The 50 Best Original Christmas Songs Since ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’
Queen of Christmas, meet your disciples.
Illustration: Carolyn Figel
In 2017, Berklee musicologist Joe Bennett published a lighthearted study on
commonalities in the music and lyrics of Christmas songs. Written with a
Santa-like wink, Bennett posited that the “ultimate Christmas song”
would likely include some variation of his findings: A whopping 95
percent of the surveyed tracks were in a major key, and 90 percent were
in the 4/4 time signature that echoes clopping horses and jangling
sleigh bells. Home, romance, family, and the usual trappings of
Christmas were also in the lyrical mix, with words like snow, party, and Santa cropping up.
Unsurprisingly,
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” considered the peak
of modern Christmas music, checks all of Bennett’s boxes. Combining the
vibe of a lost track from 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector with
the production of a mid-’90s pop song, the lovelorn open letter helped
land the octave-vaulting Carey the unofficial title of “Queen of
Christmas.” The single has since become synonymous with the season, and
has topped the Holiday 100 for 52 weeks, since the chart began in 2011.
(It’s already re-entered the Hot 100 this year, landing at No. 25 on the November 26 chart.) Meanwhile, Carey has so embraced the Queen of Christmas ideal — this despite a recent legal ruling denying her a trademark of the title — that her November 1 videos where she trills “It’s tiii-iimmme!” have become the unofficial seasonal kickoff.
Yes,
“All I Want” is indeed wonderful. But its 28-year reign over charts and
hearts has meant that other, more modern Christmas tracks have been
relegated to lower ranks of holiday playlists, despite their merit. If
“All I Want” were a car, the almost three-decade-old tune would have
graduated from classic to antique by now, putting it in the company of
Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (38 years old) or Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful
Christmastime” (42). Consider the following 50 songs, including another
from the queen herself, the new classics — those Christmas
tunes created in the last quarter-century that have the potential to
become holly, jolly staples. Nearly every one fulfills Bennett’s basic
criteria for an ideal holiday track (some better than others), but only
one has the commercial appeal and ear worm potential to compete against
the queen herself.
50. The Snaildartha 6, “Snaildartha: The Story of Jerry the Christmas Snail” (2004)
Thanksgiving has “Alice’s Restaurant”;
Christmas has “Snaildartha.” This 2004 composition tells the tale of
Jerry the Christmas Snail, whose search for enlightenment leads him to
the North Pole and a surprising revelation about who he is at his core.
(It’s based on the story of the Buddha, hence the title.) Written by
Minneapolis-based composer Chris Strouth, narrated by comedian Matt
Fugate, and performed by a loose-limbed jazz combo that includes
saxophonist George Cartwright, “Snaildartha” is a 45-ish-minute
investment that gets even better with repeated listenings. Its vibe
makes it an ideal lazy Christmas Day soundtrack, and its story is a balm
for existentially troubled holiday revelers. Could the Snaildartha 6
wear a crown fit for Mariah Carey, though? Likely not, thus its spot at
No. 50.
49. Cheap Trick, “I Want You for Christmas” (2012)
Since
its release in 1977, Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” has been one
of power pop’s greatest achievements, a rollicking riff with some
genuine longing on the part of frontman Robin Zander. This Yuletide
re-skinning of the song isn’t the most original Christmas tune out
there; the realization that “to want me” and “for Christmas” had a
similar cadence probably caused a lot of high-fiving in the studio. But
the way it channels its source material’s carnality does echo the more
gift-receiving-centric songs of the season.
48. The Vandals, “Oi! To the World” (1996)
SoCal
punks the Vandals’ entry to the Christmas-song canon is a punchy fable
about a Christmas Day clash between a punk and a skinhead where the good
guys win. Fellow Golden Staters No Doubt covered this cut for 1997’s A Very Special Christmas 3,
but Dave Quackenbush’s vocal on the original gives the final
proclamation from God — “Oi to the punks and Oi to the skins / But Oi to
the world and everybody wins” — an extra shove.
47. Ingrid Michaelson, “Happy, Happy Christmas” (2018)
This
melancholic ballad feels like a 21st-century update of “Have Yourself a
Merry Little Christmas”; it’s part-holiday song, part-elegy for the
singer-songwriter’s mother, who she had spent every holiday with before
her passing in 2017. While the way Michaelson’s voice breaks on the line
“They say time flies, and baby, it’s true” is a gut-punch, the
string-laden track grapples with grief in a way that is suffused with
love.
46. Kate Nash, “I Hate You This Christmas” (2013)
Nash’s
repertoire is studded with catchy, biting songs about rocky moments in
romantic relationships. The crunchy, punky opening track on her first
Christmas EP is no different, with its first verse depicting an
office-party-drunk Nash walking in on her boyfriend and best friend
getting it on. Her vitriol is punctuated by some real-life worries —
how’s she going to tell her mom about this? — that only make her
cresting anger more righteous, and more sing-along-ready, a crucial
attribute for an “All I Want” successor.
45. Harvey Danger, “Sometimes You Have to Work at Christmas (Sometimes)” (1998)
A
scruffy ode to service-industry workers who are obligated to spend
their festive season taking care of customers (in this case, a movie
theater attended by “15 soggy patrons who have nowhere to be”), this
offering from Seattle’s Harvey Danger is a tenderly rendered set piece
about the holidays’ less-glamorous corners capped by a spat-out chorus
and a shimmying, giddy breakdown.
