Mengoni, Lucio Corsi, Benvegnù: the Christmas songs of 2025
What does the musical Christmas of 2025 sound like? Good, but not great.
A couple of weeks ago, I reported that very little Christmas music was being released this year – which may be a good thing for some, given the somewhat controversial reputation the genre has, despite being a tradition. I was wrong, at least partially – in the meantime a few things have come out, some even interesting. However, it remains a fairly unloading year. But let’s go in order.
Italian songs
This year there isn’t a Vinicio Capossela, but there are Nice Cool And Edoardo Vianello. If 2024 was the year of the long-awaited Capossella party album, the only Italian albums couldn’t be more different. On the one hand “Babbo Vianello”, by the historic voice of “I watussi”, on the other hand “Pacco enormous”, an update of the “Christmas project” “Pacco”, released last year. The cover is a double entender, or rather triple: whether there is genius or something else is difficult to say – as deliberately seems to happen with every Bello Figo release.
Then there’s the re-release of the album Mario Biondi originally released in 2014. “A very special Mario Christmas” has a new song “Cool Yule”, cover by Louis Armstrong with Antonio Faraò.
In the individual songs there is more movement. The classic Christmas release by Radio Deejay this year it is “The desire, the madness”, recorded in honor of Ornella Vanoni. There is “Coming Home”, the already mentioned Christmas song that Marco Mengoni signed to Amazon Music, a couple of other songs came out. Always exclusive to one platform – for Apple Music – Serena Brancale recorded an unreleased cover of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, included in a playlist that also contains other covers by Olly Murs, Khalid, ENHYPEN, Parker McCollum, UMI and many others. Then there is Rose Villain who revisited “Silent Night”: it is a sort of branded content for a well-known underwear brand, of which he is a witness.
And above all they are there Lucio Corsi And Paolo Benvegnù. Corsi has published “Notte di Natale”, written with Tommaso Ottomano, the singer-songwriter’s new single: WIt’s a story (perhaps about love) set in the cold wind of December, in that sad air that I like, typical of the Christmas period. In the song they starred a moon, a star, a cat, a dog, the cold wind in the pub car park, a scarf cloud, a mother, a father and time which is nothing more than a train lost in his thoughts. I wrote it in October with Tommaso Ottomano, me on piano and him on bass. The hitchhiking moon on the cover is a drawing by Giulio Melani.”
Paolo Benvegnù passed away last December 31st: in recent days two new, Christmas-themed songs were released: “Merry Christmas for you too”, the other “An infinite Christmas”. Both were recorded by Benvegnù together with the Piccolo Coro dell’Antoniano, but in “An Infinite Christmas” there is also the voice of his daughter Anna.
International releases: Kylie and Bryan Adams
On the international front, the main release remains that of Kylie Minogue, who released “Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped)”: it is not a new album, but an expanded reissue with unreleased songs from her 2015 Christmas album. With “XMAS”, a new song exclusively for Amazon, it even reached number 1 in the Christmas charts, which in the UK is one of the most coveted trophies.
Bryan Adams released his “Great Big Holiday Jam” involving Barenaked Ladies and Alessia Cara. He very modestly defined it as the “Last waltz” of Christmas music. Um…
Then there is Taylor Momsenfrontwoman of Pretty Reckless, who as a child acted as an actress in the Grinch film: “Pretty Reckless Christmas”: the EP opens with “Where Are You Christmas?”, originally in that film and continues with four original songs. There is “The Christmas album” by Chris Rea – an anthology of Christmas songs starting from “Driving Home for Christmas” – which unfortunately became posthumous: the singer-songwriter passed away on December 22nd.
In addition to the Christmas records already mentioned – Futureheads Pentatonix, Jonas Brothers – there isn’t much else around, except a new cover of a Darkness Christmas classic, “Mistletoe And Wine”, originally written for the musical “Scraps aka The Little Matchgirl”, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Little Match Girl”, and brought to success in 1988 by the British singer Cliff Richard.
David Byrne’s anti-playlist
Meanwhile, the songs of Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey have already returned to the charts. If you already can’t anymore, the advice is “David Byrne Radio Presents: Christmas Music for People Who Hate Christmas Music”the singer’s playlist dedicated to anti-Christmas songs (“they are funny songs that joke sweetly and refer to the holidays”. Here, however, on Instagram some suggestions for alternative Christmas albums.
