Last Christmas

Covering Wham!'s 'Last Christmas' seems to be a holiday favourite. There have been trance versions, a Disney-Pop one, even an acoustic rendition. How many different ways can that famous chorus be heard in? How about 118?! Amazingly, Last Christmas has a collection of 118 versions (and counting) of the 1984 single. I've gone through about half of them, and before I grow sick of the song, these are my favourites.

MP3: Wham! - Last Christmas

The original. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were onto something here, making one of the most covered songs in the history of popular music.

MP3: Le Sport, Montt Mardié & Mr. Suitcase - Last Christmas

A fun house rendition - a good modern interpretation, from the three Swedish collectives. Sadly Le Sport, the only of the three that I'm well-versed in, is now defunct.

MP3: Erlend Øye - Last Christmas

Erlend is an extremely talented and multifaceted artist from Norway. From his pop work in the Kings of Convenience, to electronic solo work, he's extremely versatile, all the while looking like a dapper Napoleon Dynamite. His version is acoustic and extremely sentimental, nicely complementing his soft vocals.

MP3: goto80 - Last Christmas

This sounds even more rudimentary than if I'd played the song on my Casio, probably because it was made with a Commodore 64 video game console! Bleep-blorpy goodness from that 1.02MHz speed demon. Click the artist link to listen to the rest of their album, The 8bits of Christmas.

MP3: Mon)tag - Last Christmas

There's quite a few covers by German bands, but I'd say Mon)tag provides the best output of the lot. Extremely heart-felt and moving, it sounds like Coldplay minus the sleep-inducing boredom of Chris Martin. Catchy synth use and a convincing vocal display rounds off this solid number.

MP3: Ezio - Last Christmas

Very impressive instrumentals and a great display of cynical vocals to perfectly match the lyrics and song content.