"8 Days of Christmas" was released as the lead single from Destiny's Child's 2001 holiday album of the same name. The R&B hit was cowritten by Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Errol McCalla Jr. and interpolates the traditional carol "The 12 Days of Christmas."

"Mistletoe" was released as the lead single from Justin Bieber's 2011 Christmas album, "Under the Mistletoe" — a time when many young Beliebers dreamed of kissing him beneath the seasonal sprig. The song was certified 3x platinum by the RIAA in 2021, nearly a decade after its release.

Ariana Grande has described her 2015 EP "Christmas & Chill" as her "favorite body of work," but she originally dipped her toe into holiday tunes with 2013's little-known collection "Christmas Kisses."

"Santa Tell Me" was included with the special edition of "Christmas Kisses," released exclusively in Japan in 2014 before the song was released worldwide.

"Santa Tell Me" later received radio promotion and a music video, which has accumulated over 300 million views to date. Earlier this year, it rose to a new peak of No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Kacey Musgraves and Troye Sivan performed "Glittery" as a duet during her 2019 variety special, "The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show," which aired on Amazon Prime.

Musgraves cowrote the gentle ballad with Daniel Tashian, who also cowrote the majority of tracks on her Grammy-winning album "Golden Hour."

"We wrote 'Glittery' really quickly. It had this easy groove to it, and I thought conga drums would be perfect on it and kind of give it a Marvin Gaye type treatment," Musgraves told i-D magazine. "It's a sweet little song. And then Troye Sivan joined me during the special for it. I think the imagery in that scene might be my favorite. I just want to eat it."

Girl in red, aka Marie Ulven, is renowned for writing intimate indie-pop songs about sapphic love. As the title suggests, her 2020 holiday single "Two Queens in a King Sized Bed" fits nicely within that tradition.

"It's about the beauty of Christmas and being young and not having too much stuff and just wanting to be together and cuddle and never leave bed," Ulven told The Line of Best Fit.

On the song's subtly festive production, she explained, "I feel like that's the new Christmas vibe, it's the Gen Z Christmas vibe."

FINNEAS — better known as Billie Eilish's producer and brother, Finneas O'Connell — released "Another Year" as a single in 2020, in the thick of COVID-19 isolation.

Written and produced by O'Connell alone, the song serves as a reminder that quality time with loved ones is precious, yet never promised.

"Here we are tonight, drunk by the firelight / The future could be bright though no one's sure about it," he sings in the second verse. "And if the ending's sad, at least these times we've had / The good outweighs the bad, you wouldn't know without it."

"I wrote this song this time last year but if I had known what would happen in the following 12 months, I wouldn't have changed a line," O'Connell explained on Instagram. "Hope it gives you a little comfort."

Taylor Swift's "'Tis the Damn Season," while not strictly a holiday carol like her 2019 single "Christmas Tree Farm," should still be considered one of the great December anthems.

Released as the fourth track on "Evermore," the second of Swift's 2020 sister albums, "'Tis the Damn Season" captures the specific yet universal experience of returning to your hometown for the holidays and getting swept up in the nostalgia.

"Home to You (This Christmas)" is a festive spin on Sigrid's own single "Home to You," an ode to connection and belonging that was recorded for the Amazon movie "The Aeronauts."

"'Home To You' has always had a Christmas spirit since we wrote it," the Norwegian singer said in a press release. "It's about my hometown and the house I grew up in with my family. I always go back for Christmas, so it felt natural to make a Christmas version. I hope it'll give some cozy vibes when it's getting darker outside."

From 2017 through 2022, Phoebe Bridgers would release annual Christmas covers and donate the proceeds to charity.

The 2022 installment in the series, Bridgers' take on the Handsome Family's "So Much Wine," is the perfect wintery blend of peaceful and melancholic.

Bridgers assembled a star team to reimagine "So Much Wine," including her go-to producers, Tony Burg and Ethan Gruska. The song even features backing vocals from Bridgers' then-fiancé, Paul Mescal.

"Snow in LA" is a more somber take on the holiday music tradition. The duet between PJ Harding and Noah Cyrus, who also share writing credits, is a "dark Christmas song for what feels like a pretty dark time," the duo said in a statement to Rolling Stone.

"It's reminiscent of traditional Christmas carols (with all their reverence and hope) but contrasted by images of catastrophic climate change and looming fascism that represent so many of our fears for the future," they said.

Remi Wolf took on a bonafide pop classic by Wham! with her signature zeal. Her cover of "Last Christmas" was released in 2022 as one in a set, paired with the '30s ballad "Winter Wonderland."

Quinnie, aka Quinn Barnitt, became a breakout indie-pop star in 2022 when her song "Touch Tank" went viral on TikTok. Later that year, she released "Silver Second" as a tender tribute to her family members, depicting them as huddled together in the winter months.

"In part, I wrote it knowing that my grandmother wasn't doing so well, and hoped to express the importance of being uber present, especially during the holiday season," quinnie wrote on Instagram.

