Another stupid Christmas playlist review

It is my firm belief that the Christmas compilation album was perfected in 1963.

It is also my belief that when a major streaming platform repeatedly tries to shove a "100 Greatest Christmas Songs Ever" playlist at me from mid-October then I am absolutely bookmarking it for December, because I would like to test that theory. Yes, we are reviewing every song on a 100-strong Christmas playlist. I am that person.

Also, I did this very same thing on a pre-Musk Twitter once, and it feels like it could become a semi-annual tradition. At least, until I realise I'm commenting on pretty much the same songs every year and have created the nerdiest ever treatise on sequencing choices.

Incidentally, this playlist is put together by Topsify, a Warner Records subsidiary devoted to putting together themed playlists for streaming services. I'm sure they will draw equally from all record companies, in service of assembling a definitive list of the greatest Christmas songs regardless of who published them.

That's enough intro. Let's turn all the social settings to "private" and dive in.

#1: Michael Bublé - It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

The last compilation I reviewed went straight in with Whamageddon, but this time we're in with the Bublé and, wow, that 1950s plodding rhythm and brushed drums thing never dies, does it? I guess it's a competent pastiche of the style, although I really hope this isn't a portent of a playlist full of turgid '50s nonsense.

#2: Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

It's one of the ones you licence about 20 seconds of if you want to make a cuddly ornament that dances and flashes while it sings a Christmas song! This also appears to be one of those weird re-recorded versions with an inappropriately smooth and loungey studio band for extra "cheap to licence" points.

#3: Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas

Okay. Loungey is the vibe we're going for here. I think this our first application of obligatory sleigh bells. But... c'mon, it's dull, isn't it? And other than the regular injection of the C-word he may as well be describing sitting in roadworks on the way to the supermarket. I'm drivin' to the Tesco... with a thousand bags for life.

#4: Ed Sheeran and Elton John - Merry Christmas

Elton's a good man for a lively Christmas song, and I really wasn't expecting the out-of-nowhere Meat Loaf impersonation which crashes in at 55 seconds. I think I'm going to be making the Pop Disclaimer here: even if you don't like it personally, it doesn't sell millions consistently without getting something right. This has a lot going for it.

#5: Cher and Stevie Wonder - What Christmas Means To Me

There was a point on the last compilation album where they got a bit desperate and started sticking in these random soul records and oh my, did that ever liven things up. I feared we were going to be in for a lot of soporific toss with those opening tracks but this is looking up already.

#6: Sia - Snowman

One of those moments of getting old is when half of your twentysomething co-workers name an artist as their favourite and you have utterly no clue who they are, only to find they've been massive for about a decade. This is alright. I can still recognise it as pop music, so I've probably got at least another year or two before it all sounds like hyper-compressed noise to me.

#7: The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York

This is going to be a poignant one this year (RIP Shane MacGowan), so excuse me mentioning the complete triviality which is that this is the first time I've ever heard the edited version. It manages to be jarring precisely once and then never again, apt given MacColl had sung it live with this line for a lot longer than the original.

#8: Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone

Here comes that keyboard tone, necessary component of nearly every '80s Christmas record. This is also an oddity in this playlist, being only the second of 8 songs not to be drawn from a Warner Records album called "100 Greatest Christmas Songs Ever". I wonder why a playlist called "100 Greatest Christmas Songs Ever", assembled by a Warner Records subsidiary, would have done that?

This record still sounds like I'm doing something wrong not playing it on an Amstrad tower system.

#9: Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody

Now we're wheeling out the royalty. The massive band of the decade recording a Christmas single in a decade where those things were also massive, and they go into it knowing they've got competition. For some reason the version here sounds oddly slow, and I'm not sure if that's an actual thing or just me. I'd find out, but there are still 91 records to get through.

#10: Wizzard - I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

It's the classic Christmas album 1-2 sequencing decision, isn't it? If Roy Wood and Wizzard hadn't made a Christmas single, we'd have been forced to invent one using some sort of AI; their revivalist high-energy rock'n'roll and love of all-together-now Top of the Pops appearances are perfect for the genre. Also this doesn't sound oddly slow to me. OK you lot, take it!

