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My Top 25 Most-Played Christmas Songs For 2023
🕑 Added 2023-12-26 17:01:15 +0000 UTCYou thought that the simple fact of it being after December 25 meant you’d be free of hearing me talk about Christmas songs. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO I AM. Yes, I have once again returned to my list-making ways and exhaustively compiled a detailed chart of my holiday listening habits for 2023. And by that I mean told Apple Music to sort everything in the “Holiday” genre by “Plays” and just wrote down whatever the top songs were by Christmas night. Now, if you’re somehow as obsessive about Christmas music as I am and actually READ these blogs, you might remember that I didn’t actually do one of these blogs last year. See, after several straight years of tallying up my most-played Christmas songs… I realized it was mostly the same list every year, just moved around a bit. It seems astoundingly obvious in retrospect, but the play count doesn’t just reset itself at the start of a new year, or at least I don’t know any way to TELL it to short of just manually erasing things. The point is, after just a couple years, the songs at the top of the list had amassed SO many plays that their lead over everything else was pretty much impossible to challenge. Heck, even if I actually DIDN’T listen to a song much one year, it still could have made the list simply because there was no way I’d be able to listen to any OTHER songs enough times to overtake the accumulate plays of previous Christmases. There’s probably some cynical lessons about life in general to be mined out of that, but I don’t feel like trying to make it work. Besides, I had a nice way out dropped into my lap. As you may have heard me complain elsewhere, I had a rather torturous but ultimately successful move onto a new computer over 2023, which just so happened to result in all that iTunes data being reset whether I wanted it to or not. It’s a clean slate! A new start! My previous listening habits have no effect on the numbers THIS year, it’s a perfectly accurate snapshot of where my ears have been at in 2023. And you know what? I actually find it quite interesting to see the ways in which this list still resembles the previous ones, but also the important ways in which is DOESN’T. Because yeah, this one is actually shaken up a LOT more than the ones that led me to take a break from this idea last year. In fact, even the blog I DID make last year -a look at the odd stats of which songs by which artists I’ve actually played the most- is even wildly out of date now. There’s a few major oddities that have crept their ways up to the top of the list, and some major oddities from previous years have suddenly corrected themselves out of freaking nowhere. It’s a Christmas miracle all around! So let’s all look at what holiday cheer I was stuffing into my ear holes the past… more weeks than everybody else, probably.
25. “Christmas Is…” - Percy Faith
And right off the bat, we wave a song that will be VERY familiar to anybody’s who’s been listening to me blab on about Christmas music. Aside from having the sort of title that’s very difficult to structure sentences around without repeating the word “is” in a very awkward way, “Christmas Is…” hearkens back to that very first blog post I ever did about Christmas songs I wish were more popular. One version of another has appeared on my top song list ever since, with this being the original by composer Percy Faith. This also makes a very fitting introduction to this year’s festivities, because I REALLY wound up hitting the orchestral stuff hard this year. I’ve mentioned many times how my tastes in Christmas music were formed by a few cassette tapes full of orchestral Easy Listening and New Age/Smooth Jazz/Contemporary Instrumental stuff, but one of the big shifts in my tastes this year as been a surprising move away from the latter. I’m not saying there’s NO Mannheim Steamroller or the like to follow, but there is a lot more Elevator Music like Percy Faith’s stuff to come. Case in point…
24. "Deck The Halls" - Percy Faith
Don’t worry, this is the only place on the whole list where we double dip from the same artist like this. We come CLOSE to a few more repeat performances, but this is the only place where we don’t have at least ONE stray song slipping in to break up the monotony. And the funny thing is, this isn’t even THAT much of a monotonous case. As tempting as it’d be to play up the whole Elevator Music big from the previous entry, Percy Faith’s arrangement of “Deck The Halls” doesn’t sound anywhere near as “50s Supermarket” as “Christmas Is…” Instead, Faith goes hard on the Folk tune angle for this version of the song, resulting in a sound that’s much more traditionally “Classical” than one would normally expect from him. Look, just because you’ve got an orchestra doesn’t mean you actually sound sophisticated. The thing I’ve always loved about this version in particular is the bridge, where the song briefly goes into this whole minor key version of the melody that I’ve never heard in any other rendition. It really drives home the Folk song angle, and gives the whole arrangement a very unique identity. And with the sheer number of versions of “Deck The Halls” out there, finding a way to stand out it pretty important.
