A 200-year-old Austrian carol has beaten more modern tunes such as White Christmas to be named the most-recorded festive song.

Silent Night – first performed on Christmas Eve in 1818 – tops a list of Christmas recordings registered with UK royalties body PPL.

And of the 170 different versions of the song, the most played is by US punk band the Dickies.

The LA group's 1978 recording was ahead of numerous choral versions, as well as covers by artists such as Sinead O'Connor, Elvis Presley, Christina Aguilera and Susan Boyle.

PPL analysed airplay and performances in public places such as shops over the past decade on the 1,800 Christmas-themed registered recordings.

White Christmas was the next most popular song with 150 separate versions, the most played of which is the classic 1942 Bing Crosby recording from the movie Holiday Inn.

Winter Wonderland was ranked third, the most popular of which was the Darlene Love performance from the Phil Spector-produced A Christmas Gift For You album.

Figures from PPL also show that one in every 200 plays it monitors is a Christmas recording.

"People love their Christmas music," said a PPL spokeswoman.

Most recorded Christmas songs according to PPL (with most popular version in brackets):

1. Silent Night – 170 (The Dickies)

2. White Christmas – 150 (Bing Crosby)

3. Winter Wonderland – 124 (Darlene Love)

4. Jingle Bells – 110 (Benny Goodman and his Orchestra)

5. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – 108 (Judy Garland)

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