Top 10 Worst Modern Christmas Songs

I love Christmas music. If you've been a regular reader of my work here at PJ Media, you might be surprised to hear that, since I've written a couple of posts grumbling about bad Christmas music.

But that's the thing about Christmas music — for the most part, it's really good or really bad with little in-between. It's easy to complain about or make fun of the bad stuff because it stands out. So here we go with another list of awful Christmas music from recent years.

Although I bookended this list with two well-known recordings, I tried to avoid most of the low-hanging fruit, as well as specific recordings I've already written about.

I'm channeling my inner Casey Kasem and counting 'em down.

10. Bruce Springsteen, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

I'll start this countdown entry by announcing that I loathe almost anything Bruce Springsteen does. He's one of the few artists whose politics I can't get past, but that may also be because his music is terrible in general.

Second of all, I don't like this version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" no matter who does it. But in Springsteen's hands, it's just unbearable.

Sorry, Bruce, but you're on the naughty list.

9. White Heart, "Little Drummer Boy"

When I was in high school, I remember buying a cassette of a Christmas compilation from a Christian music label. It was 1988, so most of the songs on the tape are a perfectly dated snapshot of contemporary Christian music from that year.

But one of them stands out as the gold standard in Christian cheese. Hair metal band White Heart took on "Little Drummer Boy." It starts out sounding like a Christmas music cliche and transforms into an '80s power-ballad cliche, so I guess you could say that White Heart accomplished its mission.

My "Little Drummer Boy" baggage aside (it was the first song I sang in public at age 7, and it haunts me to this day), its gloriously bad.

8. Korn, "Jingle Balls"

I know what you're thinking. "This is Korn; of course it's bad." That doesn't begin to scratch the surface.

Yes, there's the fact that it's a Korn song, so it sounds like a Korn song, but the band throws everything it can at this version of a Christmas classic. On top of that, the band makes a lyrical change, transforming "Jingle Bells" to "Jingle Balls." How un-clever, un-cute, and agonizing.

7. Over the Rhine, "If We Make It Through December"

I'm a massive fan of the first roughly 15 years of Over the Rhine's musical output. That era of the band's music is still some of my all-time favorite music, and that includes the two sublime Christmas albums "The Darkest Night of the Year" and "Snow Angels."

But in 2014, Over the Rhine released another Christmas album entitled "Blood Oranges in the Snow," and it's one of the most depressing albums I've ever heard. It's of a piece with the musical (and political) direction Over the Rhine took during those years, and it's agonizingly downbeat.

One of the tracks on "Blood Oranges in the Snow" is a cover of Merle Haggard's Christmas classic "If We Make It Through December." Whereas Haggard's original has an undercurrent of hopefulness, Over the Rhine drains the hope out of their version.

Husband-and-wife Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist's harmonies are lovely, but as you listen, you get the impression that they don't think they'll make it through December.

6. Iggy Pop, "White Christmas"

Iggy Pop might be the last person you could imagine making Christmas music, and even if he did, the sentimental "White Christmas" wouldn't be on an Iggy Pop Christmas cover list.

Somehow in 2009, Pop released his cover of "White Christmas" — and it's bizarre. Over the background of a saloon piano, Pop groans Irving Berlin's classic like he's writhing on the floor after having consumed too much egg nog.

It's uncomfortable, probably on purpose, and it won't make its way into most people's Christmas party playlists.

5. Tiny Tim, "O Holy Night"

Speaking of bizarre, there's Tiny Tim. The ultimate novelty act, Tiny Tim somehow managed to carve out a nearly 40-year career belting out Vaudeville tunes in falsetto and accompanying himself on the ukelele. National exposure on "Laugh-in" in 1968 gave him his only mainstream hit with "Tiptoe Through the Tulips."

But Tiny Tim (whose real name was Herbert Butros Khaury) was a devout Catholic, so when he released a Christmas album shortly before his death in 1996, he included traditional carols and hymns, which he delivered in his inimitable style.

As well-meaning as it is, it's almost unbearable to listen to.

4. George Strait, "Christmas Cookies"

I have to give credit — or blame — for this one to my friend and esteemed colleague Stephen Green, who aptly said, "This one — new to me — came on in the grocery store last week and it made me dumber (again) just remembering it. It makes 'Last Christmas' look like Gershwin’s 'Rhapsody In Blue.'”

Don't get me wrong; George Strait is a national treasure, and just about everything he sings is golden. But this — this is flat-out terrible.

For starters, it's one of those cutesy Christmas tunes about a guy who loves the titular holiday treats. The spoken-word verses make it even cornier, but the kicker is the verse where Strait intones:

There's a benefit to all of this / That you might have overlooked or missed / So let me tell you the best part of it all / Every time she sticks another batch in the oven / There's 15 minutes for some kissin' and a-huggin' / That's why I eat Christmas cookies all year long.

TMI, George, for real.

3. The Killers, "Don’t Shoot Me, Santa"

This one could have made the list on its title alone, but the premise of the song is the biggest WTF in Christmas music — maybe music in general.

A young serial killer comes face-to-face with St. Nick, who has come to avenge the victims by offing the killer. It gives new meaning to "there arose such a clatter."

Here's what's really crazy: the music is impressive, if all over the place. Brandon Flowers could've sung almost anything else — the Salt Lake City phone book, a chocolate chip cookie recipe, or directions on how to fold a fitted sheet — and it would be a better song.

Why this? This is the weirdest Christmas song I've ever heard.

2. Maroon 5, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the ultimate in Christmas schlock. First of all, it's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," the "Imagine" of the holiday season (pretty much literally). Second, it's Maroon 5.

I've made my disdain for Maroon 5 clear on this site for years, so everybody knows that I don't have any use for Adam Levine and his supposedly bada** rockstar persona (nothing says rock-and-roll like overuse of falsetto).

It's a terrible band covering a terrible song, yet somehow it ends up boring. This one is so bad that it makes me want to start a war.

1. Band Aid, "Do They Know It’s Christmas"

I don't agree with Rolling Stone often (or ever), but the erstwhile lefty rag referred to "Do They Know It's Christmas" as a "smug mess of colonialism, racist stereotypes, and geographic ineptitude to quickly 'feed the world.'”

It's just like a bunch of cosseted, sybaritic rockstars (and not the falsetto kind) to wonder if the savages in Africa are aware of Christmas. There are plenty of other clunkers in the lyrics. "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime." I don't get snow at Christmas, but nobody wrote a song to raise money for me. It's a stupid line.

Then Bono delivers the Bono-est line that someone else wrote for him: "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you." What an awful sentiment! It's one thing to be thankful for your blessings; it's another to think, "There, not for the grace of God, go they."

Horrendous lyrics aside, the song did raise a ton of money and paved the way for other lucrative charity clunkers like "We Are the World." Go figure.