23. “Oh, What A Merry Christmas Day” - The Disney Studio Holiday Chorus
Another song that will be familiar to readers of those “Why Don’t We Hear This Song More?” blogs, I must confess that I'm a little unhappy with that credit up there. This is the theme song to Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and while the composers were obviously easy enough to track down (in fact, I nearly cited THEM for this entry) the credits don’t seem to identify the actual singers on the recording. Call me crazy, but I don't think "The Disney Studio Holiday Chorus" was every a functioning performance entity outside outside of this one credit. Presumably they were just a few of the many nameless, faceless drones bred in the top secret labs underneath Disneyland, and thus are only identified by serial numbers not names. On that cheerful note, I really do still love “Oh, What A Merry Christmas Day” and wish it could get out from under the iron boot of The Mouse and become the traditional holiday standard it was obvious written to sound like.
22. “Catching Snowflakes on Your Tongue” - Mannheim Steamroller
See? I TOLD you we’d see some Mannheim Steamroller on this list, and what’s more, this one also keeps the blog streak alive! “Catching Snowflakes on Your Tongue” is one of the token original tunes sprinkled in between the covers of Christmas standards, and one that I wouldn’t at all mind hearing become a standard unto itself. Yes, it’s really just a matter of jingle bell production keeping “Catching Snowflakes” from sounding like every other non-Holiday Mannheim Steamroller song, but that production goes a long way. I mean, I’ve clearly listened to it more and the overwhelming majority of the covers this year. That’s gotta count for something, right? Anyway, this song walks a tightrope between the spacey, synth-driven sound of certain well known Steamroller song and the lush orchestral texture of certain others. It’s got just enough of a pulsing beat underneath to sound like more than the Folksy jig that the melody would sound like otherwise, but it’s doesn’t have that Prog-meets-New Wave ‘80s vibe either. It’s timeless in a way that really sound like it should have used in an ad campaign at some point, and what greater testament to cultural relevancy is there?
21. “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” - Jackie Gleason
Okay, here’s one we HAVEN’T seen before, with a name you probably NEVER expected to see in this context. And no, this isn’t the Honeymooners guy belting out some Christmas standards, the song’s an instrumental. In fact, that was the case for all of Gleason’s unexpectedly lengthy, and unexpectedly lucrative discography. Seriously, you’ll never hear any modern Rock or Pop historians talk about it, but Jackie Gleason was one of the top-selling artists of the ‘50s… if you take an especially forgiving definition of “artist.” See, there’s a longstanding debate over how much input Jackie Gleason actual had into Jackie Gleason albums, with multiple sources suggesting he just hired people to make the kind of music he liked and released it under his own name. So, basically, Jackie Gleason was the DJ Khaled in the 1950s, which is a WEIRD mental image. In any case, Gleason’s 1956 album Merry Christmas is very much in keeping with his Easy Listening brand, just with a bit of that Holiday twist. To the uneducated, it’d probably sound a lot like the Percy Faith songs we heard earlier, what with the using whole orchestras and all, though Gleason concocts a rather different atmosphere. Where Faith is perky to the point of coming across as kitschy, Gleason strives to be more romantic, with lots of swooning horn solos. If Percy Faith is the soundtrack of a brightly decorated department store, the Jackie Gleason is the sound of a smoky, swanky nightclub. And hey, even swanky nightclubs need to celebrate Christmas in one way or another, right?
