Festive Fretwork: 13 Rocking Christmas Songs That Don’t Suck

The holiday season is once again upon us, and you know what that means: It's time to brace yourself for a non-stop barrage of atrocious, agonizing Christmas music.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**

Join now for unlimited access

US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year

UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year

Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Prices from £2.99/$3.99/€3.49

Latest

Steve Albini performs onstage at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California on August 27, 2016

“Musician, studio engineer and the mastermind behind some of rock's greatest albums”: Steve Albini, punk guitar icon and producer for Nirvana, Pixies, dies at 61

See more latest ►

“I was trying to do the ultimate guitar solo”: Lou Reed once recorded a double album consisting solely of guitar feedback – but his label took it off sale after three weeks

“The bouncers wouldn’t let the audience stand up. That frustrated me to the point that I destroyed my bass guitar”: The Clash's Paul Simonon reflects on that iconic London Calling moment

“They probably only made two or three of them, but there’s a signature Burns Chris Stein Scorpion out there somewhere”: Ahead of a new Blondie album, Chris Stein talks folk and jazz influences, fighting with early effects, and his MIDI future

“Keyboards started coming up a lot more, and so there was a little more of a fight for space with the guitar”: Alex Lifeson looks back on the difficult creation of Rush’s 1984 classic, Grace Under Pressure

“I used to write solos, but there’s a lot of beauty in a more spontaneous take – even an old, known pattern that falls in a different place than usual”: Matheus Canteri is shamelessly blending country with shred – and it’s working

“Guys would come up and tell me, ‘I can play such-and-such a Tower of Power song note-for-note.’ But who cares?” The magic of Rocco Prestia’s bassline on Tower of Power’s Only So Much Oil in the Ground

“From 1993 to 2004 those amps were over half of our business”: How the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier defined the high-gain guitar sound of the 1990s

“Ronnie gave me great advice about building a guitar solo... left to my own devices, it would have been a case of how many notes I could fit in!”: Vivian Campbell looks back on the 1984 Dio classic The Last In Line

“I swear that guitar plays itself… Who’d have thought a 16-year-old girl like me could suddenly have this crazy connection with Jerry Garcia?” Meet Bella Rayne, the guitarist who jumped from Mom’s Strat to wielding Garcia’s ’Gator onstage

Everything you need to know about fretwraps: what are they and do you need one?

“I view everything from the pick to the speaker as my instrument”: Meet John Frusciante favorite Anthony Pirog – the boundary breaking guitarist who’s jamming jazz, punk and fusion with Fugazi’s rhythm section