Taylor Swift Christmas Song Included In Billboard’s Best 50 Holiday Songs Of The Last Half-Century


Billboard just released a list of the best 50 holiday songs from the last 50 years, which includes this classic Taylor Swift Christmas song.

This song was released on the only Christmas collection that Taylor Swift has released to date. The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection is a Christmas-themed EP that was released for the holiday season in 2007.

The EP contains six tracks, with two new tracks written by Swift, and four remakes including a version of “Last Christmas.” All of the tracks received airplay with the exception of “Christmas Must Be Something More” and therefore charted on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart. “Christmases When You Were Mine” reached No. 48, with the top performer being “Last Christmas,” which peaked at No. 28.

The album itself was the best-selling holiday album according the Billboard Top Holiday Albums Chart in 2010 after peaking at No. 14 in the previous years.

Taylor Swift Christmas song joins 49 others in Billboards list of top holiday songs
[Image by Joel Ryan/AP Images]

Taylor Swift’s Christmas song is joined by numerous other great holiday songs that provide an alternate sound to the traditional “Deck the Halls,” and “Jingle Bells.”

Billboard‘s pick for 2009 is the George Michael “December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas).” This song was originally written for the Spice Girls, and in a year that was rather anemic for holiday originals, it was a welcome, if melancholy, song.

George Michael also took the 1984 best holiday song with the original version of “Last Christmas” as performed by Wham!

The entire decade of the ’80s provided poppy synth-laden hits that have become holiday classics and standard mall music fare. Standouts for that decade include The Waitresses and their hit “Christmas Wrapping,” that has one of the best funk bass lines of any holiday song ever. The Pretenders take 1983’s best holiday jingle with “2000 Miles.” This melancholy song is wrapped in Chrissie Hynde’s earnest vocals and makes you feel in a way that will make your Grinch-like heart grow a few sizes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t039p6xqutU

You’d never expect a Weird Al Yankovic song to be timely or relevant, but the pick for 1986 is his original, “Christmas at Ground Zero.” Given the tweets that President-elect Trump has sent out about a new nuclear arms race, the lyrics are slightly prescient.

“Well, it’s Christmas at Ground Zero
There’s panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris while we trim the tree
Underneath a mushroom cloud.”

Of course it wouldn’t be a list of the best holiday songs if there weren’t some true classics that everyone recognizes. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” took the honors for 1997. It’s unfortunate that this is also the year that “The Chanukah Song” was released by Adam Sandler, or that one would have been a shoo-in for the best holiday song that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kfdEyV3RQ

The year 1977 brought together one of the strangest collaborations for holiday music ever, when Bing Crosby teamed up with the late great David Bowie to sing the medley of “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy.” This song holds particular poignancy this year because of Bowie’s passing on January 10, 2016.

Dej Loaf joins Taylor Swift Christmas song on the Billboard List of 50 greatest holiday songs
[Image by John Salangsang/AP Images]

The list starts in 1967 with Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me” and runs completely through the 2016 pick of “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” by Dej Loaf featuring Kodak Black. Despite the same title as the Mariah Carey song, this version is completely different, yet manages the same sense of wistful urgency that speaks to the tremulous atmosphere that was 2016.

“It’s snowing outside
Miss the days when it used to be up to my thighs
Man I miss my baby, wanna spend some time
Sometimes I feel like we just live to die
That’s why I’m so grateful, lord I’m breathing
I won’t be complaining, and don’t you either
Eggnog drinking, sleigh bells ringing
Santa I wish you could bring back some of my people.”

[Featured Image by arafrael/Shutterstock]

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