20. “Christmas Waltz” - Hagood Hardy
Another perennial entry on these lists, and another example of how Easy Listening conquered my Christmas this year. Hagood Hardy was a well establish Jazz vibraphonist and soundtrack composer, a guy who’s biggest hit was a song we wrote as the jingle to a commercial for tea. That should really tell you all you need to know right there. Although his Christmas Album -from whence this version of “Christmas Waltz” hails- was released in 1980, it absolutely sounds like the kind of thing that could have been recorded in the early ‘50s. I’m clearly not bothered by this, though, seeing as how ol’ Hardy keep appearing on these round-ups. It does make it a little hard to keep coming up with new things to say about it, “Christmas Waltz” though. Instead, I’ll try to explain how all of these Easy Listening songs aren’t QUITE as same as they all might appear at first glance. I mean, this is literally a genre built to be ignored, so it’s easy to think it all sounds the same. The most obvious thing is that Hardy’s “Christmas Waltz” has far less prominent orchestral elements, with his vibes front and center the whole time. What that results in is a mood ever so slightly different than what the previous examples got up to. If the Jackie Gleason “Let Is Snow” is a swanky nightclub, then Hagood Hardy’s “Christmas Waltz” is a fancy hotel lobby, if that makes any sense. It’s classier and lets kitsch than Percy Faith, but less seductive than Gleason’s preferred sound… which is not a sentence I enjoyed writing, so let’s move on.
19. “Merry Little Stroll Medley” - Fourplay
Fourplay are a Smooth Jazz band who’ve had a song or two creep up into these Top Whatever Christmas Songs blogs before, though I don’t think this particular track has ever been the one to make it into the finalist category before. As the title indicates, this one’s a bit of a mash-up, combining the melody of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” with one of Fourplay’s own songs: "Midnight Stroll." I’ve been listening to “Merry Little Stroll Medley” for years now, but the very first time I ever heard “Midnight Stroll” in my life was a few hours ago in preparation for writing this blog. It’s… fine, I guess. I’m sure some Vaporwave producers somewhere have gotten some good samples out of it at one point or another (That’s the only way Fourplay showed up on my radar in the first place). Still, I don’t think you have to be a Christmas junkie like me to think that injecting the familiar “Merry Little Christmas” melody into the mix helps give it a lot more of a sense of focus, or at the very least a more catchy hook. And hey, if nothing else, now you can rest assured that the rest of this list won’t ENTIRELY be me talking about Big Band leaders and orchestral Easy Listening! I still remember that electric instruments exist!
18. “I Saw Three Ships” - David Arkenstone
See? SEE? How electric is THIS? David Arkenstone was one of the big New Age artists of the 80s/90s, and while he didn’t try to cash in on the post-Mannheim Steamroller Christmas gold rush as badly as a lot of his contemporaries, he wasn’t immune to contributing a song or two to a bunch of Holiday samplers over the years. I’ve told this story before, but for years and years, I assumed this WAS a Mannheim Steamroller song. I was introduced to it on a tape recorded off the radio, so I had no track listings to work from, and just LISTEN to this thing! It’s a mildly Prog-tinged epic full of swooping synths and a general air of soaring elegance that totally sounds like it could be the theme to some early ‘90s made for TV movie. Of COURSE Young Me would assume it was a Steamroller song! Anyway, while I might apparently be getting tired of this general breed of Christmas music, the David Arkenstone version of “I Saw Three Ships” is still one of those song where it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until it plays. And if it’s on this list, that means it must have felt like Christmas a lot.
17. “Carol of the Bells” - The Bird and The Bee
And speaking of getting tired of things, here comes the part where I bemoan how I totally got over all the Indie Pop I was so in to during college! The Bird and The Bee were a bit of a thing for a while in the late-aughts, mostly on the strength of semi-ironic Indie-riffic covers of familiar songs. Like, say, I dunno, a traditional Christmas tune. I was all-out this kind of retro-futuristic Exotica revival at the time, so I jumped all over a Christmas song in the style. And such was my holiday obsession that I managed to keep this song in rotation well after I’d mostly give up on this style, and not without good reason. Even setting aside the whole retro-kitsch aspect, this is a very clever and creative re-arangement of “Carol of the Bells,” relying more on preserving the iconic rhythmic structure than the actual melody. It’s honestly impressive just how many extra musical cues the song can play around with while retaining that “dun DAHDAH dun, dun DAHDAH dun” beat and still be recognizable as “Carol the Bells.” And the new musical flourishes are quite nice. I know I was just talking about me “getting over” early ‘00s Indie Pop, but it’s not like I hate it now or anything, I just don’t need to hear it that often. In a way, that’s PERFECT for Holiday music! It’s the season of music I don’t normally listen to!
