Why Chrissie Hynde has the edge over Mariah Carey at Christmas

I tend to forget about the hideousness of Christmas music until it's this time of year again and it all comes flooding back like those memories of the first time I threw up with food poisoning.

Rather than racking my brains to think of jingles I'd rather not recall, MSN has compiled a handy list that was first put together by a company called Phones4u.

So thanks a bunch Phone4u for reminding me of the permi-tanned, white toothed duo that was Wham and Last Christmas, a song that I abhor but countless women have told me is the very romantic essence of Christmas.

Well we all know what happened to George; he recently drove his car into photographic shop, in anger at the demise of negatives, no doubt, and got caught fiddling with his greatest hits in the men's room.

But whatever happened to the other one? Andrew Whatshisname...

The list has also reminded me of the existence of Cliff Richard, a particuar favorite of my parents who would bang on about how he was 60 something but looked 20, innocently unaware of the existence of Botox. The Millennium Prayer was so riddled with religion, even Cliff's record company abandoned him and he had to record it independently.

Oh dear - did I really say "record company"?

Cliff is also guilty as charged with creating Miseltoe and Wine; a merry little number to choke on a turkey bone to.

MSN's list is fine as it goes. I really had forgotten that Mariah Carey and the Jackson 5 have Christmas songs to their names.

But there are a few songs here that are more classy in a way. For instance I have always liked Aled Jones' Walking in the Air and Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody is a Glam Rock classic of the '70s. Do They Know It's Christmas? served a good cause. Sir Bob Geldolf may have disparaged it recently but what else has he ever done that's worth repeating apart from I Don't Like Mondays?

My most hated Christmas song is from a few years earlier and it's called Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby, which apparently means Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. During my long days of festive retail hell this song was always droning on in the background, providing a jarring contrast between the syrupy kitchiness of the season and the vast industrial machine I was serving that was forcing me to work into the night for $7 an hour.

Retail hell apart there's so much that's wrong with this song that I don't know where to start. I doubt if the island people were even big into Christmas until humorless missionaries forced it down their throats and, let's face it, Christmas just isn't Christmas if old ladies aren't slipping around on the street and the rest of us aren't freezing our nuts off.

There are so many bad Christmas songs that finding the good one is about as rare as finding a quarter in a Christmas pudding or a brain cell in Wasilla.

My vote goes for Stop the Cavalry by one hit wonder Jona Lewie, Fairytale of New York by Kirstie MacColl and the Pogues, 2000 Miles by the Pretenders and Happy Xmas by John Lennon.

So in the gallery of Christmas classics Chrissie Hynde has the edge over Mariah, even if she has aged rather more unevenly.

Apparently Gary Glitter once recorded a Christmas song. Pause for tumble weed to blow past. We don't talk about Gary Glitter anymore.

http://music.uk.msn.com/photos/photos.aspx?cp-documentid=155534063&page=1