"A Nonsense Christmas" was originally released in 2022, capitalizing on the viral popularity of Sabrina Carpenter's ad-libbed "Nonsense" outros during her Emails I Can't Send Tour.

Carpenter's self-described "Christ-smash" later became the core of her Netflix holiday special, as well as the highlight of her 2023 EP "Fruitcake" — but don't neglect the rest of the tracklist, which is stuffed with festive pop gems like "Santa Doesn't Know You Like I Do," "Buy Me Presents," and "Is it New Years Yet?"

"DJ Play a Christmas Song" was released as the lead single from Cher's 2023 album "Christmas." It became her first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 in over two decades, since "Song For The Lonely" in 2002.

This year, she released three new duet versions with Kelly Clarkson, Giovanni Zarrella, and Belinda.

"Better Than Snow" was released in 2023 in a two-song pack called "Christmas With You," paired with a cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

The duet between Norah Jones and Laufey, who share writing and production credits, juxtaposes the season's cold weather with the warmth of romance and intimacy.

"It's more a national holiday than a religious one," Laufey told The Boston Globe of her upbringing in Iceland. "It's the one time of year we can romanticize the terrible snowy weather."

In October of 2016, country band Little Big Town released their hit single "Better Man," the first preview for the album "Breaker." The song went on to garner critical acclaim, evening winning song of the year at the 2017 Country Music Awards.

But "Better Man" was originally written by Swift.

Kimberly Schlapman, one of Little Big Town's four members, told Taste of Country in 2016, "She sent us the song … We were like, 'Wow! Taylor sent us a song. She's one of the best songwriters ever.'"

Schlapman said Swift thought the song would be great for the country group because of their four-part harmonies.

Fans may now be more aware of Swift's credit on the song now that she rerecorded it for herself on "Red (Taylor's Version)."

Swift may not have had her own show on Disney Channel, but her music served as a fan-favorite tune for "Hannah Montana: The Movie" (2009).

As detailed by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, or ASCAP, Swift wrote the song "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home," performed by Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in the film.

Swift also made a cameo in the film and sang her song "Crazier."

Swift and Kellie Pickler collaborated a few years back and cowrote the song "Best Days of Your Life."

"Taylor Swift and I actually wrote this song together while we were on tour with Brad Paisley," Pickler told The Boot. "I had went through a really bad breakup a while back, so we wrote the song about the relationship that went sour."

Swift worked with Train's Pat Monahan to cowrite the song "Babe" for the country band Sugarland.

Sugarland band member Jennifer Nettles told Billboard in 2018, "When she was first getting started we had just had our first little EP out, called 'Premium Quality Tunes.'"

Swift is also featured on the track and in the song's music video. 

"Babe" is another track that Swift has since rerecorded for her own album, "Red (Taylor's Version)."

Swift hasn't just written country music — she also contributed to the hit single "This Is What You Came For," performed by Calvin Harris and featuring Rihanna.

At first, fans were unsure whether Swift had actually written the song.

In July 2017, TMZ reported that Harris and Swift "both knew the song would be a hit, but Taylor wrote it for Calvin and both agreed it was a bad idea to let the world know they collaborated as a couple ... it would overshadow the song."

Eventually, a representative for Swift confirmed with People that Swift wrote the song, stating, "Taylor Swift wrote 'This Is What You Came For' under the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg."

In 2012, Swift pushed even more genre boundaries and collaborated with rapper B.o.B. to release "Both of Us."

Per Hip Hop DX, B.o.B. told B96's Julian On The Radio that his collaboration with Swift "happened naturally."  

He continued, "It wasn't like the label was like, 'We need to get a Taylor Swift feature.' It was really like she hit me up and invited me to come on her set, and I couldn't make it because I wasn't in Atlanta at the time, but she actually arranged for me to come to Dallas and she brought me out and I played her the song, she liked it and it naturally happened."

Rock band Boys Like Girls got the chance to collaborate with Swift for their 2009 release "Two Is Better Than One." And she was prominently featured on the track. 

Billboard said the song helped to boost the band's already-successful summer and to display their "softer side."

Some fans might be familiar with Swift's contributions to "The Hunger Games" soundtrack, but if you're not also a fan of the franchise they might have slipped past you.

Swift cowrote "Safe and Sound" with The Civil Wars, and she told MTV in 2012 that the song "just ended up so organically coming together."

She continued, "We wrote this song and recorded it one day. When we got the track back, I was so surprised by the restraint. He created this ethereal sound without making it this big battle anthem."

The group ended up winning a Grammy in 2013 for "Safe and Sound."

Swift's song "Eyes Open" was also featured on the movie's soundtrack. 

Swift played Bombalurina in the 2019 film adaptation of the musical "Cats," but she also got to collaborate with legendary musical theater composer Andrew Lloyd Webber on the original song "Beautiful Ghosts."

Francesca Hayward sings the song in the film, but Swift also recorded a studio version of it.

"There was an ambition and an aspiration to have an original song in the movie," Swift said in an interview with Universal Pictures. "It was just this beautiful haunting melody."

This story was originally published in May 2018, and most recently updated on December 13, 2024. 

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