38 of the greatest rock, punk and metal Christmas songs
Featuring blink-182, Korn, Corey Taylor, AC/DC, Lemmy, Sum 41, Alice Cooper and more...
Sick of the sounds of Cliff Richard, Mariah Carey and Elton John polluting every shop tannoy, TV show and pub jukebox over the festive period?! Then fear not!
Featuring AC/DC, Creeper, blink-182, Corey Taylor, Alice Cooper, Fall Out Boy, Sabaton, The Darkness, My Chemical Romance, Fountains of Wayne, Reuben, Lemmy Kilmister, Ronnie James Dio, King Diamond, twenty one pilots, Tony Iommi and more, Kerrang! Radio presents 38 alternative Christmas songs (and anti-Christmas songs) to rock your yuletide.
38 of the greatest rock, punk and metal Christmas songs:
1) Lacuna Coil - 'Naughty Christmas'
The Italian gothic metallers released their gloriously dark festive anthem ‘Naughty Christmas’ in December 2016. Teasing the listener with dainty orchestrals and sleigh bells at the start, we’re soon confronted by a barrage of guitars and the guttural growls of Andrea Ferro that bounce off Cristina Scabbia’s melodies.
Thematically, the pair narrate a tale about a naughty child who fears Santa won’t visit and instead Krampus (a half-goat, half-demon) will punish him/her.
2) Fountains Of Wayne – ‘I Want An Alien For Christmas’
Kind of like a warped punk-pop version of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, on their 2012 festive ditty ‘I Want An Alien For Christmas’, Fountains of Wayne plead with Santa for an extra-terrestrial gift. Hilarious lines include “I want a little green guy / About three feet high / With seventeen eyes / Who knows how to fly / I want an alien for Christmas this year” and "I'll always keep him company / He'll never be alone / And we can hang around the house all day / And watch the twilight zone.” Magnificent stuff.
3) Reuben – ‘Christmas Is Awesome’
Sadly, Surrey purveyors of metal-tinged alt-rock Reuben are no longer with us but thankfully their yuletide song ‘Christmas Is Awesome’ remains an enduring anthem to this very day. A Christmas song of the highest calibre, ‘Christmas Is Awesome’ is accompanied by an, erm, awesome video featuring the trio banging out the tune in a lounge in front of a couple of parents while wearing fetching festive jumpers.
4) Sabaton – ‘Christmas Truce’
In 2021, history obsessed Swedish rock behemoths Sabaton shared their new festive anthem ‘Christmas Truce’ with the world. Just like The Farm’s ‘All Together Now’, ‘Christmas Truce’ is inspired by the true events on Christmas Eve 1914 when during World War I British and German soldiers met in no man's land and exchanged gifts, took pictures and some even played football. The rare moment of peace and harmony was never repeated during World War I and slaughter was soon resumed. Sabaton said: "Christmas Truce was our highest priority when we decided to write songs about World War One. Not only was it the most requested topic from our fans, but it was, for us, the most emotional story from the war. This song took us years to create since we wanted the music to reflect the mood honestly and it was a big challenge, but we feel we managed to write a song that captures the spirit of this day, over a century ago."
5) Christopher Lee – The Little Drummer Boy
Back in 2012 when he was 90 years old, acting legend Christopher Lee unleashed a fearsome festive EP called ‘A Heavy Metal Christmas.’ The songs fused vocals in Lee’s doomy voice together with chugging riffs and crushing music. Pick of the bunch is undoubtedly this absolute rager, ‘The Little Drummer Boy’. The EP was so well received that Lee released a second one in 2013. What a hero.
6) The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)
At their commercial peak five months after the release of ‘Permission To Land’ in 2003, The Darkness released their festive anthem ‘Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)’. Charting at Number 2 (narrowly missing out on the festive top spot), the brilliant track is now a firm Christmas favourite and has no doubt earned The Darkness a fortune in royalties. Fair play to them!
7) AC/DC - 'Mistress For Christmas'
The 1990 yuletide hard-rock anthem opens with the spoken words: 'Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells / Jingle all the day / I just can't wait till Christmas time / When I can grope you in the hay.' and only intensifies in its sleaziness when Brian Johnson starts blasting his way through the tune in his idiosyncratic style with Angus, Malcolm, Chris and Cliff providing the musical muscle.
8) Creeper - 'Fairytale of New York'
You’ve got to admire the sheer audacity of Creeper to take on The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s seemingly untouchable, timeless festive classic. Rather than taking the track to heavier musical realms, the cover is remarkably faithful to the original with Will Gould and Hannah Greenwood trading verbal insults with aplomb.
