The Christmas Shop Song Vomitorium 2021

[Ray Travez]

It's the most nauseous time of the year

I get possibly unsreasonably angry at all this shit. I heard noddy holder screaming 'it's christmaaaaas!' in fucking mid-November. No it fucking isn't

I've never had to work in a shop with music playing, it must drive you insane. In dulce jubilo repeating every couple of hours, fuck off

The other one I hear a lot is Shakin Stevens. 'Its the season for love and understanding.' No it fucking isn't. Once woke up with this as an earworm in June, it stayed with me all day and left me with a nervous twitch. Canny lad Shakin', it must net him at least 400 grand a year*; the song's just anodyne enough without being utterly moronic like McCartney's effort.



*^{now I think of it, it's probably a lot less, unless the cunt penned it himself. McGowan I believe gets £300k a year, though that figure dates from about ten years ago.}

[DrGreggles]

Shakey would always write the b-side to get half the royalties.

[jobotic]

For years I thought McCartney's effort was up there with Oh Oh Oh It's Magic as the worst song ever created but I've really changed my mind. If there was no singing it really would be great - such an odd and actually quite lovely tune.

I make this post every year.

[Ray Travez]

Yes, it's the lyrics that let it down. I loved it when I was eight. It sounds (to me) like a ball bouncing on a synthesizer.

[Ray Travez]

Shakey would always write the b-side to get half the royalties.

I just think the fun, family-friendly elvis-lite veneer of Shakin' Stevens conceals a deeply mercenary figure, in love with money and unashamed to stoop to any level to get it.

[DrGreggles]

How dare you speak about the King of Rock n' Roll like that!

[The Mollusk]

I heard noddy holder screaming 'it's christmaaaaas!' in fucking mid-November. No it fucking isn't

To be fair there wouldn't be much point playing the song in shops when it's actually Christmas, owed to the fact that all the shops would be closed on that day.

[markburgle]

I first heard all those songs as a kid, and not having witnessed their emergence in real time as a jaded grown up, I was free to love them. They were all infused with magical, childish Christmas wonder. What I resent is having that association erased through overexposure, mercilessly overwritten by jangly sense-memories of resentful shopping, Noddy Holder's scream becoming less one of excitement and more of horror, Roy Wood giving voice not to your desires but your nightmares

[Pink Gregory]

Heard the wonderful, melancholic 'I believe in Father Christmas' for the first time this year in a service station toilet.

cheers

[Kankurette]

A lot of Christmas songs I can stomach, even after having worked retail, but Merry Xmas (War Is Over)? FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF.

Amazingly, Fairytale of New York hasn't been ruined for me yet. It's one of my favourite songs of all time, albeit for personal/family reasons.

[Brundle-Fly]

Has any poseur declared that Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses is the best Xmas song yet?

[DrGreggles]

Has any poseur declared that Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses is the best Xmas song yet?

I'd have it as one of the least unbearable.

[Chollis]

Has any poseur declared that Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses is the best Xmas song yet?

I was just about to but you beat me to it! Bass player is having a great time and so am I

[Huxleys Babkins]

Christmas Wrapping is almost completely undone* by that awful sax solo.

_*lol

[Huxleys Babkins]

Big fan of Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time, no matter how back of a fag packet it is. Plus it was sampled in this slice of fucking brilliance:

[Pauline Walnuts]

Has any poseur declared that Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses is the best Xmas song yet?

Or Fairytale of New York, for the really slow moving hipsters.

[Jollity]

A few years ago, I remember people were talking about Baby, it's Cold Outside, and an argument about how it had been "cancelled", and how people these days get too offended over nothing, and we really have to look at the historical context and the attitudes of the time - and yet it felt like I heard a different version of that stupid, boring song every time I went in a shop until I was sick of it. Obviously "cancelled" has meant "now we have a great deal more of it" for years.

I don't think I've heard it this year, though. But I have heard Santa Baby, another (very slightly less) horrible song. Absolute worst version of that, though, is unambiguously the Michael Bublé version. The lyrics in that are changed to be all "Santa buddy" and "Santa pally", because Michael Bublé is Not Gay. And the car he asks for is dark blue (as opposed to the light blue one in the original lyrics) because, again, Michael Bublé is Not Gay. It takes a song that was already dumb and makes it infinitely more dumb presumably just because the record company was hard pressed to think of "classic" secular Christmas songs to fill an entire album. I heard that version once, in Oxfam, and I nearly cringed myself inside out.

[Ray Travez]

To be fair there wouldn't be much point playing the song in shops when it's actually Christmas, owed to the fact that all the shops would be closed on that day.

