‘Glee’ season 5 song spoilers: Kevin McHale, Matthew Morrison lead off a Christmas classic

In the midst of all of the negative critiques that we have given to “Glee” songs from the upcoming “Previously Unaired Christmas” episode airing on Thursday night, we never imagined that the best one would be a song featuring various members of New Directions. Yet, this is where we are when talking about the performance of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” below, which is anchored largely by Artie (Kevin McHale) and Will (Matthew Morrison).

Probably the reason that this cover works pretty well is that unlike the bizarre recreation of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” it doesn’t really try to cover up the original’s charm with a cheesy arrangement. While we love it when “Glee” re-does songs, there is a part of you that wants to just see the holiday classics kept as traditional as possible. That is what they really pull off here with this one. It feels much more like something that you would put on for a Christmas party that would get people singing along to it.

The reality here, though, is that even though this song is here for you to enjoy, there is no guarantee that it will be in the episode at all. As we have had an opportunity to learn already, the network often opts to not include songs on their Christmas episodes; they are just a part of the album in order to boost sales and get the track list long enough that they can sell it. After all, this is probably the only reason that we have this episode in the first place, as Fox feels the need to try and monetize the show a little bit more to compensate for the tanking ratings (which were below a 1.0 in the demo last week).

What do you think not only of this rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” but how it compares to the pretty-fantastic original? Share your thoughts below, and click here if you do want to hear the recording of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” that we mentioned earlier.

Photo: The CW