I actually write this this morning rather quickly and for posting various places, but I think it quite appropriate here.
Lets talk about Christmas music. This year it seems the haters have been out in full force. I've noticed a lot pf people sharing articles with titles like “Experts Agree Christmas Music Is Bad For Your Mental Health” or “Science Proves Christmas Music is Bad For You”. And all the haters share these articles and jump on the holiday hatred bandwagon. Of course, they don't actually READ the articles. Like most other articles these days the headlines are carefully written to be “click bait” to get you to click on the story to generate income from ad revenue in the stories. These stories generally boil down to this: If you hate Christmas music it can be stressful for you and bad for your state of mind if you are forced to listen to it. But for those who like Christmas music it can boost the mood, make people happy, and help you through the stressful times of the holidays. It is also a major source of nostalgia and good feelings for many. The exact same articles could have been headlined “Christmas Music Is Good For You” and been just as accurate. One could easily write an article that says “Science Shows Rap Music Is Bad For You” and go on to tell how stressful it is for people who dislike rap music to have to listen to it. And you can interchange the word “Rap” with any other genre': Country, Opera, Death Metal, or whatever and the article is just as valid. And misleading.
Now, granted, I'm a Christmas music fan. I start listening to it on Halloween. Many of you know I'm an avid record collector (some say hoarder) and Christmas records are among one of my favorite categories to collect. Now, I'm not an especially religious person. I don't look forward to the season as a major religious event. If you do, that's great. If you don't, that's great too. I look at it as a time for family, and a distraction from the cold and snow we “enjoy” in northern Minnesota. But, oddly enough I can still enjoy the traditional religious Christian Christmas songs. They don't fill me with wondrous religious thoughts, but rather to being a kid, being in the church Christmas program, doing the Christmas program at school, going to church at my Grandmas house, etc. I'll avoid going down the analysis of religion part of the treatise.
I don't get the Christmas music haters. Christmas music as a genre' is probably the least hateable music there is, simply because the music encompasses all genres. Classical, choral, rock and roll, country, jazz, vocal, instrumental, groups, solos, rap, heavy metal, comedy, it's ALL there. Whatever style of music you like there's a holiday song waiting for you.
I realize that some people are over-exposed to holiday music. If you work in retail and spend day after day, hour after hour listening to the same couple hundred standard songs played over the store PA system I can see where it could get on your nerves. That's because a store or mall is going to play the most popular, and most mainstream songs over and over again to satisfy the people who listen for a couple hours while they're shopping and get out of there. And they'll include a heavy dose of selections from Christmas CD's and albums that are current and available for purchase to generate sales. I can see where radio people get tired of the repetition, because they're exposed to it in heavy doses day in and day out during the holidays. As a radio person myself, I've played Christmas music on the air every year since 1973. For the past 30 or so years I've worked at a station that has a much larger catalog of Christmas songs in the library so the tunes don't burn out so fast, and I've enjoyed the opportunity to bring in records to play on the morning show from my rather deep collection of Christmas songs which makes it all the more interesting and less repetitious. For those in radio I suggest throwing out the “We're only going to play the proven classics” and have some fun with it. 45 years in radio and the number one complaint from the general public to radio in general is “you play the same songs over and over” and the top compliment is “I love the variety you play. You have so many more songs than the other stations”. Live on the edge people and mix it up a bit! Radio, I think needs to think beyond the 15 minute day part, and realize that an awful lot of people listen all day! They get to work and flip on the radio and let it play all day. They need more variety. Radio consultants and record companies refuse to admit that because they want you to play their songs over and over so they can sell downloads, but it makes the world crazy. Note, I'm diverting from another tangent here.
Since I like a wide variety of music styles, I can listen to holiday music in a huge variety. I gravitate to the humorous novelty category most often, but also pile on the rock and roll and jazz.
Maybe Christmas music haters have all had a crummy Christmas as kids. For me Christmas music is not only a great nostalgic throwback, bringing me right smack-dab into Christmas memories going back many years to when I was a kid, but also going back to when my own kids were kids, and now when my grandkids were little (some still are). Christmas music, like all music, will transport you back to a different time. If your life sucked at Christmas, maybe it was super stressful, maybe your relatives all got drunk all the time and beat the crap out of each other, or whatever, maybe the holiday music doesn't take you back to sugarplums and Charlie Brown TV specials, but for most people I believe it does. You have the right to be a hater. And we have the right to turn up the Andy Williams albums!
Personally, I'm looking forward to 6 PM today, when I click the mouse to switch my Part 15 format over to all Christmas Music for the season. I don't remember the song count, but it's way over 3,000 tracks.
TIB
My 3-cents Worth (prices have gone up)
"Over exposure" was the key, as written by Tim, to why Xmas music gets annoying for many people.
For me, I see both sides because I was in advertising for many years and see Christmas music as the world's music effective sales jingles, and probably for many musicians a source of unending income.
Personally it's about the repetition. I've heard it. Now let's hear something else. Or, better yet, how about no music?
I have a large carton stuffed with Christmas albums from my years in commercial radio, and every year I intend to lug it over to the used record store and sell it. Maybe it's worth enough to pay some bills.
