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MY TOP 5 PICKS
Nothing screams Christmas like Christmas songs. Certain songs become ubiquitous every December. Switching on your radio and hearing the ring of those Christmas bells...being swept away into some Christmas Wonderland.
Below are my top 5 Christmas songs. Chances are, you've already heard all of them at least a dozen times this season, proving that holiday hits are truly gifts that keep on giving.
Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas Is You
The best Christmas songs should only work at Christmas. They should make you feel festive, in the same way that the 174th repeat of The Snowman does. They should work anywhere – in shopping centres, in bars, pumping out of PAs in gig venues after the band has left the stage, on the radio in a cafe, in your home or on your headphones. All I Want for Christmas Is You is all of those things. It's a shameless pastiche of Phil Spector that's so brazen and joyful and simple – it took Carey and Walter Afanasieff only 15 minutes to write – that it transcends its lack of originality. It's the rare modern Christmas song that has become a standard, and deservedly so.
Wham! - Last Christmas
A big Christmas hit that was unlike previous UK seasonal singles – it wasn’t wrapped in sleigh bells, there was nothing consciously novelty about it. Perhaps George Michael had been paying close attention to some of the great US Christmas soul singles, because this was a heartbreak song that just happened to be set in December.
PAGE 15 INSIDE ACCESS | DECEMBER 2020 1ST EDITION