My oldest daughter works at a small pet store, and every work day since mid-November, she comes home with a number. Sometimes “5” or “3” but often much more. What she’s telling us is how many time she and her coworkers have had to endure Mariah Carey’s cutesy pop holiday season mainstay, “All I Want of Christmas is You”.
Now, I’m sure Carey is a really nice person, and she has a great voice. However, I can only take so much of the same version of the same song played several times a day. I think there are plenty of retail or office workers who share my sentiment. Can I blame the movie Love, Actually for this overkill?
Thankfully, when a song becomes a standard, the cover versions pop up, and in all kinds of genres. Here’s a few festively diverse choices:
Rock instrumental: August Burns Red
I’ve talked about how epic metal band August Burns Red handles its Christmas and holiday season instrumentals before, and they even manage to totally rock with this one.
Emo: My Chemical Romance
You can’t get more emo than Gerard Way and his band with some emo head bobbin energy.
The Obligatory Mashup: Queen meets Mariah Carey
If there’s a popular song out there, someone is going to try and do a mashup with completely different tune. “All I Want for Christmas is You” has a couple. There’s one with the aforementioned My Chemical Romance putting Carey up against “Welcome to the Black Parade” and there one with Radiohead’s “Creep”, and one with Metallica, but my favorite is the mix featuring “Don’t Stop Me Now.”
Country: Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton teamed up with talk show host Jimmy Fallon for a duet of this one for her album A Holly Dolly Christmas. I’m not a big Fallon fan, but that’s okay because everyone loves Dolly, and she can do what she wants.
…and Michael Bublé
Let’s face it. He makes everything cool.
I realize I may have made you even more sick of this song, but hopefully I might have opened up some other options for Christmas season listening. Either way, know that I love you guys.
All I want for Christmas here, after all, is to bring a little joy and laughter to everyone.