The Worst Christmas Songs That Will Make You A Miser

You know Dasher and Dancer and Pran…ugh, you know the rest.

Yes, Virginia, there may be a Santa Claus, but the music of the holiday season can take you from feeling to wincing at the ringing of a bell.

But even bad songs are difficult to categorize into a list, and picking some of the worst offenders is highly subjective.

While many are quick to disparage “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” it is a difficult song to analyze. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of icky factors in the Oscar-winning duet made famous by Dean Martin and Marilyn Maxwell, which seemingly anyone with vocal cords can master. But when you put it in the context that songwriter Frank Loesser wrote it to sing with his wife to get guests to leave their housewarming party, it feels like the cancellation police are taking a beating.

Another popular candidate is “Wonderful Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney. It should be impossible to denigrate such a well-intentioned tune, which also has a wonderful McCartney melody, but some people can’t stand its cheesy overtones.

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There are many other audible carbon lumps to avoid. Here are the 10 worst Christmas songs.

10. NSYNC, “I never knew what Christmas meant”

Isn’t Christmas about the birth of Christ, spending time with people and exchanging gifts, visiting Santa at the mall (or whatever virtual version there is), or delving into tinsel and trees?

Not according to Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, because for NSYNC the meaning of Christmas is all about… finding a girlfriend. Then, and only then, when you realize, “in all the hustle and bustle, I missed so much,” to “girl, you finally let me see,” you will truly understand the spirit of Christmas.

9. Neil Diamond, “Cherry Cherry Christmas”

This feels like a song that came out of a marketing meeting. “Hey, let’s see if Neil can turn some of his most popular song titles and phrases into a Christmas song.” “Great idea! His fans will eat it up!”

Some probably did. And while Diamond is undeniably one of contemporary music’s most notable songwriters, this is a song sung blue for all the wrong reasons.

8. The Killers, “Don’t Shoot Me Santa”

If ever a Christmas song deserved a question: “What drugs were they on when they recorded this?” reaction, this is it.

It feels like the band is playing a prank on the fans. The strange conversation between singer Brandon Flowers (“Don’t shoot me, Santa, I was a clean boy, I promise you”) and Santa Claus (“The party’s over, boy, ’cause I got a bullet in my head with my gun”) . The sluggish beat that suddenly builds into what would be a decent chorus in any other context, before spiraling again. And the video shows an evil Santa Claus holding flowers hostage in the desert as he gleefully digs his grave.

Maybe this was all intended as satire, but as Katy Perry learned this year, sometimes sarcastic is just plain stupid.

7. The Pussycat Dolls, “Santa Baby”

There are only two acceptable versions of this song: the original by Eartha Kitt and Madonna. This big band version of a song already teetering with terminal absurdity wants to be lush and seductive. But instead it’s flat and charmless, with singing (from many of the puppets) on par with the fun karaoke planned for the workplace Christmas party.

6. Lou Monte, “Dominick the Donkey”

The guy who popularized “Pepino the Italian Mouse” turns his questionable charm into an Italian Christmas donkey who helps Santa deliver presents (“made in Brooklyn,” of course). Dominick wisely doesn’t have much to say other than “la la la” because Monte and songwriters Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Wandra Merrell – yes, it took three people to write this drivel – are too busy playing the rhythmic “That’s Amore” thread to focus on the lyrics.

5. New Kids on the Block, “Funky Funky Xmas”

If you make it past the first 12 seconds, where “ho ho ho” is delivered with bizarre singing intended to (we think) sound like Santa Claus, you’ve been listening longer than necessary.

Taken from the 1989 “Merry, Merry Christmas” album between boy band breakthrough “Hangin’ Tough” and its successful follow-up “Step By Step,” this song is a product of popularity and blatant greed for money (see: NSYNC). .

Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and Jonathan and Jordan Knight half-rap over an irritating electronic backbeat like the Beastie Boys wannabes. Meanwhile, James Brown is rolling in his grave about how ridiculous it is that this tripe is called “funky.”

More:Bob Geldof calls ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ an ‘instrument of change’ amid criticism

4. Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, “The Little Drummer”

There really aren’t many ways to screw up a simple ballad that only requires a rolling snare drum as required instrumentation, but leave it to the 2004 Simpson sisters to burn it all down.

Their breathy pronunciation, coupled with a dripping string arrangement and some oddly placed horns, don’t help. And that’s before the song turns into a misguided gallop, before the two go back to drawing out each syllable of the song as if it were their lifeline.

3. NewSong, “The Christmas Shoes”

Look, even the Scroogiest among us can’t condemn a song for supposedly trying to show the true meaning of the holiday through the story song of a little boy who wants to buy his dying mother a pair of shoes for Christmas but doesn’t Since he has enough money, he asks a stranger in line at the shoe store (?) for help.

Oh, wait. Yes, we can.

2. Elmo and Patsy, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”

The story of an elderly lady who gets bulldozed by Rudolph because she drank too much eggnog and forgot to take her medication might make a six-year-old laugh, but isn’t that a little, oh, you know, cruel? And forget Grandma’s rotten husband, who is so distraught over her untimely death that he “drinks beer and plays cards” with Cousin Mel.

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The Worst Christmas Songs That Will Make You A Miser

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