#11: Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You

Why this one, Internet? Why? Can't we just have Slade like we used to? Gratingly overwrought before even the first 30 seconds are up, before breaking into something which sounds like it escaped from a mid-budget feelgood movie in which the recently divorced dad finds love and learns that no, we can have Christmas in a New York apartment after all.

#12: Kylie Minogue and Frank Sinatra - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Right. These '50s-style records. Pastiche or original, I'm not really that bothered which. Go back to Bublé at the beginning, and for all the ornamentation or minor details such as "completely different lyrics"... they're all absolutely identical, right? Just an endless sausage machine of stodge, pumped into your earlobes.

#13: Michael Bublé - Holly Jolly Christmas

Oh wait, you don't even need to go back to compare, because they've given us another one. People, if you see someone walking into a recording studio with a Santa hat and a pair of drum brushes, you are justified in stopping them at all costs. There is enough of this already. Too much, even.

#14: Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande - Santa, Can't You Hear Me

Ah yes, this is where Divorced Dad Trapped In New York finds all flights have been cancelled and he'll be looking after the kids this year. Or rather, shortly afterward: it's the "I Want" song that the kids sing while being suspiciously overdubbed by far more competent vocal performers.

#15: Cher - DJ Play A Christmas Song

Oh yes, Cher did that whole album of Christmas songs this year. I did think there were a lot of tracks I hadn't seen before. I can't think why a playlist produced by a Warner Records subsidiary would heavily feature a recent Warner Records release. If you desired "Believe"-era Cher, but now in Christmas form, here it is.

#16: Wham! - Last Christmas

Fine. I've Whamageddoned myself in the name of science.

#17: Brett Eldredge and Meghan Trainor - Baby, It's Cold Outside

It seems that every one of these compilations has to have a cover of this terminally skeezy interrupt-fest, and here it is. The interrupting rises to outright hostility, to the point they may as well have just rewritten the male part to go, "shut up, woman". Who thought this was good? It's like being trapped in a video call with two people who have terrible mic etiquette.

#18: The Eagles - Please Come Home for Christmas

The Eagles? Really? The Dude may not abide, but this is a tolerable Mud-esque effort from the late '70s with the kind of cautiously extending deadline every project manager likes to reveal in lieu of admitting initial estimates might have been unrealistic.

#19: The Drifters - White Christmas

This is a strange choice. The stage at which Irving Berlin's well-known classic turns up is normally the moment where you can point and go, "it Bing!" Having it replaced with this odd half-sung, half-yelped version has thrown me.

#20: Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock

Another one from the novelty singing ornament oeuvre, although I will give credit here for this being an original complete with that slightly odd and urgent rock'n'roll guitar tone as featured on many a Comets record

#21: Kylie Minogue - Santa Baby

What did I tell you about looking out for anyone sneaking into a studio with a set of drum brushes? WHAT DID I TELL YOU?

#22: Cher and Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)

I looked at this one with a mixture of dread and intrigue, because cover versions of things from the Greatest Christmas Album Of All Time tend to go badly, but the thing with Cher is she was there at the time, working as a backing vocalist, and also this has Darlene Love on it.

I collect this idea under something I call the "do not fuck with" rule, and here they get away with by, well, not fucking with it. It's an authentic cover of the original, and it's fine. The original is still the best, but unlike usual I'm not outraged by the mere presence of this.

#23: Coldplay - Christmas Lights

"Entrance music for a funeral" is not a good vibe for a Christmas song.

#24: Paul McCartney - Wonderful Christmastime

You know how you'd spend music lessons setting the keyboards to the silliest sound possible and pressing the "DJ!" button until the teacher yelled at you? McCartney did that, made it into a record, and sold it. It's still being put on Christmas playlists. It barely even has lyrics, beyond repeating the title and some free-association nonsense about Christmas.

#25: Donny Hathaway - This Christmas

There's this genre of '70s soul I call Bedroom Soul, because I have zero appreciation for pre-existing genres people much more knowledgeable than me have put together, and it's a weird old thing to hear a Christmas record sung in that style.

#26: The Tenors - I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warn

Another one new to me, and while it's doubtless well-done I feel like this is just too austere for too long to be a satisfying Christmas song. I was brought up on the likes of Wizzard, I need parping sax and... well, at least two everythings.

