These are the Christmas songs people like to hear on the radio the most - and the ones they hate

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mariah carey

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Some Christmas songs come on the radio and fill you with warm holiday spirit.

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Others turn you into the Grinch - on a Monday.

Radio giant iHeartRadio, which controls over 850 radio stations, pulled us some data on the tunes people loved and hated during the holiday season.

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Responses to these songs certainly vary person-by-person, but we were curious to find out what broad patterns emerge.

How could iHeartRadio figure it out? With the rise of the smartphone and devices other than traditional radio, the company has the ability to learn a bit more about how you're responding to music. If you listen to iHeartRadio's programming through an app, you have the ability to give a song a "thumbs up," similar to what you can do on Pandora, or a "thumbs down."

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By looking at which ones people were giving either a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to, we can get a rough idea of which songs people liked hearing on the radio, and which they would rather not. iHeartRadio put together two lists for us: the best and the worst. (Note: some Christmas songs are associated with multiple artists, which is why the artist is not listed).

No surprise that Mariah Carey ruled the day. She not only had a song in the top 5 list for most thumbs up, with "All I Want For Christmas is You," but also saw that track take the No. 1 spot in the number of times it was added to playlists.

Here are the two lists:

The Nice List - Top 5 "Thumbs Up" Songs:

  • "Winter Wonderland"
  • "Sleigh Ride"
  • "Let it Snow"
  • "All I Want For Christmas is You" (Mariah Carey)
  • "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

The Naughty list - Top 5 "Thumbs Down" Songs (excluding those on the first list):

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  • "Happy Xmas War is Over" (John Lennon)
  • "Do They Know Its Christmas?" (Band Aid)
  • "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"
  • "Do You Hear What I Hear?"
  • "The Christmas Song"

iHeartRadio also found that women tended to listen more to Christmas music than mean, at 69%/31%.

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