Tom: Brace yourselves, readers: it’s the start of Tim Drunkenly Rants About Christmas Songs Week here on Europlop. I’ll do my best to keep him in check.
Tim: No ranting here – CHRISTMAS IS GREAT, so let’s go! Barely three weeks to go, the festive songs are out in force; let’s have a listen to this one first.
Tom: I can’t even complain that it’s too early for this: it’s past Thanksgiving in the US, which I consider a reasonable point for starting the countdown to Christmas. But I’ll be honest, that title isn’t filling me with hope and festive spirit.
Tim: Now, I’m writing this on a Saturday night and X Factor’s just finished, so as you said earlier I’m really quite drunk on port, but I reckon that’s a BLOODY BRILLIANT Christmas song.
Tom: Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s competent, certainly, and a lot better than most of the cheap cash-in attempts that happen this ye– wait, what the hell is that middle eight?!
Tim: It’s GREAT. It features a rapping Queen Santa, and finishes with a joyous key change. I also love that the song features the line “I’m as happy as can be ’cause I love Christmas,” and that sums it up nicely.
Tom: Now, I know that lyrically, “Wonderful Christmas Time” isn’t exactly genius, but it’s light years above this. I think that rap bridge, and the appalling spoken interjections in the background during that last chorus, crossed it over to ‘awful’ in my head.
Tim: Hahaha – I actually somehow hadn’t noticed those spoken bits, and what ware you talking about? They make it EVEN BETTER.
It obviously won’t be featured on any Christmas compilations whatsoever (the group name they’ve chosen to release this under will probably take care of that), and so will never get the status of Wham or Shakin’ Stevens or any of that lot, but who cares?
Tom: Well, no-one, as far as I can tell. Not even the folks that wrote it.
Tim: This is get excited, jump around the room, utterly fantastic pop, and I think I’ve just dislocated one of my arms by throwing them around too enthusiastically.
Tom: Tim will get steadily drunker during this week’s reviews, folks, so it’s going to go downhill from here.