There are a number of things wrong with Mariah Carey's collaboration with Justin Bieber to re-release her Christmas festive hairbrush karaoke epic, All I Want For Christmas Is You. The first is rather fundamental. It's the saccharine attempts to make us believe – or should I say "beliebe" - that they could be suitors, despite the fact that they have all the sexual chemistry of a sack of farmed puppies waiting to be drowned.
Happier times... Mariah in her days of festive glory. Photo: Rex
No matter how suggestively Mariah waggles her bell, I'm not convinced she plans on letting Justin do anything more erotic than throwing a snowball* in her direction.
The second problem is the juxtaposition of Maria wearing her babydoll sexy Santa outfit with footage of a bearded, ruddy traditionalist's Claus. It's "hoe, hoe, hoe" versus "ho, ho, ho".
As if Bieber wasn't unsexy enough, here's a gout-riddled groomer to confuse the loins further.
However, the biggest issue I have with the music video (if we ignore the eye-gougingly unsubtle product placement for Macy's and Nintendo 3DS) is the fact that it cements my theory that we have run out of good ideas for Christmas songs. This means that we are destined to recycle all the classics until the end of time – each time inserting an increasingly zygotic proto-popstrel: The Pogues featuring Rebecca Black, Slade sampled by Willow Smith, Wizzard collaborating with the artists formerly known as S Club Juniors.
Just think about it. Wrack your brains for an original festive song that's been released in the last 10 years that you would have on your Christmas playlist. The most recent I've got is East 17's Stay Another Day (1994). Otherwise we're looking at Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas (1984), Shakin' Stevens' Merry Christmas Everyone (1985), Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine (1988) and Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmas Time (1979). That's before we've gone further back to Michael Holm's When a Child is Born (1974), Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (1958), Bing Crosby's White Christmas (1942) and Julie Garland's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (1944).
Sure there have been Christmas number one singles that have been OK, for example 2003's Mad World by Michael Andrews & Gary Jules, but being number one at Christmas does not a Christmas song make.
A Christmas song must include at least one of the following: a reference to Christmas, yuletide, or good tidings; the sound of sleigh bells, church bells or a mark tree (the twinkly sound a unicorn would make if it farted); a children's choir, and a music video featuring snow, Santa Claus, reindeer or fur-trimmed coats. Is that too much to ask?
Having discussed this intensely over the last week or so, the best that anyone has come up with is Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) by The Darkness which, I'll admit, features many of the aforementioned festive clichés that I need from a Christmas song. Extra points are awarded for the fact that Justin Hawkins supposedly manipulated the lyrics to ensure that a children's choir would sing "bell end, bell end" on repeat. However, its 2003 launch means that it's still been almost a decade since the last corker. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
*Not a euphemism
By Olivia Solon
Feeling a sudden urge for proper festive tunage? Listen to the best Christmas playlist ever*, courtesy of MyDaily.