Idolator

I'm an uncontrollable radio-flipper when I'm stuck in a car, and this weekend, during the approximately 30 hours that I spent being shuttled around Long Island's highways, the radio was playing an unrelenting mix of "No One," that Chris Brown/T-Pain song, "Apologize," and, for some reason, the entire Samantha Fox catalog. Not that the last selection wasn't a joy, but when you hear "Kiss Kiss" for the 5,875th time, you begin to want—nay, crave—the slightly different offerings served up by the all-Christmas stations on the dial. Anyway, it was somewhere between exits 58 and 59 on the LIE that I realized that I really, really liked one new holiday standard in particular: Mariah Carey's 1994 "All I Want For Christmas Is You," which, while full of longing, is not one of those "drinking myself to death at Christmas" songs that are so popular on these stations' playlists. (Seriously, WTF with that Dan Fogelberg track about people drinking beer in a car? Talk about giving people a reason to spike their egg nog with rubbing alcohol.) While I was looking for Mariah's "Christmas" video—which seems to have been filmed in and around the malls of my youth—I found the My Chemical Romance cover above, thus proving my suspicion that there was at least one emo band out there who'd realize that this track's mix of incessant boppiness and sad-sack lyrics was a perfect fit for its aesthetic.

All I Want For Christmas Is You - My Chemical Romance [YouTube]