16. “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” - Bing Crosby & David Bowie
Okay, this one has made it onto the list before, but it’s a good point at which to mention how this year’s musical journey wound up being different than Christmas past. When I did that Christmas Musical Oddities blog last year, one of the key points was how comparatively little Bing Crosby I usually listened to. This right here was the most-played Crosby song on the list: literally one of the last songs he ever recorded. All the usual heavy hitters were weirdly low on the chart in favor or comparatively odd and obscure cover versions. Well, NOT THIS YEAR, BABY! After years of avoiding a lot of the most obvious, most over-played Christmas standards in favor of more rarely-heard stuff, I’ve worked my way into a unique situation where a lot of those standards ARE the rarely-heard stuff! That’s honestly a pretty nice position to be in, and I will absolutely give myself some smug self-congratulation for pulling it off. In the meantime, though, what do I say about this song that I haven’t said in blogs past? I’ve already told the story of how this was the first David Bowie song I’d ever heard, and I already got the bit about it being Crosby’s literal swan song out of the way. Um, how about how, when I first hear the tape this song was on, there was no warning that this was more than just a straight cover? Yeah, it was another of my Dad’s tapes off the the radio, and there wasn’t and DJ intro for it, so we’re one verse into a normal duet and all of a sudden one of the guys veers off into this entirely different song, and Young Me is all “Wait, you can DO that?”
15. “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” - Wizzard
Another song that’s been on my Christmas Songs People Don’t Know blogs that people ABSOLUTELY know, just not here. I’ve gradually noticed this song start to creep into the American holiday conscious more and more every year, but it’s still nowhere near the omnipresent standard that it is over in the UK. And I can see why, it’s kind of a lot to take in musically, especially for a song that’s about an already very controversial opinion regarding how much Christmas we should have. But hey, beneath all the proto-Glam excess, this is still a really solid Ron Wood composition that nails the vague and ill-defined “Christmas sound” without obviously having to rip off any better known compositions in the process. Honestly, the most surprising thing to me is that it’s the original that’s made it onto the most-played list for me. I’d originally encountered this song via a cover my All Star United, and for a while I greatly preferred that version for sanding off a lot of the more potentially obnoxious campiness. And yet here we are. But hey, what is Christmas if not the time of potentially obnoxious things we all do anyway?
14. “Christmastime Is Here (Vocal) - The Vince Guaraldi Trio
Back again with the all-time classics, but one that I was initially worried wouldn’t make the list at all. See, one of the inherent problems with my whole “just write down the iTunes stats” strategy, at least when combine with the slate being wiped clean and all the numbers being reset to zero, is that multiple songs being tied at the same number will be sorted alphabetically. And when an artist’s name starts with something like a “V,” that song is always going to be pushed down to the bottom of the list. So for pretty deep into December, I’d glance over at the plays and continue to be amazed at how low all the Charlie Brown Christmas songs were ranking, despite me KNOWING I’d been hearing them. It wasn’t until the play counts started getting high enough for the top bracket to not have any ties that “Christmastime Is Here” finally started to leapfrog over the other songs and take its rightful place up top. And it debatably could have ranked higher if I were to add in the Instrumental version, or the rare alternate version that recently entered circulation that has the kids on vocals, but only singing “loo loo loooooooo”-s instead of the actual lyrics. If the insidious nature of the English alphabet at kept holding the song down, I might have gone ahead and done that, but a good ol’ Christmas miracle happened and it broke through on its own. Merry Christmas Charlie Brown indeed.
13. “When Christmas Comes” - Sy Mann
Well now, look at this! Yet ANOTHER entry from the Obscure Christmas Songs blogs makes it onto the big boy list! And I’m pretty sure this is the first time this one has climbed so high in the rankings, too. As far as I can tell, the only recorded version of “When Christmas Comes” is an instrumental version included on a collection of Moog synthesizer tunes, but seeing as how the bulk of that album is covers of familiar holiday standards, I have the sneaking suspicion that there’s at least one other version SOMEWHERE out there, possibly with lyrics. I certainly hope so, because this is a lovely little melody that I’d very much like to hear in other contexts. Like, you know, not a gimmicky early synthesizer fad cash-in. It’s another song that manages to inexplicably “sound Christmas-y” to me just by musical means alone, though in this case it kind of cheats by quoting “The Christmas Song” and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" at the beginning plus “Silent Night” at the end. Still, even the originally crafted melody scratches that itch for me even without lyrics, which just makes it all the more tantalizing that it honestly SOUNDS like the sort of melody that was written with words in mind. Seriously, I really want to know if there’s an earlier version of this song with lyrics lurking in some dusty used record bin somewhere.
12. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” - Mantovani
Ah yes, we’ve talked about THIS one before. Mantovani is another big name in the orchestral Easy listening space, though in his case that’s leaning waaaay harder into the “classy” side than the “kitschy” side. Remember what I was saying earlier about Jackie Gleason’s brand of Easy Listening sounding like a nightclub? Well, if we’re continuing with that thought experiment, then Mantovani is the sound of your great grandmother’s living room. This is some VERY stiff and stuff, “proper” music right here, the kind of stuff where even The Boston Pops would seem loose and free-wheeling by comparison. If you’ve ever gone flipping through the vinyl selection at a Goodwill or wherever, Mantovani is exactly the kind of stuff you flip past while complaining that somebody already beat to all the good stuff. And yet, I still bust his stuff out every Christmas, especially this one right here. Now, Mantovani’s version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” has nostalgia on its side thanks to being on one of those tapes my Dad made, but even on it’s own strength this is probably my favorite recording of the song ever. See, I’m pretty sure I’ve done this rant before, but “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is better understood as a participatory party game than a song, just passively listening to somebody else sing it properly misses the point. In order to make up for the lack of all your buddies tripping over each other and laughing about it, a good “Twelve Days” cover really needs to do something else to liven up the arrangement, and Mantovani absolutely brings the good in that department. This song is constantly shifting styles and adding in extra flourishes for every additional line, which makes things a thousand times less repetitive… and also way too long, but sacrifices have to be made SOMEWHERE, right?
11. “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” - Hollyridge Strings
Ya’ll thought I was kidding before, but here’s ANOTHER orchestral Easy Listening entry, and one I HAVEN’T talked about before! The others all had some figurehead band leader or producer to be the face of the operation, but those are honestly the exceptions to the rule. Case in point, the name “Hollyridge Strings” was apparently just stamped onto any Easy Listening albums recorded in-house for Capitol Records in the ‘60s, regardless of which musicians or producers were involved. They were best known (to the extent they could be said to be “known” at all) for doing Elevator Music versions of Beach Boys and Beatles hits, coincidentally also Capitol artists. This is very much on the Percy Faith side of the Easy Listening equation, though the heavy use of harpsichord here makes it sound every so slightly hipper by 1965 standards. Either way, there’s still an awful lot of kitsch on display here. If Percy Faith is the sound of a fancy department store, then Hollyridge Strings is a job training filmstrip about how fancy department stores operate. I’m really coming across as extra snarky as I write this, but I honestly do really enjoy this stuff as relaxing background music, which is obviously what it was scientifically concocted to be.
10. “White Christmas” - Bing Crosby
On the one hand, it could be seen as a shocking upset that “THE” Christmas song is only scraping the very bottom of the top ten here, but the true shock is that Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” as literally NEVER been on my list before. I know, right? The biggest takeaway of that Oddities blog las year was how much Bing Crosby DIDN’T factor into my Christmas listening habits. Heck, one year my most listened to version of “White Christmas” was by freakin’ Kenny G, though most of the time it was a version by Tony Bennet that took the top spot. But this year, something happened. I just had one of those epiphany moments where I was like “Oh right, this is one of the most legendary Christmas songs ever for a reason. Why have I not played it more?” All of a sudden I started hitting it REALLY hard, and it was the right call every single time. I can’t even come up with anything else to say about “White Christmas” that everybody hasn’t already said a hundred times before, other than this is sort of the best example yet of why I try to amass as huge a collection of holiday music as possible. This is one of the most over-exposed recordings in the history of the record industry, and I could go YEARS barely hearing it without even trying. And as a result, when I DID sit down and listen to it again, it still felt fresh and I could appreciate it for what it actually was. I’ve had the same experience with songs like “Stairway to Heaven” too, and it’s always a rewarding experience. This is why it pays to be an obsessive music nerd, kids!
