More Christmas 🎄 | 5ive Songs

1. Brenda Lee, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”

💿 Merry Christmas from Brenda • 🏷 UMG Recordings, Inc. • 📅 1964

One of the most popular Christmas recordings EVER arrives courtesy of pop and country singer, 🎙 Brenda Lee.  That beloved gem is 🎵 “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which commences her 1964 Christmas album, 💿 Merry Christmas from Brenda.  It’s rare that a holiday classic can cement your artistic legacy but that’s certainly the case with Lee.  Had she recorded no other song, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” would’ve been sufficient.

What makes it so awesome? It’s fun, novel, and honestly, incredibly festive.  Listening to it, you just absorb the spirit of Christmas.  Brenda’s exuberant vocals makes us exuberant.  The saxophone solo ups the ante, making us want to dance and share “the most wonderful time of the year” with those we love.  Honestly, this two-minutes-and-change number speaks for itself.

2. Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, “The Christmas Song”

💿 Wonder (Holiday Deluxe) • 🏷 Island • 📅 2020 

🎙 Shawn Mendes returned in 2020 with his fourth studio album, 💿 Wonder. Given its early December release date, it’s not surprising that a Christmas song appears.  In this case, it’s not just any Christmas song but 🎵 “The Christmas Song.”  Yes, “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” has been covered time and time again, but doesn’t it have a different feel with two lovebirds at the helm? Mendes duets with his girlfriend, and fellow 🏆 Grammy-nominee, 🎙 Camila Cabello.

Mendes and Cabello serve up a chill, balanced performance on “The Christmas Song.”  There’s no big-time, gospel histrionics to be found.  Here, we get beautiful, expressive vocals that seek to highlight the melody while strongly delivering that Christmas spirit and vibe. The production by 🎙 Nate Mercereau and 🎙 Ben Darwish, with piano and strings is quite warm and elegant. All in all, quite sweet and definitely Christmassy.

3. Gwen Stefani, “You Make it Feel Like Christmas”

💿 You Make it Feel Like Christmas [Deluxe] • 🏷 Interscope • 📅 2020 

In 2017, 🎙 Gwen Stefani released her first Christmas album, 💿 You Make it Feel Like Christmas.  Ultimately, Stefani rings in the holiday season with this fun, well-rounded affair. 🎵 “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” the title track, is the best original song on the album.  Here, Gwen sings with who would become her fiancé, country singer/songwriter 🎙 Blake Shelton.

Besides being the best original of the album, “You Make It Feel Like Christmas” ranks among the very best songs.  Old-school, tongue-n-cheek, yet fresh, “You Make It Feel Like Christmas” is the type of modern original Christmas original that has some staying power as opposed to being a one-Christmas-season pony.  The vocals are great and the chemistry between Stefani and Shelton is definitely on-point.

4. All Time Low, “Merry Christmas, Kiss My Ass”

💿 Dirty Work • 🏷 Interscope • 📅 2011

“So, I wrote a song / Hope that you sing along / Here it goes / Merry Christmas, bitch – kiss my ass!” Christmas actually isn’t the main focus on the 🎙 All Time Low song, 🎵 “Merry Christmas, Kiss My Ass”, which appears from their 2011 studio album, 💿 Dirty Work. Front man 🎙 Alex Gaskarth has experienced heartbreak – a bad break-up – so, essentially, his ex has totally ‘pooed’ on any holiday spirit he might have experienced. “Don’t you think it’s kind of crappy / What you did this holiday? / When I gave you my heart, you ripped it apart / Like wrapping paper trash.” Oh ‘sugar foot’!

Alex spends the entirety of the song angry AF to say the least – there’s no other way to put it.  On the second verse, he’s so pissed that he asserts, “I tear down decorations / They remind me of your smile / I hate that mistletoe / It makes me think of our first kiss.” Yup, angry and totally emo to the nth degree.  Essentially, ‘merry’ isn’t very ‘merry’ in the least here.  More interesting is the colorful phrase ‘‘kiss my ass’, which has been masterfully used by the likes of John Wayne Gacy as well as the non-psychopathic (Zac Efron has a memorable scene in Hairspray). 

Also appears on 🔽:

🔗 🎧 11 Totally Merry, Mary, Marry Songs

5. The Temptations, “Give Love on Christmas Day”

💿 Give Love at Christmas • 🏷 Motown • 📅 1980

🎵 “Give Love on Christmas Day” is a prime example of 🎙 The Corporation – the famous Motown writing/production team – at work.  The record was originally recorded by 🎙 The Jackson 5 on their 1970 Christmas album, 💿 Christmas Album.  It’s a marvelous performance, one that sets the bars for the many covers to follow. That said, the version I personally grew up loving the most arrived courtesy of 🎙 The Temptations, another iconic Motown collective – UNDERSTATEMENT.

With The Temptations’ version of “Give Love on Christmas Day,” essentially, you get an older, more mature sound compared to the youthful original by the Jackson 5.  The record serves as the opener on 💿 Give Love at Christmas, what I’d describe as one of the best Christmas albums of all time, released in 1980.  It’s a soulful, spirited track that had the Jackson’s not recorded it first, you’d assume this was all The Temptations – that’s how much they made it their own.  Even more interesting is the fact that by this time, the group had long released their most beloved, critically acclaimed hits.  Call this song, and the entire album a late highlight in the soul collective’s discography.