Naughty or nice? The 2025 holiday music round up

December 23, 2025·37 min·3 clips

Nate explains why artists chase a spot in the Christmas rotation for a reliable seasonal payday.

The cabin bit is knowingly ridiculous. Nate and Charlie start with mucklucks, drinks, snow-covered hills, and enough staged coziness to make the roundup feel handmade instead of slick. Once the songs start, though, they get precise. The setup is simple: hold the year's new holiday songs up to the weird test of what could ever join the Christmas canon. Some songs glow. Some clank. The naughty-or-nice frame keeps things moving without turning the episode into a scorecard. It also gives them room to talk about why one seasonal record feels sturdy and another feels tossed off. The best stretches stay close to the sound. Sleigh bells are not treated like frosting. They become percussion that can stand in for a shaker, cymbal, or girl-group tambourine, which is very Switched on Pop. The throwback Christmas-core lane brings in the Crystals, sleigh ride, doo-wop, and wall-of-sound gestures as live references, not dusty props. Ariana, Mariah, and Kelly Clarkson sit nearby too, because their holiday hits show how pop keeps borrowing older studio languages when it wants quick sparkle and instant seasonal recognition. Mickey Guyton gives them the cleanest sugar rush to pull apart. "Sugar Cookie" sits right in that confectionary lane, all sleigh bells, big Motown-style drums, and a chorus they can enjoy while still using it as evidence. Then Willie Nelson shifts the room. The story about asking him for another take becomes the craft lesson, because his answer favors keeping the work and breath in a performance instead of sanding it smooth. Rawness wins, at least in that moment. That is what gives the episode a little bite. Under the holiday cheer is a real studio question: when does polish help, and when does it kill the first spark? After the roundup, they point toward 2026 with predictions and an Audrey Hober interview tease. The canon question stays open, which is probably where it belongs.

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