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In the vast songbook of seasonal music, those recordings are Christmas poison, the sonic equivalent of a chorus of screeching cats. They are among the most-hated Christmas songs of all time.

This isn't just our frankly subjective opinion. It's the frankly subjective opinion of representative samplings of radio listeners, which makes it sort of, kind of scientific. Not one, but two research companies -- Edison Media Research and Pinnacle Media Worldwide -- independently surveyed listeners to divine their most loved and loathed holiday songs. (Both companies asked review panels -- consisting primarily of women -- to rate hundreds of Christmas-themed tunes, sorting them into such categories as "love," "like," "dislike" and "hate.")

There's big money riding on these surveys, which were released last week. Knowing what listeners love and hate, Christmas-wise, is critical to 366 radio stations across the country that play nothing but Christmas music for a few weeks this time of year.

The most beloved songs in both surveys were often standards: Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" (he first recorded it in 1942); Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" (1946) and Burl Ives's "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (1965) turned up at the top of each company's lists of favorites.

Three other staples, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (Brenda Lee, recorded in 1958), "Jingle Bell Rock" (Bobby Helms, 1957) and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" from 1971, scored consistently well in research conducted by California-based Pinnacle.

Which leads to Christmas Music Observation No. 1: Despite all the new holiday music that is released each year, people prefer hearing the "classics."

The newest song to crack the top 10 on Pinnacle's "adult contemporary" and "adult top 40" panels was Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," released 13 years ago. The most recent for Edison was the Lennon/Ono tune.

Music analysts Sean Ross and Mark Carlson say adults have strong psychological ties to the Christmas music of their childhoods. "It's the season of nostalgia," says Pinnacle's Carlson. Ross, of the New Jersey-based Edison, says that some of these songs have stayed in popular consciousness because they're part of holiday TV specials and movies that reappear year after year.

Among the most-hated Christmas songs, according to Edison's research, are Streisand's "Jingle Bells?" (too "acrobatic," Ross ventures); the Jackson 5's " Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (Ross: "I wonder if it's a vote about Michael Jackson"); Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"; and "O Holy Night," as butchered by the cartoon character Eric Cartman (voiced by Trey Parker) from Comedy Central's "South Park."

And the No. 1 most-hated Christmastime recording? That would be "Jingle Bells," as "performed" by the Singing Dogs. This 1955 Danish record (reedited and rereleased in 1970) is just what the name and group say it is: a bunch of dogs woofing out the familiar tune, one bark at a time.