The 20 Worst Christmas Songs of All Time

In 1967, Stevie Wonder, a mere 17 years old and already a top talent at Motown — if not quite yet a legend in his own time — released his eighth album (in five years!) Someday at Christmas, on which sat this hunk of treacle, in which Wonder sings in the voice of the star upon your tree. Not exactly the sound of young America, the song barely worked when the Supremes had cooed it two years earlier. Here, an exhausted-sounding, halfhearted Stevie and syrupy strings pretty much turn it to mush. —J.G.

The spelling is merely the first groaner. “It’s boring, it’s boring — same thing every year,” grouses an elf as this track starts, so NKOTB decide to switch it up. Unfortunately, rebooting Christmas for them means a singalong chorus that’s utterly joyless, a bass line that lamely evokes “Another One Bites the Dust,” and rap portions in which they try to get all wise-ass Beasties on us (“Throw your hands in the air.… Pause.… Kick the ballistics, Santa Claus!”) while only making us yearn for the real thing. And the Christmas-song equivalent of Charlie Brown getting a rock is Donnie Wahlberg laying down a drum solo. —D.B.

It’s only three minutes long, but it feels like 30. In those seemingly interminable 180 seconds, a cappella quintet Pentatonix describe a peaceful, wholesome scene — a bright-burning fireplace, hanging stockings, a “good old Christmas tree” — but with just their voices singing in unison, it becomes boring quickly. Other than a line in which “Santa comes to wake me from my dreams” (which is kind of sketchy), the song, written by the group’s baritone, Scott Hoying, and vocal percussionist, Kevin Olusola, has no narrative, no sense of anticipation. If that’s Christmas to them, it’s safe to say they got a lot of socks and scented candles from Santa. —K.G.

What’s more disturbing: A 17-year-old Justin Bieber singing the word “shawty,” or the fact that the video shows him sending a Christmas card to his girlfriend and signing it “Justin Bieber”? She needs to run as far away from this mistletoe as she can. Bieber’s had a lot of cringe moments over the years, but “Mistletoe” makes “Peaches” look like “Stairway to Heaven.” —A.M.

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is a legitimately screwed-up song. Let’s set the scene: A child is awoken by the sound of reindeer clippity-clopping on the roof. There’s a rustling in the chimney. Could it be? Leaping out of bed, our little sprite rushes into the living room, and yes! Yes! It’s true! He’s real! Santa is really … hey, wait a minute! Get your mitts off my mom, you holly-jolly homewrecker! It’s a sweet Christmas dream and a horrific lifetime of trauma intersecting in one innocence-obliterating double-whammy. When it appeared on the Jackson 5 Christmas Album in 1970, this version of the song, sung by an actual child, was merely creepy. Given the recent allegations of child sexual misconduct against Jackson, it now been rendered essentially unlistenable. —J.D.

In 1987, superproducer Jimmy Iovine convened an A-list group of rock and pop superstars for the Special Olympics benefit album A Very Special Christmas, from Bruce Springsteen doing “Merry Christmas Baby” to the Pretenders killing it on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Run-DMC rocking the jingle bells with their classic “Christmas in Hollis.” The album has aged very well, but there a few turds in the eggnog, the largest of which being Bon Jovi’s ham-fisted assault on the Clarence Carter oldie “Back Door Santa.”  The Jersey boys take a frisky soul tune (from the great Memphis-soul holiday LP Soul Christmas) and turn it into a thudding hair-metal atrocity. Carter sounds like he’s sneaking up the back stairs. Jon Bon Jovi sounds like he’s rolling up in a bulldozer. —J.D.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that remind you what the holidays are all about. Like hearing this song in the car and wondering whether you should dive out the window or just set the whole car on fire. “The Christmas Shoes” is the tear-jerking tale of a little boy on Christmas Eve who wants to buy a pair of fancy shoes for his dying mother. The tiny tot explains, “I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight!” (How much Bravo does this poor kid’s mom make him watch? Jesus wasn’t exactly Christian Louboutin — he was born in a barn! Shoes weren’t even invented yet!) When the choir begins to sing along, it’s a Christmas vomit miracle. —R.S.

When you’re singing “The First Noël” during church on Christmas Eve, it seems pretty innocuous: nice melody, relatively easy to mumble your way through. And that is exactly the source of its badness. That exultant melody is a Trojan horse for what are easily the most trash lyrics in the entire holiday canon: “Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay/In fields where they lay keeping their sheep/On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.” Really? “Was to certain poor shepherds in the fields as they lay”? A “cold winter’s night that was so deep”? Do better, 13th-century Cornish guy who wrote this shit. It’s like scratch lyrics they decided to keep because the session went long and they didn’t want to pay the band overtime. Fitting the ancient origins of “The First Noël,” Groban takes every dumb line and stretches it out like he’s got the vowels on a medieval torture rack. —J.D.

In “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” based upon Luke 2:11-18, a host of infinite, immortal beings appear to humble shepherds and announce to them the redemption of the entire human race. Recordings of the hymn usually reflect a moment of hope and joy electrifying in its power. Weezer managed to turn it into 1:32 of their poker-faced power pop. But what works when you’re singing ironic, catchy songs about half-pipes and California girls doesn’t really work so hot when you’re offering praise to the sweet infant, Baby Jesus. It’s more like something you vacantly nod along to while you’re stuck on the 405, if that. Only you, Rivers. —J.G. 

Time to gather around the fireside, kids: Justin, JC, Joey, Chris, and Lance have some lessons to teach you about what they’ve learned about the reason for the season. ‘NSync had a hit with their 1998 Home for Christmas, in the prime TRL era. “I Never Knew the Meaning of Christmas” (“till I looked into your eyes”) is their fa-la-la-licious teen romance. “Looking back on childhood days/I can’t believe my foolish ways,” Justin Timberlake sings. “I thought that Christmas only came from the store.” But then he meets a special lady who teaches him what sleigh rides and carols are all about. Britney did not comment. —R.S.

