Top 100 Christmas Songs

An old favorite post of mine from a since retired blog, I hereby offer the 100 most popular Christmas songs according to MusicDNS as of Dec 15, 2006. Popularity is based on how likely someone is to have at least one version of this song in their collection. On the old blog, traffic would start coming from organic searches looking for this information right when Thanksgiving started, up until Christmas day itself. We'll see how long it takes search engines to index this repost, and whether it has the same appeal.

In the meantime, if you're here looking for Christmas music, enjoy! (You might also enjoy this list of Top Performances of Favorite Christmas Songs)

1. Silent Night
2. White Christmas
3. The Christmas Song
4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
5. Winter Wonderland
6. Jingle Bells
7. O Holy Night
8. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
9. I’ll Be Home For Christmas
10. Silver Bells
11. Sleigh Ride
12. The First Noel
13. Joy To The World
14. Blue Christmas
15. Away in a Manger
16. Carol Of The Bells
17. Ave Maria
18. Frosty the Snowman
19. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
20. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
21. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
22. The Little Drummer Boy
23. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
24. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
25. Little Drummer Boy
26. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
27. O Come All Ye Faithful
28. Jingle Bell Rock
29. Santa Baby
30. Deck the Halls
31. We Wish You A Merry Christmas
32. What Child Is This?
33. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
34. Angels We Have Heard On High
35. Last Christmas
36. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
37. Please Come Home For Christmas
38. The Twelve Days Of Christmas
39. Auld Lang Syne
40. Feliz Navidad
41. All I Want For Christmas Is You
42. O Tannenbaum
43. Do You Hear What I Hear?
44. Merry Christmas Baby
45. We Three Kings
46. Little Saint Nick
47. Greensleeves
48. Here Comes Santa Claus
49. Good King Wenceslas
50. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
51. Adeste Fideles
52. The Holly And The Ivy
53. Let It Snow
54. I Saw Three Ships
55. Do You Hear What I Hear
56. It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
57. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
58. Christmas Time
59. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
60. The Christmas Waltz
61. Mary’s Boy Child
62. This Christmas
63. Baby, It’s Cold Outside
64. A Holly Jolly Christmas
65. What Child Is This
66. Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer
67. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
68. Merry Christmas, Baby
69. Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)
70. Step Into Christmas
71. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
72. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
73. In Dulci Jubilo
74. Go Tell It On The Mountain
75. Run Rudolph Run
76. Christmas Song
77. Oíche Chiún (Silent Night)
78. Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
79. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
80. Silent Night, Holy Night
81. Do They Know It’s Christmas
82. When A Child Is Born
83. Coventry Carol
84. Walking In The Air
85. You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch
86. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
87. Christmas Time Is Here
88. Christmas Wrapping
89. Merry Xmas Everybody
90. Wonderful Christmastime
91. 12 Pains of Christmas
92. O Christmas Tree
93. I Believe In Father Christmas
94. Christmas Day
95. Lonely This Christmas
96. My Favorite Things
97. Oh Holy Night
98. I Wonder as I Wander
99. Pretty Paper
100. Merry Christmas Darling 

Top Performers of Favorite Christmas Songs

As I mentioned earlier, a post I wrote for another blog last year is suddenly getting a lot of traffic, as people start searching the web for Christmas music. This post has the searchable title Top 100 Christmas Songs, and lists the most popular Christmas songs according to MusicDNS.

As a follow up, I now present the most popular versions of the top 10 Christmas songs. Who's performance of these classics has won the popular heart and mind? These numbers are based on how many people have these songs in their music collections, not radio play or record sales. Running some quick reports across a data export of MusicDNS, it looks like the answers are as follows:

1. Silent Night 145 artists

• Mariah Carey
• Sinéad O'Connor
• Boyz II Men
• Stevie Nicks
• Nat King Cole

2. White Christmas 103 artists

• Bing Crosby
• Otis Redding
• Elvis Presley
• Dean Martin
• Kenny G

3. The Christmas Song 104 artists

• Dave Matthews
• Nat King Cole
• Vince Guaraldi
• Christina Aguilera
• Céline Dion

4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas 79 artists

• Frank Sinatra
• The Pretenders
• Kenny G
• Luther Vandross
• Christina Aguilera

5. Winter Wonderland 105 artists

• Eurythmics
• Bing Crosby
• Peggy Lee
• Jewel
• Doris Day

6. Jingle Bells 87 artists

• Diana Krall
• Jim Reeves
• Frank Sinatra
• Techno Christmas
• The Simpsons

7. O Holy Night 75 artists

• Mariah Carey
• Trans-Siberian Orchestra
• Céline Dion
• Nat King Cole
• South Park

8. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 66 artists

• The Pointer Sisters
• Bruce Springsteen
• Frank Sinatra / Cyndi Lauper
• The Jackson Five
• Perry Como

9. I'll Be Home For Christmas 64 artists

• Nat King Cole / Bing Crosby / Frank Sinatra
• Bing Crosby
• Amy Grant
• Kenny G
• Doris Day

10. Silver Bells 58 artists

• Kenny G
• Jim Reeves
• Dean Martin
• Bing Crosby
• Mannheim Steamroller

Those are some interesting names - many expected, others more surprising. If your favorite isn't listed, I'm sure they were up near the top, there are a lot of artists who get dropped in a top 5 format like this, including many excellent performances. Some of the unusual items include the South Park and Simpsons versions (likely popular downloads), and the Techno Christmas version of Jingle Bells.

For me, Christmas just isn't the same without Bing Crosby.

Which Holiday Is This?

Lending credence to the theory that Christmas music starts around Thanksgiving...

Perusing some traffic reports from other sites, I noticed a recent abrupt bump to a holiday post from 2006, featuring the top 100 Christmas songs, according to MusicDNS. This post is currently the number 5 result on Google for that search term, making me wonder what sort of traffic bump the 4 higher results are getting...

If there's interest, maybe we could do a follow up this year with the most popular versions of each Christmas song... who's rendition of Silent Night is most likely to show up?