Bublé's Christmas has sold a whopping 2.78 million in the UK according to Official Charts Company data, has spent over seven months in the Top 10 in total over the last seven years and is the UK's 20th biggest selling album since 2000. The record features 14 covers of Christmas classics plus two new songs - the most popular are his takes on It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas and Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). Featuring Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" in its prime and his early stable of artists, the Ronettes, Crystals, Darlene Love, and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector stands as inarguably the greatest Christmas record of all time. Spector believed he could produce a record for the holidays that would capture not only the essence of the Christmas spirit, but also be a pop masterpiece that would stand against any work these artists had already done. He succeeded on every level, with all four groups/singers recording some of their most memorable performances. This is the Christmas album by which all later holiday releases had to be judged, and it has inspired a host of imitators.

On the 2000 charity album It’s a Cool Cool Christmas – which was pretty strong – Belle and Sebastian took on the most beautiful of all the Christmas hymns. Something so delicate suited them. Also recommended: El Vez merging Feliz Navidad and Public Image. 17. The Staple Singers Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas? The star at the very top of the tree is twinkly-eyed crooner Michael Bublé. His seasonal set – entitled Christmas, just to really hammer it home – is the ONLY Christmas Number 1 Album in chart history with the word "Christmas" in the title. Extra festive! It spent three non-consecutive weeks at the top on its release in 2011, and has returned to the Top 10 every year since!Autry, the singing cowboy, had the original recording on three of the most popular Christmas songs of the 20th century: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane).” Autry co-wrote the last song and sang them all with his languid, disarming tenor. Autry released a Christmas single every year during his peak years, and this anthology offers 26 different songs, all of them a pleasure to hear. —Geoffrey Himes Love them, hate them, or just acceptthem as a sort of immutable fact of life, it's officially Christmas song season in 2023. And although there’s been a fair amount of disposable novelty rubbishwritten over the years, the reality is that a lot of Christmas songs are bangers. A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector codified the sound of Christmas: maximal, filled with signifiers of the season (there is nowhere sleigh bells can’t be draped). Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) was the standout on a record on which the quality didn’t drop from start to finish. 9. Wizzard I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

Before she treaded ever so slightly into secular pop fare, Amy Grant was a giant in Christian music—and she’s still seen as such. There’s one branch of Christian music in particular that she does better than just about any pop star—Christmas music. A Christmas Album is unapologetically spiritual and sonically quite bold, full of sweeping orchestral arrangements, weird synthy pathways and twangy, down-home touchy-feelies (It’s impossible not to yearn for home when you hear “Tennessee Christmas,” whether you hail from the South or not) alike. I can’t readily supply another Christmas album that sounds like this one. The horns on jaunty instrumental number “Praise the King” sound like an actual choir of angels, and I’m convinced the spirited “Love Has Come” will thaw even the iciest hearts. If you need an album to play for the Scrooge in your life, you can’t go wrong with Amy Grant’s hearty Christmas masterpiece. —Ellen JohnsonNelson wrote his enduring Christmas classic, “Pretty Paper,” inspired by a memory of a legless man in Fort Worth who pushed himself down the sidewalk on rollers and sold gift wrap. Roy Orbison turned it into a Top 20 single in 1963, and Nelson re-recorded it for this 1979 album produced by Booker T. Jones of the MGs. A country singer with a Texas twang and jazz phrasing, Nelson can make the most familiar songs sound new, especially slow numbers such as “White Christmas” and “Blue Christmas.” —Geoffrey Himes This charming collection of golden classic Christmas favorites stretches from 1935 to 1954. Rhino scores big with the idea of marketing music of such quality for a lesser cost. This record features everybody and everything from the Bing himself to Gene Autry's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to "All I Want for Christmas," a comedic, hilarious family favorite. What would Christmas be without "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!," a wintry cry for a snow-white landscape, sung proudly here by Vaughn Monroe? With its goal of making Christmas memorable, this collection of songs -- from the youthful "Here Comes Santa Claus" to "White Christmas," Bing Crosby's dreamy, reflective hit -- should appeal to all ages. At least one can imagine and dream for a white Christmas with the help of Bing, though most of the world really never receives one. Joni Mitchell is bereft, too, on this gorgeous piano ballad, when Christmas just makes her mourn her relationship and flee Laurel Canyon for her home in Canada, where there might be a frozen river she could skate away on, away from everything. 21. David Banner The Christmas Song Of the several Christmas LPs Johnny Mathis has recorded, this one gets the nod. With empathetic arrangements by Percy Faith, it's impossible to say how many babies were born the following September after parents heard Johnny Mathis crooning "The Christmas Song." Smo-o-o-oth !

Other modern festive songs holding their own against the classics include Leona Lewis’ One More Sleep in 13 th place (92m), Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree in 14 th (85m), and Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe in 15 th (82m).Like Cristina’s Things Fall Apart, Christmas Wrapping was originally written for the Zé label’s 1981 compilation – the most punching-above-its-weight Christmas comp ever. It’s a fabulous stream of consciousness, during which Patty Donahue talks herself from wanting to miss Christmas to knowing she can’t miss Christmas, that bursts into joy at its horn refrain. 3. Low Just Like Christmas Do we need cheering up? I think we do. Thank goodness, then, for the twangy guitars of Brooklyn duo Santo & Johnny, the gaudy, overlit shop window that contrasts with the stark loneliness of the Everly Brothers. 36. Run-DMC Christmas in Hollis There's a deep sense of comfort that comes from a well-curated Christmas playlist, with finely-aged classics following one after the other and invoking all the cozy holiday memories of the past.