Christmas Songs I can't Effing Stand, Honorable Mentions
It occurs to me since my latest post that I've left out some major doozies, and I certainly didn't want these artists/songs to be let off the hook go unnoticed.
"White Christmas", style of The Drifters - Reasons: It's just fucking silly, but mostly in verse two, where you get the "aye-yie-yie-yie-yime dreaming..." Added bonus: the car wreck at the end of the song "jinglebellsjinglebellsjingle... allllll... the... waaaaayyyyyeeeeeeoooooooooo." This song was going to die if Home Alone hadn't resurrected it. More's the pity."
"Do They Know It's Christmas Time (Feed the World)" by Band Aid - Reason: I don't want to diminish the sentiment behind Bob Geldof's philanthropic love letter to Ethiopia here, so I won't go into what a fundamentally misleading and inaccurate picture is painted of Africa by its lyrics, the blatant manipulation inherent in putting starving kids on an album cover, or how simply god-awful the production value was (they only had 24 hours to produce it for Christ's sake)... so I'll just complain about the fact that it spawned "We Are the World", which was admittedly a total knock-off. Ok, that might not be fair, either. So... let's complain about the cheapo synth lead they had available at the time. Well, it was the 80's, and it was England, so I suppose that's not fair either. Ok ok... it's just an annoying song.
"Where Are You Christmas?" performed by Faith Hill - Reason: here's another case of a vocalist indulging in diva-ing the everliving dogshit out of a song. It's silly and distracting. Plus, the song takes its sweet time for two full verses whining about how Christmas isn't the same now that we're old and disillusioned. Then after two quick verses in the refrain, there's this miraculous turnaround in the singer's attitudes towards life and sick babies everywhere. It's somewhat jarring. Bonus annoyances: the protracted orchestral intro; the fact that James Horner co-wrote this with Mariah Carey (who couldn't release her version thanks to her husband) which explains the diva-dickery written into the DNA of this song. Biggest complaint... it's a whiny damn song that shifts to preachy before you can say "bullshit sentimental grandstanding".
"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney - Reason: Doing-doing-doing boing-boing-boing... joing-joing-joing doing-doing-doing. Boing boing joing joing doing doing boing... It's like Tron had a bastard child with Ms. Pac Man, and put him on a pogo-stick with a jingle-bell stuck in his ass. This is another song written before synthesizers had developed the sophistication to not sound like pedantic noise machines meant to drive us solidly into a psycopathic fugue.
"Christmas Shoes" by NewSong - Reason: this vulgar appeal to artificial sentiment so absolutely drips with pathos that it proves more a parody of itself than its original objective to stir hearts and minds. Though noble in intent, its execution is so utterly hamfisted and sophomoric that it's a wonder that it hasn't spawned a life of its own as a gay disco theme, poking self-aware fun at the True Meaning of Christmas. It's paint-by-the-numbers manipulation, from invoking a mother's suffering to dropping the J-bomb to ramping out the child vocalist. Added bonus: cliche cymbal roll ending. This was turned into a TV Movie. I was once channel surfing and waited a commercial break to see what this was possibly about... the first scene showed a tween girl practicing a trombone. I turned it off after exactly one second of that. I don't remember any trombone practice mentioned in the song...
"Jingle Bells?" by Barbara Streisand - Reason: "J-j-j-j-jingle bells, j-j-j-j-jangle bells, j-j-j-j-j all the way..." At this point, Barb was no longer operating on Earth Logic. And people will still love it because "She's Barbara!" For me, I prefer no cabaret in my Christmas music.
"White Christmas", style of The Drifters - Reasons: It's just fucking silly, but mostly in verse two, where you get the "aye-yie-yie-yie-yime dreaming..." Added bonus: the car wreck at the end of the song "jinglebellsjinglebellsjingle... allllll... the... waaaaayyyyyeeeeeeoooooooooo." This song was going to die if Home Alone hadn't resurrected it. More's the pity."
"Do They Know It's Christmas Time (Feed the World)" by Band Aid - Reason: I don't want to diminish the sentiment behind Bob Geldof's philanthropic love letter to Ethiopia here, so I won't go into what a fundamentally misleading and inaccurate picture is painted of Africa by its lyrics, the blatant manipulation inherent in putting starving kids on an album cover, or how simply god-awful the production value was (they only had 24 hours to produce it for Christ's sake)... so I'll just complain about the fact that it spawned "We Are the World", which was admittedly a total knock-off. Ok, that might not be fair, either. So... let's complain about the cheapo synth lead they had available at the time. Well, it was the 80's, and it was England, so I suppose that's not fair either. Ok ok... it's just an annoying song.
"Where Are You Christmas?" performed by Faith Hill - Reason: here's another case of a vocalist indulging in diva-ing the everliving dogshit out of a song. It's silly and distracting. Plus, the song takes its sweet time for two full verses whining about how Christmas isn't the same now that we're old and disillusioned. Then after two quick verses in the refrain, there's this miraculous turnaround in the singer's attitudes towards life and sick babies everywhere. It's somewhat jarring. Bonus annoyances: the protracted orchestral intro; the fact that James Horner co-wrote this with Mariah Carey (who couldn't release her version thanks to her husband) which explains the diva-dickery written into the DNA of this song. Biggest complaint... it's a whiny damn song that shifts to preachy before you can say "bullshit sentimental grandstanding".
"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney - Reason: Doing-doing-doing boing-boing-boing... joing-joing-joing doing-doing-doing. Boing boing joing joing doing doing boing... It's like Tron had a bastard child with Ms. Pac Man, and put him on a pogo-stick with a jingle-bell stuck in his ass. This is another song written before synthesizers had developed the sophistication to not sound like pedantic noise machines meant to drive us solidly into a psycopathic fugue.
"Christmas Shoes" by NewSong - Reason: this vulgar appeal to artificial sentiment so absolutely drips with pathos that it proves more a parody of itself than its original objective to stir hearts and minds. Though noble in intent, its execution is so utterly hamfisted and sophomoric that it's a wonder that it hasn't spawned a life of its own as a gay disco theme, poking self-aware fun at the True Meaning of Christmas. It's paint-by-the-numbers manipulation, from invoking a mother's suffering to dropping the J-bomb to ramping out the child vocalist. Added bonus: cliche cymbal roll ending. This was turned into a TV Movie. I was once channel surfing and waited a commercial break to see what this was possibly about... the first scene showed a tween girl practicing a trombone. I turned it off after exactly one second of that. I don't remember any trombone practice mentioned in the song...
"Jingle Bells?" by Barbara Streisand - Reason: "J-j-j-j-jingle bells, j-j-j-j-jangle bells, j-j-j-j-j all the way..." At this point, Barb was no longer operating on Earth Logic. And people will still love it because "She's Barbara!" For me, I prefer no cabaret in my Christmas music.