#27: Mud - Lonely This Christmas

Mud's bizarre (and commercially rather successful) Elvis impersonation period gives us this classic, and while it does sound quite a bit like it was lovingly handmade in a shed, it still raises a smile.

#28: Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry

Another outing for That Keyboard Tone. Also, as I have mentioned previously, do you have any idea how many times a day the average shopping centre plays this in a typical December? Can you feel how distracting those odd rhythms and sudden outbreaks of trumpets might be? Even 25 years later I can only hear this as the Bane Of Retail Work.

#29: Michael Bublé - Let It Snow!

Before this I don't think I'd ever listened to any Michael Bublé, and I'm already fed up. If we're going to lean into Internet meme territory for Mariah Carey, the least we could do is re-record this as "le tits now".

#30: Andy Williams - It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Going in big on that mid-'60s cinematic sound, you can imagine directors envisaging leads running from lamppost to lamppost in snow on hearing this. Not Divorced New York Dad of course, that one was made in 2006. Cheaply.

#31: Blake Shelton - Blue Christmas

Unexpected country-tinged Elvis cover! I'll give the Warner Records subsidiary playlist featuring many of your favourite Warner Records artists credit here, while there have been some stinkers they haven't fallen into quite the trap of endless stretches of miserable 1950s turgidness as the last compilation I did this with.

Yet. We're only a third of the way through.

#32: Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby

Things continue to look good with this sweet horn-laden bit of soft soul, complete with the essential sleigh bells. I like the little bits of added interest in this, with a prominent organ line and a key change for good measure.

#33: Ariana Grande - Santa Tell Me

I recall being pleasantly surprised by this last time round, and after remembering that's where I've heard it before I can repeat that assessment. But still don't let anyone know I told you that.

#34: Maisie Peters - Together This Christmas

This one is from a soundtrack (available on Warner Records, who'd have thought?), although I think it might be something a bit higher budget than what I spend most of my time mocking. Set your expectations at "soundtrack song from Christmas film" and you won't be too disappointed.

#35: Sia - Santa's Coming For Us

The title of this sounds like Santa's on a contract. There's something strange about hearing the kind of bomping sax you'd expect on a Wizzard record with something that is rhythmically very Not That.

#36: Band Aid - Do The Know It's Christmas?

As ever, I will make my point that this is Structurally Ultravox and nobody else in the entire known universe will care or understand why this pleases me.

(It does make it better)

#37: Cliff Richard - Mistletoe and Wine

IN CASE OF SONIC ATTACK ON YOUR DISTRICT, FOLLOW THESE RULES.

DO NOT WASTE TIME BLOCKING YOUR EARS.

DO NOT WASTE TIME SEEKING A SOUNDPROOF SHELTER.

TRY TO GET AS FAR AWAY FROM THE SONIC SOURCE AS POSSIBLE.

#38: John Lennon with the Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

While McCartney is over pressing the "DJ!" button until Mr Blenkinsop yells at him, Lennon is completing the assignment. Given the number of regrettable songs with vague world peace or melting-pot sentiments around this time, this does a decent job.

#39: Kylie Minogue - At Christmas

I think I'm realising that the Divorced New York Dad film has a credits montage, over which this plays. Guess what - he has the kids again next Christmas!

#40: Jessie James Decker - Tangled in Tinsel

One of the problems with going for 100 Christmas songs as opposed to a manageable number like 25 or so is you get these weird sagging middle sections full of never heard-of-'ems (disclaimer: probably everyone under 34 has heard of 'em) which I find it hard to say anything either positive or negative about.

#41: Michael Bublé - The Christmas Sweater

Right, Warner Records Subsidiary, this playlist has a Michael Bublé problem. Pick one and let the other artists have a go. At least this one's not yet another '50s pastiche. It's a bizarre mix of a Wizzard pastiche and what I'm fairly sure is the theme to Game of Thrones.

#42: Bebe Rexha - Count on Christmas

This has the sort of energy where I can see it making a good nightcore version. Throw a bit of "What The?" from a Roland Juno on there, speed it up yet more, and off you go.

