Synthy Xmas Hits and Misses! Our Pick of the Bunch
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We all love a good Xmas song, but what are the best and worst Synthy Xmas tracks that we love to hear or are desperate to avoid?
This time next week, the festivities will all be over, bar the shouting, and we’ll be gearing up to see in 2025. We’re bang in the middle of Xmas party season and we all love to sing and dance to our favourite Xmas tunes.
But seeing as we’re a music tech website, and with my penchant for gear, I began to ponder on the subject of Xmas songs that feature our favourite synths. I asked my colleagues, friends and family members and built a list of some favourites, some stinkers and some quirky suggestions. Let’s take a look, and if we don’t mention one of your favourites, be sure to let us know in the comments below!
Table of Contents
The Synthy Xmas Hits
Wham! – Last Christmas
I know that one person’s meat is another person’s poison, or maybe that should be one person’s turkey is another person’s brussel sprout, but the general consensus amongst those people I polled was that these were the most popular synthy xmas bangers!
Last Christmas, by Wham! (although Andrew Ridgeley never played on the record) is one of the hardiest Xmas pop tunes of all time. Kept off the coveted U.K. Xmas Number 1 spot by another synthy xmas tune, it finally got there some 39 years later.
Ironically, George would pass away on Xmas Day in 2016 aged just 53 years old. The track is pretty simple, with George’s amazing vocal delivering the right balance of anguish, warmth and lost love. The track featured a LinnDrum and a Juno 60 plus some mandatory sleigh bells, all played by George. That’s it. It is as perfect a pop confection as you can imagine.
If you’re still playing Whamageddon, you may want to avoid clicking on the video below!
Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
The song that kept George off the top spot during the Xmas of 1984 actually featured George, along with one of the greatest pop collaborations of all time. Band Aid was the brainchild of Bob Geldof and, for the time, it was an ambitious, audacious and hugely successful venture.
The opening of the track features a sample of the drum intro to the title track of Tears For Fears first long player, The Hurting. It’s reported that Midge created the backing track himself using a DX7, PPG Wave and an OSCar, with Phil Collins laying down a live drum track over Midge’s Sequential DrumTraks guide. An additional bass line was performed by John Taylor of Duran Duran.
As a teenager at the time, I recall the incredible buzz around this recording and release. I own multiple copies of this, and it still manages to invoke strong memories of those magical few weeks in late 1984. Band Aid is still working to help people around the world and has spawned many other such charity events.
1984 delivered two of the best synthy xmas songs ever. A testament to the fact that it can easily lay claim to being the best year in pop music! Also, check out the amazing ‘making-of’ documentary that was released a few weeks ago. A brilliant time capsule!
Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime
Some people love it, some not so much, but this is a classic synthy xmas tune by virtue of the fact it prominently features a Yamaha CS-80! And we all love the CS-80, right? Whilst it might be a cutesy little piece of Xmas cheese, it demonstrates McCartney’s melodic genius.
And it has become so intrinsically entwined in our consciousness that it induces instant Xmas vibes from that opening stab. If the video is to be believed, it also features a Sequential Prophet 5, but that could easily be a stage prop. However, there is a high register pad throughout the song. Could it be?
The Synthy Xmas Misses
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power of Love
A brilliant song, exquisite production, an epic vocal and a huge No.1 for Frankie, their third consecutive one no less, but despite Paul Morley’s efforts to market this as a Xmas track, it just wasn’t. It’s a pure love song, a thing of real beauty, laden with synths that were likely to have included a Synclavier, PPG Wave, Jupiter 8 and more.
The nativity-themed video was the vehicle ZTT used to try and sway the punters but, like Last Christmas, it was beaten to the coveted Xmas top spot by Band Aid. And if you think I’m disrespecting FGTH, I am so not! They’re one of my favourite bands, produced by one of my favourite producers and, over the years, I have become acquainted with three-fifths of them! I even own their JUNO-106!
But even Holly Johnson himself doesn’t believe it’s a Xmas song. But boy, what a song it is!
Münchener Freiheit – Keeping The Dream Alive
Another great song that pops up at this time of year but was never a Xmas song is this joyous piece of music from Münchener Freiheit, more commonly known as Freiheit outside of their native Germany. It’s also not particularly laden with synthesizers but that bass is definitely PPG or DX7!
