A Very Special Christmas Song Tier List

Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's most seasonal music nerd. I hope you're doing well, and it's time for what Austen and I do every year – that is a tiered ranking of the greatest Christmas songs of all time ever to be created by mankind.

Yes, the greatest Christmas songs ever written and committed to whatever physical format they were committed to, basically getting ranked and talked about by yours truly, the number one Christmas music expert in the world. No one knows more about Christmas music than me, specifically. Anyone else who says otherwise is a liar, which is why this tier list is going to be amazing, and you're going to enjoy it.

All right, let's get the tier list up in my face.

Okay, we transitioned. Here we are. Let's go through these tracks and see what I think about the greatest Christmas songs of all time. Okay, let's start with our first track on the list. That is going to be "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" off of content creator Jschlatt's A Very 1999 Christmas. I mean, his rendition of the track is fine. If you like an old-school Frank Sinatra type of take on the tune with the big band in the background and everything like that, that deep, masculine, vintage style of singing.

The tune itself, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", is obviously great. It notifies you as to Santa's arrival into the area in which you live. You want to know that because honestly, Santa is a fucking narc. You don't want Santa catching you with your pants down. You don't want Santa catching you with your hand in the cookie jar. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He's got you on a list, and he's checking it twice at the very least. Take the fact that this is a very tried and true type of performance of a song that when you really dig into it, it creeps me out. So there you go. That's going to be that.

Okay, moving out from there. Next, we have Xiu Xiu, a legendary experimental underground music outfit, Xiu Xiu, coming through with their version of "Frosty the Snowman", which if you actually give it a spin, you will come to appreciate, I hope you come to appreciate, just how odd and creepy their rendition of the track is, even if the vibes are sour and the presentation of this track in this version is quite terrifying. Honestly, I feel like this is the most accurate version of the song that could possibly have been conceived.

Because if, in fact, there was such a thing as a snowman named Frosty who came to life, believe me, it would not be a good time. Even if that snowman were a kind and gentle fellow, the children who made that snowman come to life, and the snowman himself would be instantly detained by the CIA or some other secret shadowy government organization. The children would be put away and possibly experimented on for potentially having the magic to make things like snow come to life. The snowman would be tortured as potentially some kind of Russian spy, something like that.

Frosty and the children who built him would never see the light of day until the government got a hold of all of their secrets. It would not be a pretty sight. So I feel like in their horrifying take on this song, Xiu Xiu gives us the truest version of Frosty that we really could have asked for. We're going to put this over in the S row. There we go.

All right, moving on from there. Next, we have Jimmy Fallon and Megan Thee Stallion with Ariana Grande. It was a masked Christmas, which is honestly giving me really horrifying memories from the height of the COVID pandemic. I'm not happy about it. I don't want to be reminded of these wicked times. I'm going to put this in the F row for Fallon.

Okay, next, we have the track "Happy Holiday", which is, again, another Christmas classic, but it's J's rendition from his A Very 1999 Christmas project. What is so 1999 about? I was alive in 1999, and that was not the way Christmas sounded. I mean, maybe it's the way some people wanted Christmas to sound or missed Christmas sounding a certain way.

J's project here is really like an embrace of the nostalgic and the same way A Christmas Story is. How that film looks like it's a product of a bygone era when the movie itself is actually more recent than the time period it's trying to depict. I feel like we're actually getting that in a sense with this project from J, but you don't have to eat soap or dress up like a bunny or anything.

"Happy Holiday" is a cool song. Love having a happy holiday, even if I feel like we're lying to ourselves in living out that implied existence. But yeah, it's fine. It's cool. Thank you, J. I appreciate your contributions to the Christmas canon. This can go in the B section because it's a decent vocal performance, and I like the tune a bit more than the creepy "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" track.

Okay, next in the list, we have J with, again, "White Christmas". I mean, look, I've said this about this track before. I'll say it – "White" Christmas? Okay, I mean, I appreciate the bygone era this song comes from, but Christmas is for everyone now, even people who aren't white. So the idea of a white Christmas is just a tad bit offensive at this point. But J, dreaming of a white Christmas is heartening and sweet all the same. So cool. Thank you. Thank you, J.

Okay, next next on the list. What does the J stand for? Jamming every song on this goddamn project into my tier list?! What if I don't want every song on this thing jinagling its way into my list? Thank you, J-man. Thank you, Janana man.

All right, next pull. What's next on here? Oh, God. Let's see if we can improve here. Let's see if we can go up. I'm getting to the point where I'm really starting to question Austen's ability as an editor and just pulling these videos together in a way that is sane and makes sense.

What's my next pull over here? "DJ Play a Christmas" song from Cherby

All right, this is messed up. I've never been so offended in a Christmas tier list in my entire life. And is that because this song is formulaic, garbage, autotune trash that doesn't even feel Christmasy at all in any way whatsoever?

No. That is not why I am offended by the incorporation of this song. What pisses me off about bringing this track, this specific track, into a tier list such as this is that we have this version of the song with just Cher when there's an even more superior version featuring Kelly Clarkson. I hope Austen explains herself in some on-screen note or something.

Who do you think you are? Do you think I'm stupid? You think I'm a moron? Do you think I'm just going to let this slip by? You think like, 'Oh, I could put this on screen, and Anthony will be none the wiser. He's not going to realize or remember that there's a Kelly Clarkson version of this song with Cher and Kelly, The Queens of Pop on a single song to bring all of us together for Christmas.' Yeah, I'm not an idiot.

I'm not a stupid guy, okay? So that's not going to happen. I'm going to put this in the D section, but only as a protest, because you could have put the Kelly Clarkson version in here, and you didn't.

Okay, continuing on. Okay, "The Christmas Song", it go here. It'll go here.

Baby, It's Cold Outside" – I don't want to get creeped out for Christmas. Okay, we'll put it in the D. We'll give it the D.

Okay, please, please, God, something else next. All right, nice. Nice. "Switched on Santa!" That is what we need to bring in the holiday cheer. We need some analog synthesizer Santa. That is what we need. That is going in the S row.

We're doing every song on this? I don't want to have myself a merry little Christmas with this album, even if he did put in a lot of effort on the vocal front with this project. Fine. I'll just put it up here as long as it stops.