In 2018, Jon Keegan analysed 5 days worth of Christmas radio music to see which songs, artists, and decades were the most popular. But before all that, Keegan chose violence for his opening paragraphs:
My family and I were driving around recently listening to 106.7’s Christmas music and it seemed that every single time I turned the car on, I’d be forced to hear those terrible eight reverbed synthesizer notes which precede the very worst Christmas song, Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”. Others have said much about why this song is so bad, so I’ll move along.
His data contained nearly 500 years of music and 1,510 different songs. I won’t spoil the whole thing but if you guessed ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town‘ as the most played song, congratulations, you were right! And if you guessed Bing Crosby’s White Christmas as the most played song, congratulations, you were right! That’s because Santa Claus is Coming to Town has been covered a lot so it was the most played song overall but Bing Crosby’s original rendition of White Christmas was the most played individual song.
And if you hate Wonderful Christmastime too, check out Black Milk’s version below.