Nearly any version of this faux-classical glee-club cheese log is torture: four notes repeated over and over and over until the middle of January. It’s like, “Yeah, we get it: Christmas bells, they sure do ring, ding-dong, ding-dong. Let’s move on, OK?” The only excuse for “Carol of the Bells” is when metal bands play it — as Metallica proved, it takes headbangers to do justice to the repetition and brutality. But for some reason, pop singers love to show their serious side with this one. LeAnn Rimes ding-dongs herself into a stupor, sounding like she’s been locked in the belfry a little too long. —R.S.

What kind of psycho thinks a teenage domestic terrorist and an avenging Santa would make a good Christmas song? Apparently Brandon Flowers. With a Wall of Sound worthy of A Christmas Gift for You, and some smart chord changes, the Killers’ 2007 Christmas single should have been so much better. Instead, Flowers and Co. wrote a Yuletide teenage-tragedy song in which a Dexter-like Kris Kringle wants to gun down Flowers’ protagonist, a self-described “clean-living boy” who also admits to shooting “children on [his] block.” A portion of the song’s proceeds benefited Bono’s Product Red AIDS charity, but that’s hardly enough contrition for this travesty. —K.G.

Italians have given us many of life’s finest gifts: Ferraris, Valentino, Morricone, gabagool. But “Dominic the Donkey” — a novelty carol recorded in 1960 by Italian American singer Lou Monte (né Scaglione) — is an affront to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A spiritual cousin to the “Chicken Dance” song, it is somehow twice as annoying with none of the pseudo Old World charm. Its aural assault includes a repeating “Hee-haw! Hee-haw!” refrain delivered with a honk that could break glass and a “la-la-la-la-la-la” chorus sung, seemingly, by the Smurfs. Santa uses “the Italian Christmas donkey,” the song explains, to visit his “paesans” in Italy because reindeer can’t climb hills. This is the Christmas-carol equivalent of Joe Dolce’s “Shaddap You Face.” Hear it once, and you will never unhear it. Happy holidays, amici. —M.F.

It took a couple thousand years for Big Holiday to invent the concept of “songs about banging Santa into the ER in exchange for toys,” but honestly, give this poor man a break. Mr. Claus is so busy all year long, greasing his sled, checking his lists, and wrangling his reindeer. The last thing this chubby-cheeked snow zaddy needs is fending off the thirst thrown at him by “Santa Baby” gold-diggers. Ever since Madonna revived this long-forgotten Eartha Kitt oldie on the 1987 blockbuster A Very Special Christmas, it’s been a holiday staple. The Pussycat Dolls do the most over-the-top rendition, huffing and puffing to lure Kris Kringle down the chimney tonight. —R.S.

Nothing says Christmas like (grand) matricide. This late-Seventies novelty song is undoubtedly one of the darkest in the carol canon, featuring gory lyrics detailing the “hoof prints on her forehead” and “incriminatin’ Claus marks on her back.” The jaunty vocals make for an eery juxtaposition more befitting Halloween than “Happy holidays.” ‘Tis the season to ruminate on one’s mortality. —B.E.

If you can judge a song’s badness by the amount of annoying internet takes it’s inspired, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is arguably the worst song of any kind ever recorded. But even if you don’t find songwriter Frank Lesser’s ubiquitously covered duet “rapey,” its coercive undertones are hard to unhear, particularly the oft-noted line “Say, what’s in this drink?” The way to make the song work is to create a feeling of conversational warmth that transcends the song’s unintentionally creepy vibes. Seth MacFarlane’s version with poor Sara Bareilles definitely doesn’t have that. His stiff, smarmy Dean Martin impersonation goes beyond problematic discomfort to hit a rare note of sociopathic blankness — doing his small yet undeniable part to make winter wonderland just a little more ugly. —J.D.

Band Aid is a good name for a group of mostly white, mostly rich celebrities belting out a smug mess of colonialism, racist stereotypes, and geographic ineptitude to quickly “feed the world.” Please don’t tell us the intentions were good; that way lies the road to hell. You may already know the backstory: Bob Geldof saw a BBC report on famine in Ethiopia, and he and Midge Ure decided to write a song. Famous pals like Sting, Bono, George Michael, and Paul McCartney heeded the call assemble, and since 1984, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” has been stuck in heavy holiday rotation. Sure, it raised millions of dollars, but even Geldof calls it one of the two “worst songs in history.” (The other, Geldof told the Australian Daily Telegraph in 2010, is another supergroup tune for charity: “We Are the World.”) —L.T.

Quickie quiz: Are you John Lennon? No! Didn’t think so. Are you Yoko Ono? Also no! Because you’re not. The next question should be easy: On what planet are you qualified to remake their classic “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”? Not this one, Adam Levine. The Maroon 5 crooner tries to sing the John and Yoko parts all by himself, as a Plastic Levine Band ego trip, and the results aren’t pretty. Sing along, children: “And the worrrrld will suck as one!” —R.S.

You’ve heard of the War on Christmas? This song is the sinking of the Lusitania — the atrocity that makes previously peaceful civilians decide this war might be a groovy idea. “The Little Drummer Boy” would be at the top of this list no matter who sings it, even legends like Joan Jett or Bob Seger — the absolute ghastliest of holiday tunes. But Jessica and Ashlee Simpson put all their sisterly power into it, like they’re saying “You already think this thing sucks? Just you wait!” Each “pa-rum-pa pum-pum” is another drop in their musical waterboarding. Respect to the Simpson sisters for making every other “Little Drummer Boy” out there look tame. Christmas, you chose violence. —R.S.