9) King Diamond - 'No Presents For Christmas'
Released on Christmas Day back in 1985, if there’s anyone who deserves a lump of coal in their stocking then it’s King Diamond.
The sleigh bell tinkle and ‘Jingle Bells’ prelude only serves as the calm before the storm as amidst a cacophony of riffs King Diamond screeches through a diatribe against good ol’ St Nick. Now one of the band’s signature songs, it’s still performed live to this day.
10) Venom - 'Black Xmas'
The opening track of Venom’s 1987 tour-de-force ‘Calm Before The Storm’, the ominously titled ‘Black Xmas’ is an adrenaline-pumping thrash metal blitzkrieg.
A track that no-doubt irks Christians, traditional Christmas imagery is played upon and subverted into darker, Satanic themes: 'Before the newborn starts to cry / Flaming star or the call of the wild / And it's all in the eyes of a child / Black Xmas, Devils Eve / Black Xmas, Devil's wine.'
11) Korn - 'Jingle Balls'
The bruising final track from their ‘Issues’ bonus disc, Korn delved into death metal territory for their brutal 1999 interpretation of the traditional 19th Century song. In fact, if ‘Jingle Balls’ doesn’t make you feel Christmassy, then nothing will.
12) Korn - 'Kidnap the Sandy Claws'
The nu-metallers covered The Nightmare Before Christmas song for the ‘Nightmare Revisited’ album in 2008 and, alongside Marilyn Manson’s electrifying take on ‘This Is Halloween’, it’s undoubtedly one of the zeniths of the compilation.
Pummelling, relentless and also great fun, Jonathan Davis screams lines like: 'Kidnap the Sandy Claws, beat him with a stick / Lock him for ninety years, see what makes him tick', while his band mates serve up a sumptuous, cacophonous racket.
13) Fall Out Boy - 'What's This?'
Another track on that album came from Chicago emo rockers Fall Out Boy, who took on one of the most recognisable and iconic songs from the film, embodying main character Jack Skellington's journey through our world and discovering things like the Christmas tree for the first time.
14) Fall Out Boy - 'Yule Shoot Your Eye Out'
Recorded for the compilation album ‘A Santa Cause: It's A Punk Rock Christmas’ in 2003, ‘Yule Shoot Your Eye Out’ is a bitter break-up song set against the backdrop of the holiday season.
If lines like: 'And all I want this year is for you to dedicate your last breath to me / Before you bury yourself alive', don’t get you in the festive spirit then we don’t know what will!
15) Twisted Sister - 'Heavy Metal Christmas'
Featuring elements of the traditional carol ‘The Twelve Days Of Christmas’, ‘Heavy Metal Christmas’ is the only original composition from the band’s 2006 holiday album ‘A Twisted Christmas’. It’s a howling, glammed-up and preposterously over-the-top stomper centred on the amazing lyric: 'On my heavy metal Christmas my true love gave to me / A tattoo of Ozzy!'
16) I Declare War - 'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer'
The Seattle purveyors of extreme deathcore haven’t covered the traditional Christmas classic, nope, instead they’ve eaten it and spewed out the green bile. Starting off with some pretty faithful singing from the band, it then descends into a cacophony of guttural growls, feedback and apocalyptic drums. Excellent stuff.
17) Ronnie James Dio / Tony Iommi / Rudy Sarzo / Simon Wright - 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'
Lifted from the 2008 album ‘We Wish You A Metal Xmas… And A Headbanging New Year’, the late-great Ronnie James Dio fronted this powerful heavy metal reworking of the yuletide carol. Truly epic from start to finish and a pertinent reminder of Dio’s prowess.
18) Alice Cooper / John 5 / Billy Sheehan / Vinny Appice - 'Santa Claws Is Coming To Town’
Taken from the same album, Alice Cooper and his cohorts brought a bit of Halloween to the Christmas season with this horrorshow reconstruction of the childrens’ favourite. Look, they’ve even taken the trouble to change ‘Claus’ to ‘Claws’ for extra menacing effect.
19) Tortured Conscience - 'The Little Drummer Boy'
Easily the standout track from the alternative Crimbo compilation ‘A Brutal Christmas - The Season In Chaos’, the only decipherable vocal utterance from this gloriously debased tune is “paaah-rum-pah-pum-pum”. If Lucifer himself made a Christmas song, it would probably sound a lot like this.
20) The Smashing Pumpkins - 'Christmastime'
Recorded during the ‘Adore’ era in the late nineties, unlike so many others on this list ‘Christmastime’ is a celebration of all the lovely things about Christmas.