9. “Christmas Waltz” - Carpenters
Is this the first repeat song on this list? It… KIND OF is. Technically, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” showed up twice, but the first version was Fourplay’s weird mashup with “Midnight Stroll,” so the Hollyridge Strings version was the first “regular” version on here. There’s no such drastic reinterpretation separating the Hagood Hardy and Carpenters version of “Christmas Waltz,” though, just the fact that one has vocals and the other doesn’t. And make no mistake, the addition of Karen Carpenter singing is mind of a big addition, no matter what you’re talking about. My Carpenters appreciation has only increased as the years go on, and the Christmas records are very much where it all started. For many years, the Carpenters entries on those Christmas tapes I’m always talking about were the only songs of theirs I even knew… at least, until I pieced together that the song The Simpsons repeatedly made jokes about was “Close To You,” and that I honestly liked it a lot more than they seemed to. Oh, and speaking of things I like more than a lot of other people…
8. “Wonderful Christmastime” - Paul McCartney
Yeah, I’ve said this piece before, but as much as I can totally see people’s legitimate criticisms of this song’s lack of polish and generally unfinished feel, I can never truly dislike it. There’s the obvious fact that I loved The Beatles ever since I was a kid, and here’s a Beatles-adjacent Christmas song, so of course I was gonna like it. But then, John Lennon also made a Christmas song, and I’m honestly pretty sick of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” these days, so that’s clearly not the only factor at play here. I think what really keeps “Wonderful Christmastime” in my good graces is, oddly, all the Easy Listening stuff we’ve seen so far. If you think about it, the messy layer of synths all over this song is TRYING to evoke the same feel as the cascading strings effect in so many Percy Faith and Mantovani recordings, only in electronic form. It’s too slapdash and unfocused to really land as intended, but I still find that a really interesting idea (especially since, when George Martin originally suggested adding a string section to “Yesterday,” Paul apparently specifically told him NOT to make it sound like Mantovani). But who am I kidding? The nostalgia factor is still incredibly strong with this one, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
7. “Silver Bells” - Bing Crosby
Another incredibly obvious pick that I frequently passed over in favor of other stuff in previous years. Heck, one year my most listened to version of “Silver Bells” was a Jazz guitar cover by Jay Leno bandleader Kevin Eubanks. But nope, this year I went full traditional and binged on the original Bing Crosby version, with Carol Richards in tow. Well, okay, technically Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell did it first for the movie The Lemon Drop Kid, but Bing Crosby’s version was in circulation months before the movie released, so as far as most people were concerned, this was the “first” one. But hey, that’s the world-conquering power of Bing Crosby for you. I feel like “Silver Bells” was one of the first instances of me really being conscious of a song signaling the start of the holiday season. Like, I obviously understood that Christmas songs were only for Christmastime right from the start, but the first time I ever remember having that moment of thinking “Oh, THAT song’s playing. This is officially happening!” the song in question was the classic version of “Silver Bells.” And yet, for whatever reason, this was the first year in a while where I listened to it enough for it to make it onto the list. Life’s funny that way, isn’t it?
6. “Little Saint Nick” - The Beach Boys
Wow, how as THIS never made it onto the list before? I mean, when past lists were dominated by Windham Hill and Narada artists, it makes since that I probably wasn’t in as much of a mood for seasonal Surf music… but COME ON! This is another one of those songs I grew up hearing on the Oldies stations all the time ever December, and unlike a lot of Christmas novelty singles, this one’s honestly REALLY good. Like, genuinely, I don’t think enough people give “Little Saint Nick” the credit it deserves. Yeah, it’s basically Brian Wilson doing some silly self parody, but this is top-of-his-game, pre-breakdown Brian Wilson, back when he still had that look in his eye. “Little Saint Nick” manages a deeply impressive three-way balancing act. On the one hand, it IS self-parody, and makes for a very clever lampooning of their hot rod songs. But at the same time, it’s genuinely every bit as catchy as said hot rod songs. Swap out the lyrics to be about a real car instead of Santa’s sleigh, and it’d easily rank right alongside “Little Deuce Coupe” as one of their great car songs. Yet on top of THAT, it also genuinely works as a jolly holiday ditty, thanks in no small part to those gorgeous Beach Boys harmonies. Well, that and the generous helping of jingle bells throughout, which brings me to an important point. This is SPECIFICALLY the original 1963 single we’re talking about here, not the version on The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album from the following year, which off all the bell overdubs. That mix just sounds gutted… because it is.
