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It’s that time of year when the weather outside is frightful (how am I still sweating during a cold shower?) and beer tastes so delightful (look, I don’t know the words), and your supermarket is spinning Michael Buble’s Holly Jolly Christmas around the clock like a Satanic incantation. December’s music is, to put it mildly, suffocatingly familiar.
Look to the top of the pop charts and you’ll see the usual suspects on high rotation: there’s Mariah Carey’s annual windfall, All I Want for Christmas is You; there’s Brenda Lee, rockin’ around the Christmas tree. In a pleasant surprise, Ariana Grande has muscled her way into the action with her 2014 cut Santa Tell Me becoming a generational favourite, while ol’ Buble – also boasting a cover of that other staple, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas – might as well replace his nose with a carrot at this point.
A very Cher Christmas: the 77-year-old performing at New York’s Jingle Ball earlier this month.Credit: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
We need something new! And new good, not new bad. Wheatus’ Christmas Dirtbag (an update on their 2000 smash) is goofy and nostalgic, but whoever’s out here playing Travis (and brother Jason) Kelce’s Philly-leaning twist on The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York deserves a visit from the Krampus. And as much as I can appreciate the jaunty northern soul-esque stylings of, um, Hannah Waddingham’s Home For Christmas, I don’t need to be reminded about Ted Lasso during the season’s festivities.
But hark – 2023 has a sleighful of new Christmas classics, and leading the charge is, oddly enough, Cher. Stop everything, head to your music streaming service of choice, and cue up DJ, Play a Christmas Song. Like her ’98 anthem Believe but seasonal, the song is a dance-pop banger that’ll turn your family Christmas party into a sweaty nightclub. Pour some vodkas and watch Grandma, crackers in hand, go off.
If that’s not enough Christmas Cher for you, the 77-year-old’s 27th studio album, released in October, also includes the intriguing Drop Top Sleigh Ride, a Miami Bass-inflected track featuring a guest verse from rapper Tyga, who utters the line “shake that thing like a snow globe”. Again, Grandma.
Alanis Morissette has felt the Christmas spirit.
At a smoother pace comes Alanis Morissette’s Last Christmas EP, which is what I imagine Christmas sounds like at Lilith Fair. The standout here is What Child Is This, a cover of William Chatterton Dix’s 1865 carol, where Alanis comes across like a medieval maid (Caroline Polachek?) on what I’m sure is a lute. It’s new age-y and atmospheric, and you’ll want to chug mead and joust afterwards.
Of course, Mariah has her Christmas acolytes. Brandy, possessor of one of the greatest voices in late ’90s R&B, has produced the sort of Christmas album you could listen to in mid-April and relish. It’s smooth and sultry – the fluttery Christmas Party for Two is an almost uncomfortable seasonal sex jam – and, I’ll admit, I found myself swaying my head and fluttering my fingers to her Deck the Halls like I was Lauryn Hill in Sister Act 2.
Sabrina Carpenter, arch-nemesis of pop star Olivia Rodrigo, has also gone the slick R&B route with her Fruitcake EP, and it’s playful in a post-Eartha Kitt kind of way. “When you’re comin’ down the chimney, ooh, it feels so good, I need that Charles Dickens,” she sings on opener A Nonsense Christmas, which, come on, that’s just a good Dickens reference. This tongue-in-cheek approach covers the whole project, so it’s best suited to the Grinch in your life rather than the person who finished their gift shopping in November.
Finally, for those playing Whamageddon – whereby masochists seek to go as far into December as possible without hearing Wham!’s Last Christmas – the game has become increasingly fraught. Everyone seems to have a cover of Last Christmas in 2023, from Alanis (don’t bother) to The Wiggles (a gateway drug) trying their hand at it.
But the best new version comes from US rap duo Coco and Clair Clair. Typically breathy and lackadaisical and cool, it’s the sort of Christmas mood we could all use right now. Put it on repeat and drift towards the metaphorical air-conditioning.
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