Playlist: Christmas 2017

Playlist: Christmas 2017

I’ve performed my annual Christmas sync, my iPhone is now half-full of Christmas songs and carols, so why not take a little of the fun out of the occasion by examining a few of them critically?

Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody, 1973

It’s Chrisssssssstmaaaaaaaas! If you don’t hear this song at least twenty times between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, is it really Christmas? Whether it’s Noddy Holder’s iconic festive scream or that classic guitar and keyboard riff, this is Christmas in a song.

Christmas Feeling: Like putting the decorations up and finding your hands coated in glitter. You’re not getting that glitter off your hands for the rest of today, nor are you getting this song out of your head for the rest of the month.

Wham! – Last Christmas, 1986

I can already say that I’m not a fan. The synths, the cheesy chorus, the images of George Michael sadly hanging around a ski lodge. It’s almost unbearably on the nose for a love-related Christmas song. This one doesn’t remind me of the festive season, so much as it reminds me of a sad festive breakup. (You can check out an alternative review of Last Christmas by Mark Wong.)

Christmas Feeling: Like when your mum gets the cheese and crackers out on the 29th of December, but you’ve had cheese and crackers every day since the 25th. You’ve been having cheese filled nightmares. Cheese is all you can think about. Cheese.

Lower than Atlantis – Merry Christmas (Wherever You Are), 2012

A relative unknown, but possibly the only Christmas song this side of the 90’s that I actually enjoy! Just a good festive filled track about hanging with your friends and family at this time of the year. The chorus is the kind of infectious tune people yell at the pub on Christmas eve.

Christmas Feeling: Like finishing work early on the 22nd knowing you have ten days off and heading home to be with your friends and family.

The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping, 1982

As a true cynic at heart, I can definitely get behind the message Christmas Wrapping is trying to get across. The terrible attempt at rapping (wrapping/rapping haha geddit?) that comes off like a terrible attempt at spoken word aside, the message of skipping Christmas because life gets hectic (and doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas) is extremely relatable. A good cynical Christmas song is just the ticket sometimes.

Christmas Feeling: When you’ve tried to wrap the same present for the sixth time and messed it up, again, so you decide you’re just going to skip it this year and go into hibernation for the rest of the winter.