Leaning heavily into an ELO vibe, this was their biggest song, certainly on a global level, and I love hearing it, but despite it appearing on every Xmas compilation and playlist since its release in 1988, and undoubtedly keeping its writers in some small form of financial comfort, a Xmas song it ain’t!
Sy Mann – Switched On Santa
One for the bargain bin at the local thrift/charity store is Sy Mann’s Switched On Santa. After Wendy Carlos’ game-changing Moogfest, ‘Switched on Bach’, the bandwagon almost collapsed under the sheer number of people jumping on it, keen to cash in on the then novelty sound of a System 55.
Sy Mann did the double dip by making his Switched On adjacent long player a Xmas record. And yes, it really is as awful as it promises to be. Not even the great Jean-Jacques Perrey could salvage this stinker with his Moog Modular programming and engineering. Bin it, burn it, but never listen to it!
The Synthy Xmas Oddities
Dave Spiers – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
My favourite oddity (pun intended) is this completely marvellous and delightfully off-kilter rendition of a Xmas classic by the legendary Dave Spiers of GForce Software. This wonderful human being, who I am fortunate enough to call a friend, put this out as part of GForce’s regular Xmas thank you in 2014.
Recorded in Dave’s then-home studio, it features a magical arpeggio on a Roland Jupiter 6 with pads by GForce’s own Oddity 2. Coupled with Dave’s melancholy vocals and deadpan delivery in the video, complete with Bah Humbug hat, it’s both moving and chucklesome and so typical of Dave’s brilliant sense of humour.
Dave is an industry stalwart who has given our community so much over the years, and I and all my colleagues at Gearnews send him our very best wishes at this time of year.
Ty Unwin & Philippa Nelson – Snow in Moscow
This one is likely to get me strung up and stuffed in a Xmas Stocking, but I could not resist and let this one pass by! Many people in the online synth community will be aware of Ty Unwin. He’s an incredibly successful film and TV composer who has also worked with the likes of Midge Ure.
But back in 1984 (there must’ve been something in the water that year!), he and a young lady by the name of Philippa Nelson submitted a song to a contest on the BBC in the U.K. It won and they ended up performing the song to millions on TV!
The original of this track was created on a Bit One and a Roland 909, but the finished piece that won used a DX7, Jupiter 8 and Linn 9000.
Ty went on to become one of the most in-demand composers in the U.K., and Pip turned to teaching, never to trouble the charts again. But the sweetest part of this story is that many years later, Ty & Pip’s paths would cross once more, and they fell in love and are living happily ever after! Happy Xmas, you two love birds!
Aphex Twin – XMAS_EVET1N
Almost certainly the furthest thing from being a Xmas song, but it has it in the title, and so it gets listed here because it’s a flippin’ Aphex Twin track! I don’t know much about what was used on this but it’s 100% synth so it passes all the tests.
I will just leave it here for you to marvel at…
My Personal Favourites
Because I’m writing this and you’re not, I get to share some of my favourite synthy xmas tunes. First up, I have to say that Last Christmas and Do They Know It’s Christmas are also favourites of mine, but I have a few more less well known tunes that I think you should hear.
These include the beautiful and synth-laden ‘Taking Down The Tree’ by Tracey Thorn and Green Gartside, ‘All Over By Xmas’ by Ladytron, ‘It Doesn’t Often Snow at Christmas’ by Pet Shop Boys, and the wondrously exquisite ‘Christmas Is For Lovers, Ghosts and Children’ by Billy Nomates aka Tor Marries, one of our finest singer-songwriters and an absolutely fantastic artist.
Tracey Thorn feat. Green Gartside – Taking Down The Tree
Ladytron – All Over by Xmas
Pet Shop Boys – It Doesn’t Often Snow at Christmas
Billy Nomates – Christmas is for Lovers, Ghosts & Children
Those That Also Served
Other synthy xmas Crackers that didn’t quite make my list but deserve honourable mentions are:
- Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Erasure
- I Was Born on Christmas Day by St. Etienne
- Winter Wonderland by Eurythmics
And I will leave you with this abomination to the ears and to the season of peace and goodwill to all…
Merry Xmas Everyone!!
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