A little advice: When friends and relatives come visiting around Christmas, don't haul out those old CDs with Madonna's rendition of "Santa Baby" or Barbra Streisand's "Jingle Bells?" And by all means, avoid "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."
Unless, that is, you want to drive people away.
In the vast songbook of seasonal music, those recordings are Christmas poison, the sonic equivalent of a chorus of screeching cats. They are among the most-hated Christmas songs of all time.
This isn't just our frankly subjective opinion. It's the frankly subjective opinion of representative samplings of radio listeners, which makes it sort of, kind of scientific. Not one, but two research companies -- Edison Media Research and Pinnacle Media Worldwide -- independently surveyed listeners to divine their most loved and loathed holiday songs.
The most beloved songs in both surveys were often standards: Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" (he first recorded it in 1942); Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" (1946) and Burl Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (1965) turned up at the top of each company's lists of favorites.
Which leads to Christmas Music Observation No. 1: Despite all the new holiday music that is released each year, people prefer hearing the "classics."
Music analysts Sean Ross and Mark Carlson say adults have strong psychological ties to the Christmas music of their childhoods. "It's the season of nostalgia," says California-based Pinnacle's Carlson. Ross, of New Jersey-based Edison, says that some of these songs have stayed in popular consciousness because they're part of holiday TV specials and movies that reappear year after year.
Among the most-hated Christmas songs, according to Edison's research, are Streisand's "Jingle Bells?" (too "acrobatic," Ross ventures); the Jackson 5's "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (Ross: "I wonder if it's a vote about Michael Jackson"); Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"; and "O Holy Night," as butchered by the cartoon character Eric Cartman (voiced by Trey Parker) from Comedy Central's "South Park."
And the No. 1 most-hated Christmastime recording? That would be "Jingle Bells," as "performed" by the Singing Dogs. This 1955 Danish record (re-edited and rereleased in 1970) is just what the name and group say it is: a bunch of dogs woofing out the familiar tune, one bark at a time.
Christmas Music Observation No. 2: People aren't crazy about singing dogs.
Pinnacle has a much different list of "most hateds," reflecting differing survey methods. "Santa Baby" by Madonna, "Merry Christmas, Darling" by the Carpenters and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" by Bruce Springsteen popped up repeatedly among the despised. (Springsteen? Despised?)
The only song that bobbed to the top of both most-disliked lists is "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."
First Published: December 15, 2007, 5:00 a.m.