5. “Sleigh Ride” - The Boston Pops
On the one hand, this one has shown up on the list every year no matter what. But on the other hand, it’s really weird that this is the ONLY time The Boston Pops made it onto the list this year. Seriously, The Boston Pops were pretty much my entire introduction to the concept of orchestral Easy Listening in general, never mind permanently wanting my perception of Christmas music to include big ol’ string sections. It’s genuinely strange to think that only “Sleigh Ride” managed to make it onto this list, even if it is at an impressive number five. But then I look at how many OTHER Easy Listening orchestras are in their place and it all makes sense. The more of these albums I add to my catalogue, the fewer plays the older ones get. I mean, just look at what was going on with all those Bing Crosby songs. They didn’t get play for years because I’d so massively stuffed my playlists with other options. So I guess that means we can all look forward to a list a few years from now that’s at least one-third Boston Pops songs. In the meantime, I’ve tried to put all the other Elevator Music acts into context with each other, so I’d better not stop now. Generally speaking, The Boston Pops are way less kitschy than Percy Faith, but also less stuffy than Mantovani, which is probably why there’s a much better chance of a random dude on the street at least knowing who the Boston Pops are than either of the others. And unlike Jackie Gleason, The Boston Pops don’t send like they’re trying to hit on you. That’s nice too.
4. “Sutekina Holiday” - Mariya Yakeuchi
Oh boy, THIS one is exciting. For as much as I talking about how different this year’s list would be, a lot of it is still familiar in one way or another. But this? It’s pretty much a certainty that, if you live outside of Japan, you’ve never even heard of “Sutekina Holiday.” Heck, before this December, even I hadn’t. Yes, despite the obvious overlap in my realms of interest, it wasn’t until the Year of our Lord 2023 that I made a real deep dive into the world of Japanese Christmas songs. That’s a whole can of worms unto itself, but the relevant part to today’s discussion is that “Sutekina Holiday” is easily my favorite discovery from that whole journey. This isn’t exactly some rare obscurity, either. Mariya Takeuchi is the singer behind the legendary City Pop classic “Plastic Love,” and “Sutekina Holiday” has been the designated Christmas jingle in KFC’s Japanese advertising for the past 20 years or so. If you know anything about how Japan does Christmas, you know that’s a pretty big deal right there. He most important thing to me, though, is just what an utterly charming tune “Sutekina Holiday” is. I’ve mentioned several times that there’s a hard to pin down “Christmas-y sound” that I really value in my top holiday picks, and even though I can’t understand the overwhelming majority of the lyrics, I can still tell that “Sutekina Holiday” has that sound all over it. At the same time, though, there is also something distinctly Japanese about the melody too, or at least it bears the hallmarks of Japan’s unique impression of what Western music sounds like. If Studio Ghibli ever made a Christmas special, I’m pretty sure Joe Hisaishi writing Christmas music would turn out a lot like this. That’s very high praise coming from me.
3. “Merry Christmas Darling” - Carpenters
And we go from wildly obscure in the English-speaking world to wildly familiar, because BOY has this one been on my list before. “Christmas Waltz” may have been the first Carpenters song I ever heard, but “Merry Christmas Darling” was on the flip side of that same tape, and it did a whole lot more to set the stage for what the Carpenters sound really is. A lot of the biggest Carpenters hits came from outside songwriters, so I think it’s important to point out that Richard Carpenter himself wrote all the music to this one himself. Because WOW the music on this is stellar. I’m on record as not generally liking when people just tack some Christmas imagery on what’s otherwise a sad song about lost love (or even just lovers separated), but I’m also on record as absolutely making an exception for “Merry Christmas Darling.” It helps that the lyrics (the one part Richard didn’t do) lean more on the wistful, bittersweet side than full-on sadness, but the main reason the song works as well as it does for me is just that it sounds completely gorgeous. The melody is beautiful, the arrangement and orchestration are transcendent, and then there’s Karen’s vocal performance that’s absolute perfection… except to her, apparently. Fun fact, there’s actually multiple versions of “Merry Christmas Darling” floating around because Karen insisted on rerecording her part in between its single release and the eventual Christmas Portrait album. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two, they both sound phenomenal to me.
