Christmas Songs

I've always been fascinated by the oddity that is the Christmas Song and the fact that there are pop songs that you can only really listen to for a few weeks of the year without it being a bit weird.

There are many Christmas songs that have been recorded over the years and yet there is a cannon of 15 or so that get played far more than any of the others and when you hear a Christmas song on the radio 9 times out of 10 it will be one off this list; your Slade, Wham!, Shakin' Stevens etc. The Christmas song cannon is an exclusive club that no one has been able to join since The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl gatecrashed the party in 1987 with Fairytale of New York.

There are only two Christmas albums that I ever find the need to listen to. Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift For You is as good as anything Spector produced with his Wall of Sound technique and contains my all time favourite Christmas song; Darlene Love's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). I'm also a big fan of Vince Guaraldi's sublime A Charlie Brown Christmas, the soundtrack to an extended festive TV special featuring the Peanuts gang.