Classic Rock Christmas

Jingle bells take a back seat to screamin' riffs and power chords in our glittering compilation of Christmas rock classics, all of them inseparable from the season of good will to all men and shameless office parties. So break open the good times with the Boss, who takes his orders from the big fella — Father Christmas — on the rip-roaring "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", and steam into a two-chord Yuletide shuffle with Status Quo on "It's Christmas Time". Billy Idol is "Yellin' at the Xmas Tree", Freddie Mercury celebrates the season with jingle bells and pipes of steel on "Thank God It's Christmas" and John Lennon flashes a snow-dusted peace sign on "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". Discover your inner Scrooge with Sparks, in Next Steps.

This being the rock 'n' roll Christmas playlist, there's bound to be some subversion and protest, and most of it is coming from Sparks, who clearly don't give a figgy pudding for the season on "Thank God It's Not Christmas". Tom Waits avoids all the usual Yuletide clichés, and sidesteps the twinkling avenues of crass sentimentality, on "Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis"; Spinal Tap notices that "There's someone up a chimney hole/And Satan is his name" on "Christmas With the Devil"; Lou Reed narrates a tough tale of fallen soldiers on "Christmas in February". Smash Mouth's version of Phil Spector's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", meanwhile, is big, lush and boozy. Our rockin' Christmas goes Californian, in Deep Cuts.

Christmas is, for many of us, a time of fierce celebration, and many of these tracks just wouldn't sound right unless served with alcohol. So tie a length of tinsel round your head, and dive headlong into a large vat of mulled wine to the strains of L.A. Guns ("Run Run Rudolph"), Warrant ("Father Christmas"), and Skid Row ("Jingle Bells"). Former Stray Cats frontman Brian Setzer injects his rock 'n' roll with some bluesy swing on "Santa Drives a Hot Rod", the Beach Boys untangle "Santa's Beard" with a sweet sack of West Coast harmonies, and Randy Bachman reprises his Bachman Turner Overdrive party classic, with an Xmas twist, on "Takin' Care of Christmas".

Whether you want to blast out a rockin' good time this Christmas, or dunk the forced merriment into a vat of industrial-strength humbug, our classic seasonal playlist will provide all the tunes you need to make it through the inevitable obstacle course of movie reruns, turkey leftovers, and malfunctioning fairy lights. From the upbeat harmonies of the Beach Boys to the sad narrative of Tom Waits, from Bob Dylan's "Winterlude" to the Who's "Christmas", we give you the season's best — so fill your stockings with the Darkness, spike your hot toddies with the Ramones, and fill your mince pies with a little extra Squeeze and Weezer. Santa Claus is coming to town, he's brandishing a six-string, and there's an army of elves on backing vocals.