Funky, Funky Christmas

If you were a kid growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, you were intimately familiar with the New Kids on the Block whether you wanted to be or not. If you were a girl, chances are you were owned mountains of their ubiquitous memoribilia which included the usual t-shirts, buttons, and posters but also dolls, trading cards, and board games. They were a pop culture phenomenon, and like many other pop culture phenomenons before and after them, they spawned a Christmas album.

"Merry, Merry Christmas" was the third album released by the Boston fivesome, and came at the peak of their career. Aside from many traditional covers, the album contains several original songs, including the top ten single "This One's for the Children". That's not the song we're going to talk about, though. My favorite ("favorite") song off of NKOTB's Christmas record is the supremely weird "Funky, Funky Christmas".

The New Kids always liked to portray themselves as being from the "street", particularly their resident Bad Boy Donnie Wahlberg. This song (not coincidentally co-written by Donnie) is about as "street" as they get, what with it consisting mostly of the Kids attempting to "rap". It begins with an elf named "Little Train" lamenting to Santa that Christmas is "boring" and then rejoicing that the New Kids on the Block have shown up to provide a "funky" Christmas. The Kids proceed to bust impossibly lame rhymes about the awesomeness of Christmas, punctuated by the impossibly lame "Funky, Funky Christmas" chorus.

One recurring theme of the New Kids was them trying to convince the world that they actually had talent, usually by insisting they did their own choreography or pretending to play instruments onstage. In this song, Santa claims "I bet you never knew" that Donnie played percussion, leading to a drum solo that I'm sure was totally performed by Mr. Wahlberg. "MC Santa" then wraps up the song with a list of shout outs to people like the "Northside Posse", the "Def Duo", and "Lou" - presumably infamous producer Lou Pearlman, who went on to form the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync using the exact same formula as the New Kids.



This song sucks. It's horrible. It's probably the worst Christmas song I can think of, and I know pretty much every one. But with the ultra white New Kids trying to be "street" and Christmas-y at the same time, it's also easily the most hilarious. (Sorry, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"!)