44. JoJo, “December Baby” (2020)
This
breezy soul-pop cut has longing for love at its core — “Just keep
followin’ the North Star / It’ll light the way crystal clear,” JoJo
instructs her missing paramour — but its simmering beat and JoJo’s
honey-dipped vocal are cheer-inducing enough to make this song feel
downright festive.
43. The Long Blondes, “Christmas Is Cancelled” (2005)
The
narrator of this chugging indie-pop cut has received an entirely
unpleasant surprise for the holidays: her no-good ex, who’s shown up “in
Christmas stockings (how shocking!)” to make the case for crawling back
into her good graces. Long Blondes vocalist Kate Jackson’s steely alto
is exquisite at conveying battle-of-the-sexes-borne disgust, telling her
ex in no uncertain terms that the prospect of watching the queen on TV
while having some solo fish and chips is a much better present than any
reconciliation. It’s almost the opposite of ‘All I Want,” an admirable
stance for a new classic to take.
42. Juliana Hatfield, “Christmas Cactus” (2020)
This
shimmering ode to a stubbornly non-blooming plant that’s supposed to
come into flower is a great metaphor for dashed holiday hopes — although
Hatfield, whose recent run of songwriting productivity led to this
track about an actual plant of hers, is pretty Zen about the whole
thing. “I have faith that someday it may bloom,” Hatfield told the Boston Globe in 2020. “But if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.”
41. Alphabeat, “Xmas (Let’s Do It Again)” (2012)
Danish
collective Alphabeat specialized in time-suspended dance-pop that was
relentlessly cheery even as vocalists Stine Bramsen and Anders Stig
Gehrt Nielsen described longing and sadness. Their 2012 Christmas single
is all about stoking merriment, though; Bramsen’s laser-beam soprano
intertwines with Nielsen’s affable voice as they welcome the world to
their party over pillowy synths.
40. Beach Bunny, “Christmas Caller” (2021)
The
TikTok-beloved indie-pop band’s first Christmas single is a hooky
throwback to the call-me-maybe era, with Lili Trifilio longing to hear
the voice of an ex: “We can pretend the holiday antics / Give us an
excuse to speak,” she suggests over choppy riffs and snow-flecked
synths. She doesn’t get an answer — the doo-doo-doo’s that close out the
song suggest that she’s figured out ways to distract herself — but the
song’s sweetness and longing make it hard not to root for her. It’s one
of the younger classics on the list, so it still has room to rise.
39. The Monkees, “Christmas Party” (2018)
The
late-2010s resurgence of the Monkees resulted in a pair of albums
helmed by the late Adam Schlesinger that showed how the Prefab Four had
influenced so many modern pop masters. Christmas Party, the
2018 release that wound up being the Monkees’ final album, included
tracks penned by Rivers Cuomo and Andy Partridge alongside familiar
cuts. “Christmas Party,” written by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Young Fresh
Fellows’ Scott McCaughey and sung by Micky Dolenz, is a sun-dappled bit
of psych-pop that channels the band’s later-period experimental side as
it describes a party with such a lengthy guest list that the band’s
former foil Auntie Grizelda snagged an invite.
38. The Both, “Nothing Left to Do (Let’s Make This Christmas Blue)” (2014)
Aimee
Mann and Ted Leo describe holiday-season ennui in painstaking detail on
this gently glum guitar-pop cut, which showcases their collective
songwriting prowess in impressive fashion. Lesser songwriters would have
their depictions of holiday loneliness descend into self-pity, but Mann
and Leo instead sigh and “turn the radio on and wait for somеone to
sing me through.”
37. Lizzo, “Never Felt Like Christmas” (2015)
Lizzo’s
pre-megafame holiday song celebrates how the Yuletide season can double
as cuffing season. Listening to this seven years after its release
shows how fully formed the Minneapolis singer, rapper, flautist, and
mogul’s aesthetic was even then through how she balances honesty (in the
old days, “I would rather paint my nails and watch some bad TV” while
others were celebrating) with her overwhelming charisma and powerhouse
voice.
36. The 1975, “Wintering” (2022)
Throughout
their career, Britpop heirs the 1975 have been refining their
human-condition observations. But their peppy entry into the
holiday-song canon, which appeared on this year’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language,
shows how their trenchant observations have a beating heart at their
core. A brisk whirl through overheard family conversations about
logistics and gossip that sonically recalls early-’80s modern-rock
holiday offerings like Squeeze’s “Christmas Day,” it illustrates how
exhausting yet gratifying going home for the holidays can be: “It’s
Christmas so this is gonna be a nightmare / I just came for the
stuffing, not to argue about nothing / But mark my words, I’ll be home
on the 23rd,” Healy vows near the song’s end, belying his enjoyment of
the sometimes-exasperating times.
35. Sally Shapiro, “Anorak Christmas” (2006)
This
mid-2000s cut by the Swedish disco duo of Sally Shapiro and Johan
Agebjörn is an icy synth-dance ode to an out-of-reach crush Shapiro met
at a concert. The outro, where Shapiro repeats “Don’t go, don’t go” as
if she’s trying to beam it into her affection object’s brain, is
hypnotic enough to be worthy of its own remix. (For the record, Mariah’s
“All I Want for Christmas” got its own official remix in 2003, with
Jermaine Dupri and Bow Wow.)
34. Lil Jon, “All I Really Want for Christmas (feat. Kool-Aid Man)” (2018)
Being a relati
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