2. “Deck The Halls” - Mannheim Steamroller
Another familiar face returns! There may have only been two Mannheim Steamroller entires on the list this year, and one of them might have been a real obscurity, but there’s no way THIS wasn’t going to make a return appearance. In fact, “Deck The Halls” actually came out on top at least one year, and boy did it come close to repeating that feat this time. But since I’ve obviously had plenty of chances to talk about this Christmas IN SPAAAAAAACE classic before, instead let’s focus on what he can learn here. This is another instance of two versions of the same song appearing on this list, the previous one being Percy Faith’s version. And while there’s obviously a lot of things different between that orchestral Easy Listening version and this Prog Rock synth fest, they do share some interesting similarities. Namely, both Faith and Steamroller head honcho Chip Davis wrote a lot of extra music of their own to add on top of the standard melody. Seriously, listen to the bridge on this one, it sounds like it could be it’s own song unto itself. Either that means that “Deck The Halls” is a much more versatile tune than we all thought, and is capable of inspiring some amazing feats of creativity… or I’ve secretly hated “Deck The Halls” this whole time and express it by liking versions that stray away from the source material as much as possible. I’m PRETTY sure it’s the former, but you never know. Oh, and speaking of Percy Faith..
1. “Christmas Is…” - Jack Jones
This is nice and symmetrical in so many way. Yes, the most obvious thing is how the top 25 this year just so happened to shake out with two different versions of the same song bookending it. But it’s WHICH song did the bookending that impresses me. To reiterate, “Christmas Is…” was probably the first time I’d experienced liking a Christmas song that NOBODY else seemed to know about, and I can trace all my current blabbing on about weird holiday ephemera back to Young Me wondering why the heck nobody else had heard of this one song. And it really was THIS song, as I didn’t hear the Percy Faith original until many years later. I’ve always loved this song, always thought it deserved to be better known than it is, and it’s always been a mainstay of any Christmas song list I’ve compiled… but somehow, it never quite made it up to the very top before. It always seemed to be hovering somewhere around the top five, moving up or down a space or two from year to year, but never quite making it all the way up to the stop slot. UNTIL NOW. And it was a pretty close race, too. The entire top five this year were only separated from each other by one play a piece. A few quirks of the shuffle function, and Deck The Halls might have won again. Or how funny would it have been if “Sutekina Holiday” had gotten just a couple more plays? I can imagine “Christmas Is…” sitting there, after so many years not getting the top spot, and out of nowhere this entirely new song just blows past and scores the number one on its first appearance. BUT NO! This is indeed the year! You did it, “Christmas Is…” and it’s really hard for me to properly express my excitement when the song title makes it so hard to use punctuation or even say the word “is” right afterwards. But that is officially my Most Listened To Christmas Song of 2023!
And what will next year hold? Well, hopefully it WON’T include another computer reset, so I doubt we’ll have the same clean slate to shake up the listings next December. That MIGHT mean next year’s list could turn out very similar to this year’s, but on the other hand these numbers are still pretty low compared to the stats that had built up by the time I took that break last year. If I spontaneously have another change in musical interests next Christmas, we could easily see another shake up in the lists. Maybe I’ll suddenly feel like listening to all those Chiptunes Christmas songs I downloaded around 2012 but barely touch a decade later? Maybe all those other Japanese songs I only just discovered this year will make their presence felt on the charts next year? Maybe I’ll decide I really do hate myself and just listen to “Do They Know It’s Christmas” non-stop for six weeks straight? Only time will tell!
But speaking of time, I’ve also decided to do another Most-Played of 2023 list for my NON-holiday music in a couple days. And man, if you thought the Christmas list wasn’t all that different after all, just wait’ll you see the shake up that was happening over the REST of this year…
