For a season that supposedly lasts only a few weeks, Christmas sure does have an extensive song catalog. And each year, more tracks arrive — from pop stars, classical musicians, singing animals, even Larry the Cable Guy.
It’s easy to see why. An analysis of data from the Performing Rights Society, a UK royalties association, found that Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” will earn some $565,000 for the diva this year alone.
But not every song is a perennial moneymaker, of course, and not every song is even tolerable. These holiday songs deserve a lump of coal in their stockings:
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1. “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” Band Aid II, 1989
The original 1984 charity song was phenomenally successful. So why, you have to wonder, did someone sit down just five years later and say, “I know. Let’s record the song again, only with much, much, muuuch less famous singers.” While the original track contained contributions from Sting, Bono, Duran Duran and Boy George, the sequel featured Lisa Stansfield, someone called Matt Goss and Big Fun. At least the 1989 version had the good sense not to shoehorn in a rap verse, unlike the 2004 remake.
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2. “Wonderful Christmas Time,” Paul McCartney, 1979
If this song were written for a Beatles album, the lads wouldn’t have even given it to Ringo. McCartney is surely one of pop’s greatest songwriters, but this tune — whose likability isn’t helped by being blasted 60 times a day throughout December in every big-box store and mall — is just grating. The primitive synthesizers that sound like the alien greeting from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The obligatory sleigh-bells rhythm section. The trite lyrics. “Wonderful?” Hardly.
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3. Any song by Mannheim Steamroller
Just pick one. Any one. After all, they’ve painfully covered every holiday standard you can name.
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4. “Little Saint Nick,” the Beach Boys, 1963
So the same talents who would go on to produce the towering “Pet Sounds” created this? Even Brian Wilson and Mike Love don’t seem all that interested, just lifting the structure of their earlier hit “Little Deuce Coupe,” and pasting in some new lyrics about Santa, reindeer and cars before calling it a day. “Little Saint Nick” seems like a cheap novelty song, and serves as an annual reminder that even musical geniuses sometimes have to slum it to make it.
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5. “Here Comes Santa Claus,” Bob Dylan, 2009
And speaking of slumming it . . . The reasons behind Dylan’s decision to record the 2009 album “Christmas in the Heart” remain open for debate. Was it a sincere homage to his favorite holiday songs, or an ironic jab? Dylan has said he did not feel left out of Christmas, despite growing up Jewish. Whatever his beliefs, it’s hard to imagine these croaky covers will become standards for anyone gathered round the tree.
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6. “The First Noel,” Bing Crosby (Attaboy House Remix), 2003
Two things that should never be put together: Bing Crosby and the phrase “dance remix.” The notoriously conservative icon would probably be angrily shaking a golf club at this thumping track, although no amount of heavy beats, synth baselines and sampled vocals can make Crosby danceworthy.
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7. “O Chronic Tree,” Afroman, 2006
The rapper, best known for the 2001 single “Because I Got High,” released the parody album “A Colt 45 Christmas” in 2006, and included this weed-centric cover of “O Tannenbaum.” As others chuckle in the background, he sings off-key, “O, Chronic Tree, with your leaves so sticky green, so hard to sell, I want you all for me.” Not even funny once, much less each year forever.
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8. “Christmas Time,” Backstreet Boys, 1996
It’s silly to get upset about a cash grab from a band formed from an Orlando classified ad, but still. “Christmas Time” is indicative of what’s wrong with most modern pop holiday songs. The dull, B-side single reeks of something tossed off quickly just to have product on store shelves come the shopping season.