmas.

 

[bostjan]

Boring fact, but, many scholars believe that the reason Christmas is celebrated on the Winter Solstice is due to poor translations or misinterpretations of ancient idioms. Christmas wasn't celebrated until centuries after the fact, and there was some manuscript that said something about the "return of the Sun." Romans made a big deal out of birthdays, and the priesthood wanted to determine Jesus' birthday in order to celebrate it, and took the "return of the Sun" to mean the day after the solstice, where daylight starts to get longer. Having nothing else to go on, it stuck. Nobody at that time had any idea when Jesus was born. Not to knock the legitimacy of the world's biggest religion, but before the writings of Paul, there is no direct surviving text documenting anything about Jesus. Paul only met Jesus in visions. The gospels were written based off of various other sources. Some of those older sources have been found, and are still newer than Paul, so probably based off of other unknown sources. Sources that have claimed to have been contemporary with the life of Jesus have invariably been determined to be decades or even centuries newer than claimed. The interesting thing is that the Romans were pretty good about keeping records of things like political executions, so they either purposefully ignored Jesus, which is plausible, or it never happened.

16th and 17th century Christians mostly moved away from celebrating Christmas at all, because a lot of people were using it as an excuse to get drunk and miss work or otherwise slough off their responsibilities. Martin Luther, the guy who kicked off the protestant reformation, was the key in making Christmas a big deal in Europe. Since a lot of Northern Europeans coming to America in the 18th and 19th century were Lutherans, that's really when it became culturally important in the USA. Being the land of opportuniststy, we made it into a big commercial juggernaut industry playing off of those sentiments.

 

[beerandbeards]

\m/

 

[bjgrifter]

Most: none
Least: all

Agreed. I have gotten a few thoughts of how to make some humorous. Like "Silver Bells" becomes "Go to Hell", and the WHAM! "Last Christmas" is just some schmuck sobbing through the song and at the end you hear a bang.

I'm just glad my company isn't blasting multiple variations of "Jingle Bells" every other song like they did at one point.

I also wonder why "My Favorite Things" is a holiday tune.

 

[beerandbeards]

Love Brian Setzer Christmas albums as well

 

[jaxadam]

Other people: “Is you wife festive?”

Me:

 

[Wuuthrad]

Boring fact

Hardly- This is right up my dark alley!

Not to knock the legitimacy of the world's biggest religion

Bummer- I was just beginning to enjoy this!

because a lot of people were using it as an excuse to get drunk and miss work or otherwise slough off their responsibilities. Martin Luther, the guy who kicked off the protestant reformation

Now we’re talking- Party Time! Martin Luther might be the best thing to happen to this Zombie Cannibal Vampire Death Cult anyway-

He famously said:

“It’s better to talk about God while drinking in the Pub than drink in the House of the Lord!”

 

[Wuuthrad]

I also wonder why "My Favorite Things" is a holiday tune.

Written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the Musical The Sound of Music in 1959, it was sung by Julie Andrews on the Christmas Special of the Gary Moore variety TV show in 1961, who popularized it’s use as a holiday tune, prior to the movie of 1965. There were a few Xmas releases after that. Excellent film btw!

And Coltrane’s version? Awesome! John Coltrane should be listened to over and over by any Guitarist imo: