We might be a little biased, but Billboard firmly believes music is the best part of the holiday season every year.
That includes songs from all time periods, and certainly some of the Christmas canon’s oldest classics — think Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” and Andy Williams’ “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Premiere artists of the latter half of the 20th century have also offered up a number of beloved contemporary carols, with special mentions spanning Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” Wham!’s “Last Christmas” and, of course, Mariah Carey’s incomparable “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
But with all due respect to the iconic pre-Y2K tracks that have won us over in decades past, the 2000s are also brimming with holiday musical excellence. Some of the best Christmas tracks of the 21st century are hidden gems, some of them are Billboard chart-toppers and some of them are already well on their way to becoming cross-generational classics joining the ranks of the tracks listed above — but all of them demonstrate that celebrating the best time of year through songwriting is a timeless art.
From uptempo bangers from Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber that shoot holiday adrenaline through shopping-mall speakers each year to more understated tracks from Sufjan Stevens, Norah Jones and Colbie Caillat that capture the versatile beauty of the season, the past quarter-century or so has tied bows on numerous Christmas stand-outs. See Billboard‘s top 25 Xmas tunes from this time period below.