#43: Elton John - Step Into Christmas

Ah, Elton, the only person so far to have the grace to welcome us to their Christmas song. I'm glad this has returned as a central fixture of Christmas playlists, because it seemed to have completely disappeared by the '90s and early 2000s, which is a shame as there's a lot to like. Especially that bizarre electronic sound effect

#44: Ava Max - Christmas Without You

The hardest thing with these exercises is getting something you've never heard before, which is fine, competent, does it's job, but also not a style of pop you find yourself particularly enthused by.

#45: Kelly Clarkson - Christmas Eve

Oh, a different Kelly Clarkson record to the one on the last compilation I did! Takes on much of the same "throw everything at it" production style, and for good reason: it works.

#46: Carla Thomas - Gee Whiz, It's Christmas

Some fantastic Stax soul here, with the instantly recognisable loose groove of that label.

#47: Blake Shelton - Winter Wonderland

This is the point the playlist starts playing fast and loose with the "do not fuck with" rule, and no surprises - fine as this might be, it's nothing compared to the perfection of Darlene Love and company.

#48: The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)

Heirs apparent to Slade, this is one of those records where one band member asks, "two kitchen sinks?" only for another to go, "why not three? Or NINE HUNDRED?" A great appreciation of the idea that it's a festive record, the concept of "over the top" does not apply in these waters.

#49: Clarence Carter - Back Door Santa

I had a brief moment of, "Clarence Carter? Really? That ought to be good." It is.

#50: The Ronettes - Frosty The Snowman

Half way through the 100-song playlist and we finally get a straight-up inclusion from "A Christmas Gift To You", demonstrating within 30 seconds why this is the greatest Christmas song compilation ever made. They put effort into this, despite 90% of copies being destined for low-fidelity suitcase record players, and it shows everywhere.

If you're serious about a good Christmas playlist you need to stack it with these wall of sound classics and avoid inferior cover versions, and I don't understand why a Warner Records subsidiary would miss so many obvious choices from this album (now owned by Sony Music Group).

#51: Michael Bublé - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

The creeping menace of Bublé draws across the land, drowning it under a slow but ceaseless tide of near-identical '50s pastiche records.

Don't say I didn't warn you about those drum brushes.

#52: Christina Perri - Merry Christmas Darling

It's that point where I find myself severely doubting the wisdom of this exercise, or at least wondering if I can take a break from it and come back having sunk enough ill-advised "festive" cocktails featuring too much green crème de menthe to not care about much of anything anymore.

#53: Brett Eldredge and Kelly Clarkson - Under the Mistletoe

Brett's a lot more bearable when he's not CONSTANTLY INTERRUPTING the person he's supposed to be singing a duet with.

#54: Blake Shelton - Jingle Bell Rock

Wait... didn't we... hang on...

(scrolls up)

It's not boding well for this playlist when it starts repeating the same song. I'm telling you, 100 is just too many. At least, without raiding the Stax catalogue a lot harder.

#55: Chuck Berry - Run Rudolph Run

One thing with having so many modern records leading up to this is it sounds very thin with the vintage rock'n'roll production. I'm not saying I wouldn't have put this on here, but I am saying I'd have sequenced it elsewhere. You gotta lead in to things, people.

#56: The Tenors - Feliz Navidad

...you also gotta plan a route out of them. I'm getting a strong whiff of impending lunchtime and someone whose only job is to fill a playlist with things produced by or under licence to Warner Music.

#57: Kelly Clarkson - Christmas Isn't Canceled (Just You)

I fear I'm finding that while I can enjoy a Kelly Clarkson song popping up on an otherwise varied Christmas playlist, once there's enough of them on there they all blend into one sort of indistinguishable perkily energetic mass.

#58: Michael Bublé - The Christmas Song

Speaking of moderation, what is it with the Bublé? People who want this much concentrated Bublé are going to listen to a Michael Bublé album. Or they're at least going to have the wherewithal to create their own Bublé-heavy playlist if they're into that sort of thing.

(Reprise Records is a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Music Group)

#59: Matt Monro - Mary's Boy Child

Again with the weird cover selections. Everybody is expecting the Boney M. version (BMG/Sony Music) here. I don't have anything particularly against Matt Monro but this is definitely not as good.

