10.  Mud – Lonely this Christmas

If this song isn’t a huge, honking, flashing alarm-lights clue with bells on, I don’t know what is.  And you still don’t know why you’re lonely this Christmas? Dude!

9.   Wham – Last Christmas

We can’t help thinking that George Michael’s logic is a bit flawed.  Last year, he gave his heart to a girl who discarded it like a used tissue, so this year he’s going to give it away again this year, safe in the knowledge that this time he’ll choose ‘someone special’.  So special, in fact, that he spends the entire song worrying whether the former flame recognizes him, and telling her what a bitch she is.  The moral of the story: 80s pretty boys react with fury to the notion that anyone might not to love them as much as they love themselves.

8.   Robson and Jerome- I Believe

It says something about the sterling quality of British TV that the highpoint of the show Soldier Soldier was Robson & Jerome’s performance of ‘Unchained Melody’.  Not content with inflicting their dulcet tones on the fictional world,  the pair went on to score a real life Christmas chart topper with this housewives’ favourite, which can surely only have been written with the intention of outdoing Al Jolson’s ‘Sonny Boy’ in the schmaltz stakes.   The first line is ‘I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows’ and it actually manages the near-miraculous feat of going downhill from there.  Be warned, there are episodes of sporadic bell ringing to be endured at several points.

7.   Paul McCartney and Wings – Wonderful Christmastime

How can the moon be ‘right’?  And why shouldn’t you look down when you lift a glass?  The lyrics to this song should be ‘Exhibit A’ in any Lennon fan’s claim that John > Paul.  Add to this the fact that the melody is so chipper that it will make you want to garrote small children and you have a true festive horror waiting to crawl out of your stereo like the musical equivalent of that girl with the hair from The Ring.

6. T-Rex – Christmas Bop

At least Marc Bolan didn’t need to dumb down his talents to produce this lesser known festive classic. This record is as delightfully fluffy, good natured, musically inept and intellectually vacuous as the rest of his output.  Bolan gets distracted from his festive theme in the middle of the first verse, and spends most of the rest of the song singing about clothing (with ‘silk jeans’ and ‘space shoes’ making star appearances).  He even assures his listeners that he’s ‘dressed sweet’ while he’s singing his song.  A feelgood Christmas record, if by ‘feelgood’ you mean a record that makes you want to throw up over the next door neighbour’s porch.  While wearing purple tie-dye flares, of course.

5. Kim Wilde and Mel Smith – Rockin around the Christmas Tree

It’s nice to hear a song about the true meaning of Christmas occasionally.  And as this slice-of-life comedy video proves, there’s nothing more true to the festive season than a sordid old lech hitting on pretty young girls in cute outfits.  Add in some spicy innuendo (“I do love a good sax break!”/ “So do I, but let’s wait until the record’s over”) and you have a product virulent enough to make Kenneth Williams spin in his grave.  Somehow Kim Wilde’s self awareness makes the whole thing all the more unspeakably sordid.

4. Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas

Because nothing says ‘cultural sensitivity’ like assuming that all cultures celebrate the birth of Christ.  And we really needed to be told ‘there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime’.  Plus, there’s nothing that tugs at the heart strings like watching vastly overwealthy stars with nothing better to do devote an ENTIRE DAY to recording a charity song.

3. Bing Crosby – White Christmas

So stomach-churningly lugubrious that it sounds like Bing is either dead drunk, or about to keel over and expire in front of your very ears.

2. Cliff Richard – Millennium Prayer

Apparently, Sir Cliff’s appetite for the suffering of his fellow man was not satiated with his earlier Christmas number, Mistletoe and Wine, so he returned to the scene with a  special millennial treat for middle aged mums and insatiably devout Christians.  Why on earth Cliff actually got a writing credit for taking the Lord’s Prayer and setting it to an elevator version of Auld Lang Syne remains a mystery.  But he did.  The musical result would shake the faith of even the most devout Christian, were it not such a tangible proof of the sway held by hellish forces on earth.  Plus, ‘give us today our daily bread and forgive our sins as we forgive each of those who sins again-inst suss (A-men, a men, ataman)’ doesn’t even rhyme.

1. Slade – Merry Christmas Everybody

It’s hard to imagine a more horrifyingly anti-festive experience than hearing Noddy Holder scream ‘It’s Chriiiiiiiiistmaaaaaaas’. The Grinch really should take a long, hard look at this song for future reference.

by Kiera Chapman, Alex Maisey and Isabelle M