Musically, it’s a beautiful and very traditional festive song with its sleigh bells, dainty xylophone plonks and even a recorder solo, while Billy Corgan sings truly heart-rending lines like: 'We watch the children playing / Beside the christmas tree / The presents are wrapped up / It's beautiful and secretly the gifts still hide / The fun awaits for you inside.' Bless him.
21) Lemmy Kilmister / Billy Gibbons / Dave Grohl - 'Run Rudolph Run'
Another ‘Metal Xmas’ highlight, Lemmy, Billy and Dave’s version of the Chuck Berry Christmas ditty is undoubtedly heavier (mainly thanks to the late-great Lemmy’s iconic drawl) yet it stays true to the songs early blues-rock routes.
22) Hidden Pride - 'Death Metal Merry Christmas'
The now defunct Canadian collective open their tune with a cute kid singing ‘Jingle Bells’ in French before all hell breaks loose for precisely one minute (and no, we've no idea why the video is nearly 6 minutes long). A gloriously evil and repugnant song, it couldn’t be possibly be further away from traditional Christmas songs. RARGGHHH!
23) blink-182 - 'I Won’t Be Home For Christmas'
A parody of the famous Bing Crosby festive song ‘I'll Be Home for Christmas’, Tom DeLonge, Scott Raynor and Mark Hoppus recorded their anti-Christmas track way back in 1997.
Opening with sleigh bells and a “‘tis the season to be season to be jolly” singalong, musically the song is a trademark blink-182 pop-punk gem packed with hilarious lyrics bashing the holiday season: 'It's Christmas time again / It's time to be nice to the people you can't stand all year / I'm growing tired of all this Christmas cheer.'
24) blink-182 - 'Not Another Christmas Song'
Very much an anti-Christmas and anti-love song, blink-182’s 'Not Another Christmas Song' sees the trio call for a divorce over the festive period. Cheery lyrics include “Depression's such a lonely business / Why can't we get divorced for Christmas?” and “Another year not in a coffin / Growing up or whatever you call it / Sometimes you get what you got / But it's not what you wanted at all / This is not another Christmas song.”
25) Sum 41 vs. Tenacious D - 'Things I Want'
The two acts joined forces in 2001 for the charity Christmas CD ‘Swallow My Eggnog’ released locally by Los Angeles-area radio station KROQ.
Following an intro from Santa, the song leaps into Iron Maiden-esque heavy metal territory as Jack Black reels off all the “cool s---" he wants for Christmas: 'I want all of the Beatles copyrights, I want to chop Florida off the map, I want Pamela Anderson's speedo top/ I know I've been naughty but I guarantee, that I deserve every single one.' Tremendous.
26) Corey Taylor - 'X-M@S'
The Slipknot and Stone Sour hero’s tongue-in-cheek anti-Christmas diatribe was released in December 2010. Complete with a hilarious animated video, the song by self-professed “Scrooge” (and now teetotaller) Corey, sees him lambast Christmas with lines like: 'Now every year the malls are just a madhouse / Full of empty pockets, thoughts and smiles / Just the smell of Eggnog makes me vomit / And those coloured lights are f---ing infantile', before he reaches the chorus of: 'If I ain't drunk then it ain't Christmas / You know where to stick those jingle bells.'
Fun fact: we once played this by accident, uncensored, on Kerrang! Radio. That caused some problems...
27) Amon Amarth - 'Viking Christmas'
Throughout the year, Viking-themed death metallers Amon Amarth are self-professed “heathens” who enjoy nothing more than partaking in a bit of “fighting, plundering and crushing skulls.” Don’t we all?!
However, when it comes to Christmas it brings out their more tender side as typified by the heart-warming chorus: 'When it's Christmas, Viking Christmas, I have tears in my eyes / When I remember my childhood days and all those Christmas Eves / A sparkling tree, marveling eyes and all those presents / I can still smell the roast and gingerbread / Nobody can escape the magic of Christmas.' Lovely stuff.
28) Anvil (feat Bumblefoot) - 'Frosty The Snowman'
Yet another highlight from the ‘Metal Xmas’ compilation, influential Canadian metallers Anvil joined forces with Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal for their take on the popular 1950s Christmas song. The result was an in-your-face interpretation that’s buoyed by serious riffs from Bumblefoot.
29) 220 Volt - 'Heavy Christmas'
Like a certain brand of wood stain, 220 Volt’s relentless ‘Heavy Christmas’ does exactly what it says on the tin. Surprisingly catchy but with absolutely no nonsense and no jingly frills, ‘Heavy Christmas’ is thundered along by power riffs, pummelling drums and epic breakdowns – and it’s quite possibly the best Christmas song on our list. Awesome stuff.
30) Halford - 'We Three Kings'
Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and his Halford band mates released the album ‘Halford III: Winter Songs’ in 2009 that melded original compositions and covers of traditional holiday favourites. Pick of the bunch is their blistering metal interpretation of the Christmas carol ‘We Three Kings’ that somehow works perfectly. Hallelujah, indeed!
31) The Ramones - 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)'
The closing track on The Ramones’ 1989 album ‘Brain Drain’, as the title suggests ‘Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)’ is both a celebration of the Yuletide period ('All the children are tucked in their beds / Sugar-plum fairies dancing in their heads / Snowball fighting, it's so exciting baby') and also a call for peace between a warring couple ('I loved you from the start / 'Cause Christmas ain't the time for breaking each other's heart').
The song was later used on the soundtrack to the widely panned 2004 film ‘Christmas with the Kranks’.
32) My Chemical Romance - 'All I Want for Christmas Is You'
Anyone who takes on Mariah Carey should be commended, in our eyes. This festive stalwart will be played until the end of time, so any musician who is willing to sing this song gets serious kudos - regardless of whether the cover is any good or not. Fortunately, the Way brothers et al's version is almost unrecognisable as the original song, being a complete rework!
33) Dee Snider & Lzzy Hale - 'The Magic of Christmas Day'
Former Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider and Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale joined forces in 2020 to record an updated version of Snider's festive song ‘The Magic of Christmas Day’. Originally written for his wife Suzette, it was then recorded a few years later by Celine Dion for her 1998 Christmas album ‘These Are Special Times’, with the Snider family jokingly referring to her as 'Saint Celine' in his household.
Dee said of the 2020 version,“When it was recently suggested that I should finally record this song myself, I knew I needed to bring in a young powerhouse vocalist to not only duet with me, but light a Yuletide fire under my ass! I only knew of one rock vocalist who could deliver on all those fronts, and she did in spades: the incredible Lzzy Hale of Halestorm!"
Lzzy Hale added, "If you're ever in your life gonna go full on, all gas, no brakes 'Christmas Cheer,' you do it Dee Snider-style. Considering we will ALL be experiencing a very different holiday season in 2020, I hope that this song brings you joy and puts a smile on your face. God bless us everyone!"
34) August Burns Red - 'Carol Of The Bells'
Enter Shikari and Dream Theater have both covered the Christmas favourite over the years but our pick of the bunch is undoubtedly August Burns Red’s fiery interpretation. Lulling you into a false sense of a security with the jingling sleigh bells, the instrumental blitzkrieg gradually builds in ferocity into a beast of a tune.
35) twenty one pilots 'Christmas Saves The Year'
Released at the end of a turbulent 2020, twenty one pilots' uplifting gem 'Christmas Saves The Year' is about hope in the face of adversity. Clearly referencing the Covid-19 pandemic, Tyler Joseph sings "But everybody wants to make it home this year / Even if the world is crumbling down... You rest assured, Christmas saves the year" amidst warm and fuzzy synths and obligatory sleigh bells. Lovely stuff.
36) Bad News - ‘Cashing In On Christmas’
Ade Edmondson (Vim Fuego), Rik Mayall (Colin Grigson), Nigel Planer (Den Dennis) and Peter Richardson’s (Spider Webb) spoof heavy metal band Bad News released a hilarious diatribe against the commercialisation of yuletide – the aptly entitled ‘Cashing In On Christmas’ – back in 1987. Lines include: “This is our Christmas single / Please make it number 1 / And give us all your money / To make our Christmas fun.” Fantastic!
37) Big Dumb Face - Christmas in the Cave of Dagoth
Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland released a blisteringly heavy Christmas album with his hyper-eclectic comedy side-project Big Dumb Face in December 2021.
'Christmas in the Cave of Dagoth' is a 12-track festive album (in the loosest possible sense of the word "festive") which Borland says was "Influenced by death metal, calypso, electronic, Hawaiian music". So yeah, pretty festive...
Take a listen to the ferocious title track below.
38) Megadeth - 'Thrashing Through The Snow'
Okay, so sadly this isn't actually a real thing. But Megadeth's spoof advert for 'Thrashing Through The Snow: A Very Megadeth Christmas' on the Jimmy Kimmel Show is a real delight.
We'd truly love to hear Megadave covering 'Frosty The Snowman', 'The Little Drummer Boy', 'Do You Hear What I Hear?' and 'Baby It's Cold Outside', so let's all close our eyes and wish really hard, and maybe, just maybe, Santa will deliver the goods...
Merry Christmas, one and all!
Read more:
13 incredible rock and metal covers of ABBA songs
Dee Snider & Lzzy Hale unleash 'The Magic of Christmas Day' duet