(Originally issued on Parlophone, catalogue later acquired by Warner Music Group)

#60: Percy Sledge - Christmas Wish

The last time I did this kind of thing I was pleasantly surprised by the number of soul Christmas records. This time... country/soul hybrid? I love the way this is soulful one moment, then the next moment you've classic Nashville-style piano.

#61: Brett Eldredge - Christmas Time Is Here

The amount of time this takes to get going makes me dread another turgid '50s pastiche, and unfortunately I'm not wrong. I think my own Christmas playlist this year might be titled CHECK DRUM BRUSHES AT DOOR.

#62: Twenty One Pilots - Christmas Saves The Year

Given how so many of the modern Christmas songs fall into either the '50s pastiche style or the mid-budget movie soundtrack style, it's odd to listen to one which follows in the '80s tradition with prominent synth and halting, unusual rhythms. I think it works.

#63: Michael Bublé - Cold December Night

The plague of Bublé devours as it advances, towns and cities alike falling to the scourge of sugary arrangements, inoffensive vocals and the occasional anguished scream in the distance of, "WHY? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?"

#64: VICTORIA and Aleksandr Debicz - All I Want For Christmas Is You

Why? I fear this is becoming the word of this playlist, but why have a string-and-piano cover of a record you've already had on there? Why not just have this version, as an interesting twist on the meme record everybody expected to be there?

#65: Leona Lewis - One More Sleep

There is a special hell reserved for the people who use "sleeps" as a calendar unit.

#66: New Rules - Might Ruin Christmas

Two thirds of the way through and you can possibly tell my mental state by the way I am very aware of this. This makes me uneasy. It feels like it ought to be a punk record, but then has that sort of Standard Christmas Record Instrumentation. Y'know, the one on all those Kelly Clarkson records.

#67: Lea Heart - Everybody's Home For Christmas

Right. Here's the problem with this monstrously huge playlists. If this was one of a couple of wildcard selections on a focused couple of dozen songs heavy on the Slade, Wizzard and other classics, it'd work. You'd listen to it and go, "oh wow, I've not heard that before, it's pretty good".

But up against 30 other songs you're also not familiar with, you'd just end up skipping it. Well, you would if there wasn't the omnipresent threat of Bublé.

#68: Judy Blank - California Christmas

As it happens, you'd skip to this. Which would not be a good trade-off. This is the montage where Divorced New York Dad is a grinch about doing Christmas activities, while dreaming about being in California with the stern but wealthy girlfriend he's about to leave for some sort of manic pixie dream girl.

I may sound like I'm thinking too much about this notional mid-budget Christmas film from 2006, but it saves having to think about the records.

#69: Ella Henderson and AJ Mitchell - Blame It On The Mistletoe

And here is where he finally falls for the manic pixie dream girl. Mistletoe is involved, probably.

#70: Michael Bublé and The Puppini Sisters - Jingle Bells

What happened here? Was some poor intern compiling the playlist, and Michael himself turns up at the office? He's intrigued, then begins to interfere. "MORE ME!" he roars.

"The playlist can't take it, sir," replies the poor intern, "it doesn't have the structural integrity"

Bublé cares not. "MORE!" he demands.

Fuck this is terrible.

#71: Ella Henderson and Cian Ducrot - Rest Of Our Days

Actually okay sort of vaguely folkish number.

#72: Jess Glynne - This Christmas

I'm actually surprised there hasn't been more R&B on here, although possibly none is allowed under the Watchful Eye Of Bublé. "More! More me!" he rages.

I'm struggling. On the plus side, I have wine now.

#73: Cher - Christmas Ain't Christmas Without You

I'm realising I probably should have reviewed that Cher Christmas album for this year's effort, because I'd have had a lot more fun. Also, I'd be done by now.

Signature autotune or no, it's not one of the enduring greats, but that still doesn't mean it isn't better than about half the things I've already forgotten having listened to.

#74: Cliff Richard - Heart of Christmas

USE YOUR WHEELS, IT IS WHAT THEY ARE FOR.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE YOUR OWN LIMBS.

