People who dont particularly care for or celebrate Christmas, Whats your favorite Christmas song?
I know the Mariah Carey song is hated because its overused, but its also objectively a well produced piece of pop music.
My favorite though is O Holy Night. Performed well I want to stop and listen to it. It moves me, and I dont give enough of a fuck about religion to call myself an athiest.
I'm to have to explain. I greatly despise xmas songs. (edit, also I should maybe tag the link as NSFW. It kind of depends on where you work; but, some places are weird about that.)
Like 99% of them are absolute garbage; they don't have to be, because they'll make money, because it's a new xmas song, and hey, everybody gets sick of all the old ones; right? well. of the 1% that are actually tolerable (never mind actually good), they get blasted until you get sick of them. This is just my opinion, you're welcome to disagree. my SiL has been playing shitty carols since before halloween, so she certainly does.
There's nothing objective about that opinion at all. I think Mariah Carey's song is cynical corporate kitsch written for one reason and one reason only: to make money. That's why I hate it.
I can tolerate some of the secular big band/swing songs, and there have been a few decent ones since then. Fiona Apple does a brilliant cover of Frosty the Snowman. Vince Guaraldi's work for the Charlie Brown Christmas show is still wonderful.
I celebrate Christmas (not as festive as some people but still) but I generally am apathetic to Christmas music at best. That being said, Carol of the Bells by Transiberian Orchestra still kicks ass and I would say it is the one Christmas song that I would actively and willingly listen to.
You can say that Mariah Carey's sing is well produced, but I heard her version of Auld Lang Syne yesterday and it actually made me want to smash my TV and commit a hate crime
But mostly Xmas shit turns into earworms for me in the middle of summer, so I close all the blinds and watch Xmas movies. Makes it almost possible to forget it’s a billion degrees out.
Edit: I want to add a new release, because that’s mostly older stuff. Enjoy!
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
This is my favorite Christmas song because as soon as I hear those lines, I'm transported to Barstow California, on the edge of the desert. I'm riding in a whale of a car and traveling at great speed. All the while diving deep into a blender of illicit substances.
In my country we have song that came from a advent calender, called "jul på Vesterbro" and its my all time favorite (link to YouTube).
Note that it's the same actor that plays every role
https://youtu.be/LTrk4X9ACtw?si=jp80iK-jxDBKC1Au
For some reason "sail away, sail away, sail away" sounds like "C'est Noël, c'est Noël, c'est Noël" in French. It is therefore my favorite accidental Christmas song.
White Christmas, which was written by Irving Berlin, who was Jewish!
I like it because of how intricately the melody is written. It ebbs and flows perfectly against the chord progression and feels much closer to a jazz standard than most other Christmas songs.
Not sure if it counts, but John Coltrane playing "My Favorite Things". I got that track on some best of Coltrane collection for Christmas when I was in grade school. It eventually became both my favorite Christmas song and really got me into jazz. It's still the default version that pops into my head when I think of that song, not Julie Andrews singing it in The Sound of Music.
The only Christmas-related media I like in any capacity, is the OG Grinch cartoon. So Thurl Ravenscroft is the only person I wanna hear singing on Christmas.
As an atheist, I don't like religious xmas music. But I love these songs based on the Cthulhu Mythos. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society did a fantastic job on them! I have 2 CDs of xmas holiday music from them (much more than this playlist has), and an adaptation of The Fidder on the Roof called A Shoggoth on the Roof.
It would be mostly this song by Filipino band Over October, even though this could also apply to those missing their own parents or siblings for so long: Into the Light
For some reason the only real version I could find on YouTube is the first song in Zenki's Christmas Touhou Eurobeat Mix and it's kind of ironic because it's the only song in that mix that is actually Christmas related.