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The 50 Best Original Christmas Songs Since ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’
Queen of Christmas, meet your disciples.
A scruffy ode to service-industry workers who are obligated to spend their festive season taking care of customers (in this case, a movie theater attended by “15 soggy patrons who have nowhere to be”), this offering from Seattle’s Harvey Danger is a tenderly rendered set piece about the holidays’ less-glamorous corners capped by a spat-out chorus and a shimmying, giddy breakdown. But it’s the title track, an update of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” that shows off DC’s innovative approach to pop-R&B, adding a dizzying pre-chorus and jubilant refrain to the original’s day-by-day rundown, and putting Chloë shades and a Mercedes-Benz CLK Class on the same level as back rubs and “quality T-I-M-E.” By the end, the trio gets to flaunt its collective prowess on a fluttering bridge before Beyoncé takes center stage for some prime early-career vocalizing. A “Carol of the Bells” flip is the basis for the Wu-Tang member’s 2008 holiday offering, where he uses his flair for description and rhyme to depict Christmas scenes — “Sisters and brothers, sliding down garbage-can covers / Snowball fights, eggnog splashed with Hennessy” — while reminding listeners that, like Santa, Ghostface knows if they’ve been bad or good.
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