SMALL BABIES SHOULD BE PLACED INSIDE THE SPECIAL COCOONS.

#75: Chasing Abbey - Must Mean It's Christmas

I should have done one of those "punk rock Christmas" albums. I've cracked. I'm alternately being assaulted by a wave of nothing and being pelted by Bublé.

You know why "A Christmas Gift To You" is the greatest Christmas compilation album ever created? Because they cared. They really put their all into making the greatest, most memorable songs they could make, into making them sound as good as they could be made to sound on AM radios and little mono record players, into giving every last crevice of that record a sense of joy and fun.

Why can't we do that again? Why must we labour under an endless indistinguishable sausage machine of Standard Christmas Song Elements and the Plague Of Bublé?

#76: East 17 - Stay Another Day

And once again, the idea of running myself over with my own car looks appealing. At least it's not directly East 17's fault this time.

#77: Kenny Rogers - Little Drummer Boy

It's either Bowie enquiring as to the status of Bing's rubber bum pump, or you get out of town. That said, if you did remove this from the playlist the spot would only go to the insatiable appetite of Bublé, so I guess it may as well stay.

#78: The Boy Least Likely To - It Will Still Be Christmas

Hey, remember that point where indie music got all sort of plinky and then The Boy Least Likely To came along and outdid everybody at said plinking? I regret to admit that I hit my limit at one album (although that first album I did enjoy), but I'm listening to this and thinking they did have something that worked there.

#79: Dolly Parton and Michael Bublé - Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas

I see you there, Bublé, trying to trick us into thinking this is going to be some sort of Christmas-themed "Jolene". You leave that poor intern alone, you hear me?

#80: Anne-Marie - Think of Christmas

80 songs in and I'm staring into the abyss of the soul, confronting questions like - do other people enjoy this standard modern Christmas song template? Is it just me that wants variety beyond this sort of perky, mid-tempo beat? Are these beloved Christmas classics elsewhere, and it's just me that'd rather retreat to "Don't Let The Bells End" because it's at least fun?

#81: Solomon Burke - Presents for Christmas

Oh hey, this is alright though. I'm loving those fat horns and, well, just the whole lot. Self-deprecating humour from Burke and all. I reiterate my point: y'know, maybe it's dated in places, but people cared about this, they set out to make a good record that'd put smiles on faces. I have one on mine.

#82: Fitz and the Tantrums - Give Love This Year

I know this is me sliding gracelessly out of touch and spending my last few years listening to scrappy pop-punk, but it's starting to feel like I'm listening to a playlist bleeding through from an alternate universe where music which raises your heart rate is banned. Also, Bublé is Emperor Of All there. It's not a good place.

#83: Michael Bublé - I'll Be Home For Christmas

You're not helping that dystopian alternate universe case here, playlist.

#84: Christina Perri - Christmas Dream

At some point after I'm done with this, I'm going to listen to "A Christmas Gift For You" very loud and remind myself of when Christmas songs weren't just a sausage factory of endless dirges. Also possibly a couple of those Raveonettes ones which are quite blatantly about cocaine.

#85: Kiri T and moon tang - You Make It Feel Like Christmas

I like the synths but I'm going to level with you, I'm struggling here. More than I did during the longest of the turgid '50s sections of that last 100 song compilation I tried. This bit of the playlist desperately needs a few well-known, iconic tracks to anchor it. And not covers of them which are coincidentally on Warner Music even though the original isn't.

#86: Lizzo - Someday at Christmas

Pleasant enough, but I'm really feeling the lack of an anchor point. This would go great if you stuck it somewhere between Band Aid and that John Lennon one, where it'd be a bit of a break but also thematically consistent.

#87: Forest Blakk - Wake Up (It's Christmas Time)

I'm feeling increasingly like there was a "they'll never get this far down the list" decision taken, and it was quite a number of tracks ago.

#88: Colton Dixon - Home for Christmas

I'm losing understanding of why these things are even produced. At least the bad classic records are fun to rip the piss out of. These are just... there's nothing. They're competently executed but so utterly generic there's nothing there. It's grey goo as festive songs. They may as well make a playlist of 1,000 of these (indeed, possibly have) and you wouldn't be able to tell any one part of it from another.