I do allow him a bit of leeway- I tend to translate his insistent screech as, 'listen lads, I've had a look around, noticed a few decorations, and it sort of looks, well, a bit christmassy'. Like a cockerel at 4am anticipating the dawn, he can't quite contain himself.

This was fucking mid-November though. It wasn't like Christmas at all.

[turnstyle]

I would happily listen to Slade or Wizzard on repeat for another million years, than whatever shit Ladbaby is inevitably going to release this year.

lol sausage rolls oh my fucking sides.

[Johnny Yesno]

It's the most nauseous time of the year

I get possibly unsreasonably angry at all this shit. I heard noddy holder screaming 'it's christmaaaaas!' in fucking mid-November. No it fucking isn't

I've never had to work in a shop with music playing, it must drive you insane. In dulce jubilo repeating every couple of hours, fuck off

The other one I hear a lot is Shakin Stevens. 'Its the season for love and understanding.' No it fucking isn't. Once woke up with this as an earworm in June, it stayed with me all day and left me with a nervous twitch. Canny lad Shakin', it must net him at least 400 grand a year*; the song's just anodyne enough without being utterly moronic like McCartney's effort.



*^{now I think of it, it's probably a lot less, unless the cunt penned it himself. McGowan I believe gets £300k a year, though that figure dates from about ten years ago.}

Ho! Ho! Ho! I come bearing the gift of Cassetteboy's festive earworm killer (it's saved my sanity over the years anyway):

[Johnny Yesno]

But I have heard Santa Baby, another (very slightly less) horrible song. Absolute worst version of that, though, is unambiguously the Michael Bublé version. The lyrics in that are changed to be all "Santa buddy" and "Santa pally", because Michael Bublé is Not Gay. And the car he asks for is dark blue (as opposed to the light blue one in the original lyrics) because, again, Michael Bublé is Not Gay. It takes a song that was already dumb and makes it infinitely more dumb presumably just because the record company was hard pressed to think of "classic" secular Christmas songs to fill an entire album. I heard that version once, in Oxfam, and I nearly cringed myself inside out.

Timestamped for you: https://youtu.be/E8am6PX9Ds8?t=172

[non capisco]

Santa Baby, another (very slightly less) horrible song. Absolute worst version of that, though, is unambiguously the Michael Bublé version.

I once arrived at the parents' house on Christmas Eve and they were watching some kind of Eastenders Christmas variety special and Pat Butcher was singing a "sexy" version of that. And what's worse, Dad was sat with his trousers and pants down rubbing one out, wait, no he wasn't, sorry Dad, threw you under the bus for a cheap laugh there. I haven't heard Buble's version but it's gonna have to go some to beat that.

Glad to see Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time getting more defenders each year cause it's MINT. It sounds like Macca's taken apart one of his kids' toy robots to jerry build a synthesizer. Plus it directly led to the brilliant Peter Serafinowicz parody. 

[seepage]

As well as The Waitresses, Radio 6 are bound to have that Fleet Foxes one on heavy rotation again. OK first time, but that's it.

[markburgle]

I like the Kinks one a lot

[Rizla]

*^{now I think of it, it's probably a lot less, unless the cunt penned it himself.}

Written by the great Bob Heatlie, who also penned "Cry Just A Little Bit" for the Welsh Elvis, as well as Japanese Boy for Aneka, and the theme tunes to Trapdoor, Wheel Of Fortune, Funhouse and more.

[shiftwork2]

A Spaceman Came Travelling is my least favourite Christmas song to hear in shops, or anywhere.  Such trite dog doings, yet so earnest.

It also has a well-documented problem with the unit for the physical quantity 'time'.

There is a theory that the blurt who walked into Chris De Burgh's Ballroom of Romance video was in fact the spaceman.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I like the Kinks one a lot

Me too. Shoulda been a hit.

[flotemysost]

For years I thought McCartney's effort was up there with Oh Oh Oh It's Magic as the worst song ever created but I've really changed my mind. If there was no singing it really would be great - such an odd and actually quite lovely tune.

I make this post every year.

Yeah I've had a similar turnaround on this one too in recent years, gone from finding it gratingly chirpy to harmless and actually quite charming.

It's not an especially overplayed one tbf, but I heard Thank God It's Christmas by Queen the other day and was reminded of how plodding and flabby it sounds. As a child I used to think at the start Freddie sings "Oh, my love, we've had our share of tea" like he's overdone it on the turkey sandwiches and Matchmakers. (On the other hand, Thank God It's Not Christmas by Sparks is a belter.)

[markburgle]

At least we don't have to hear Gary Glitter's one anymore. I think his and Elton's were two I couldn't abide even as a kid

[Sebastian Cobb]

Has any poseur declared that Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses is the best Xmas song yet?

Kurtis Blow one is better.