#89: ASTN - Last Christmas

Yet again we have a cover of a song we already put on the playlist, one which adds absolutely nothing to the version which is already on there and contributes further to the feeling my brain is dribbling slowly into my headphones to a soundtrack of Government Cheddar in music form. I know this is hard, I tried making my own 100 Christmas Songs playlist last year and you really start reaching once you get past about 60 or so, but there's no excuse to have this much sheer blandness without so much as a single punk or emo version of something.

I assume at least one of them is available on Warner.

#90: Ingrid Andress - Christmas Always Finds Me

The track has changed and the only difference I can tell is a new vocalist. Maybe the tempo slowed down a bit. I started out kindly disposed toward this playlist and pleased by how much of the new-to-me stuff was enjoyable, but bloody hell someone is nervously eyeing the clock at this point.

#91: Cher with Michael Bublé - Home

Bublégeddon is complete.

#92: aespa - Jingle Bell Rock

Wait... is this the third time? It's fun, sure, and my word has that concept been lacking from this playlist for quite a long time, but why not go, "hey, we're going to be bold and put a modern interpretation on the playlist" rather than hedging your bets and putting three on there?

#93: Jubël ft. Christopher - My Only Wish

And we're back to the cookie cutter. I can't even find it in myself to try to be funny any more. I know these playlist review things always break me to some extent but no, this one really has broken me.

#94: Pretenders - 2000 Miles

Arriving where it does, this one comes like a cleansing balm. There's a reason some songs become beloved Christmas classics while others languish as never-heard-of-'ems, and it starts with "identifiably different to other records"

I don't want this to end, because I see six more tracks and I do not like the look of any of them.

#95: Lily Williams - Doesn't Feel Like Christmas

Saccharine overload.

#96: Jordyn Shellhart - Santa Tell Me

WHAT IS IT WITH THE COVERS, PLAYLIST??

#97: Christina Perri - Mele Malikimaka

Oh yes, remember when I did this in 2021? When there was variety, and things which you could find some interesting or unusual element to comment on, and I had that whole big rant about how excruciatingly painful I find 1950s "fake exotic" records?

I stand by that rant. At least they didn't put "Never Do A Tango With An Eskimo" on here.

#98: Kiri T - Twelve Nights of Christmas

There are two more to go. Two more, and I'm done for at least another year.

#99: Laura Pausini and Patrick Williams Orchestra - White Christmas

It's over, children. We could have gone out on a high, and instead we hit our penultimate track with yet another cover of something which was already done earlier.

Divorced New York Dad died on the way back to his home planet.

#100: Michael Bublé - Silent Night

From his lofty panopticon, the Watchful Eye Of Bublé rules over all. There is no music but the music of Warner.

He doesn't even thank the artists and people who made this recording possible. Man that bit of "A Christmas Gift For You" always gets me, hokey as it may be.

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#-1: The Ronettes - Sleigh Ride

That's it. I refuse to leave it there in the Dystopian Eternity Of Bublé.

We're going off-playlist. And it's beautiful. I've just heard more key changes in two minutes than I heard in the last hour.

What I think really gets me, the reason why I love this album and why the Playlist Of Warner broke me, is how in just three minutes they cram in a huge variety of ideas, different musical signatures and even sound effects. (These were hard to do in 1963. Compare this to the people who could have done that in five seconds in a DAW and didn't.) Meanwhile once we get past about song 60 in the world of Warner we're better off measuring "songs per idea" than "ideas per song" as it all blends into one homogenous mass punctuated by regular reminders that resistance to Bublé is futile and he cannot be stopped.

Reviewing the playlist as a whole, much as I'd rather not revisit that, I'm dismayed how much they left out in favour of that latter half of identikit dirge and repeated covers. Where's the "Ring Out Solstice Bells"? The "In Dulci Jubilo"? Even, much as it irks me with excessive jauntiness, the "Christmas Wrapping"? You've got records on there which reference "Silver Bells" and then neglect to add it? "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" doesn't even get so much as a cover version. We don't even need to go into sequencing, we've got basic omissions going on.

I swear, I'm doing one of the "punk rock Christmas" albums next year.