There's some excellent classical music for the season... Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet is regularly mixed in with the sparkly short movements about dancing candy and humming trees. The full Nutcracker Suite is about 20-minutes and the full Nutcracker Ballet is close to 2-hours.
J.S.Bach left us the grand Christmas Oratorio and several Christmas Cantatas which are worth hearing.
The best classical work is the Christmas Cantata by Arthur Honegger, seldom heard.
Best pop piece is "Christmas Dream" written by Andrew Lloyd Weber when he was 21 years old, sung by Perry Como in the movie "The Odessa File".
But for me the very best thing this time of year are the lights. As the days get darker the lighting makes people feel better without all the noise.
Carl nails it on the head. Overexposure is what kills Christmas music for me. What makes it even worse is having modern supposed-musicians remake Christmas classics.
That's why, in my Christmas playlist ("A Slightly Bent Christmas" and various similar names), I pull out the relatively unknown (and quite often hilarious, in a bad/good sort of way) stuff that I've found in my travels and play it. Sort of an anti-Christmas. I include such vintage tunes like Reverend J.M. Gate's Death Might Be Your Santa Claus, to The 12 Days of Christmas by Bob & Doug McKenzie, parodies such as Stan Freberg's Green Christmas, and unintentionally bad/good songs such as Joe Spence's Santa Claus is Coming to Town (you really have to listen to the latter to, ah, appreciate it).
Something different. Which is what Part 15 broadcasting should be, at least in my opinion.
I think the only problem with Christmas music is it starts way to early where it never did in the past. The middle of November is too early. And some radio stations go all Christmas exclusively from the last week of November till the 27th. That's a little much.
A long time ago...the 60s, Christmas music on radio was in the form of Christmas Carols which I liked but now you hear none of that, just pop Christmas songs mostly.
Might want to check your music chart history books. There were gobs of hit pop Christmas songs in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, etc. Heck, even "White Christmas" was a huge pop hit. What about the Chipmunks (a grammy winner)? Not sure what the definition of a Christmas carol is -- a hymn? An awful lot of traditional carols were made into huge hit records. Rocking' Around the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bell Rock, Holly Jolly Christmas, the list is nearly endless. According to one trade magazine article I read there are well over a million Christmas songs taking into account different styles and artists recordings of them all. All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, I Saw mommy Kissing Santa Clause? All hits. All all over the radio. The list of Christmas hits starting in the 30's and going up to today is humongous.
In markets where a station has flipped to all Christmas early, it's always a big market with a lot of stations. When someone feels like Christmas music, they flip to that station. When they're done for the time being they flip somewhere else. An all Christmas station is pretty rare in a small market where there aren't choices. You aren't required to listen to the all Christmas station just because it exists.
Personally, I love Christmas music, so it's on my Part 15 station as of yesterday 100%. We've started mixing it in at the station I work for, I play it in the car or listen to tone of the satellite all Christmas stations. There are easily as many Christmas music lovers as there are haters.
TIB
'Tis da Season
Without doubt Tim in Bovey is our Resident Christmas Music Expert.
Now comes Julianne Escobedo Shepherd with a fitting article titled
The Most Annoying Christmas Songs
LOL. That's the third different article I've read today where someone has gone on about the "worst" or "most annoying" Christmas songs. And reading peoples errors and lack of context drives me nuts.
First of all, Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" was out for Christmas '53, not '54. However she did a follow up version with new lyrics in '54 called "This Years Santa Baby", where all the gifts she received the year before fell apart and this year she wants bigger, better presents. e.g. to replace the yacht she wants the Queen Elizabeth! She also redid her original lyric version in '63 with a faster tempo. The Madonna version decades later was done for the album "A Very Special Christmas" which was a very successful fundraiser for the Special Olympics. Madonna's intention was to help the charity. Which worked, as the album release was extremely successful and is still one of our best sellers in the record store.
Don't be screwing with White Christmas. Bing sang this on his Christmas radio show in 1941. Just a couple weeks after the Pearl Harbor Attack. This very touching song hit America right in the gut, and was then used in the movie "Holiday Inn" in 1942, and it went crazy selling to families left home and soldiers sent off in WWII. This song was a very integral part of a very trying time in this country. Remember, this was recorded before there was tape recording. Records were cut to lacquers from which stampers were made. The song was re-recorded in 1947. Know why? They sold so many copies, pressed so many discs, that every stamper they had made from the original lacquers were worn out, and after the last one was damaged, Bing, with the same orchestra and backup singers, went back in and re-recorded it to create new masters. (Original lacquers are ruined in the plating process to make stampers). Don't give Bing any crap about this, dammit.
Side one of the Andy Williams red Christmas Album is one of the best Christmas sides ever pressed. It's hard to be happier. What's with this woman and her crack at ghost stories? She queries "Who tells ghost stories at Christmas" Perhaps she'd like to check with the Ghosts of Christmas past, present and future? Has she not seen, heard, or read the story of Ebenezer Scrooge? Beyond that, ghost stories have been Christmas tradition that goes back long before the Scrooge story. Clearly she doesn't know jingle about Christmas traditions.
Now, I'm not gonna try to defend Justin Beiber. The "Happy Christmas War is Over" remake may be pop pablum, but really the John and Yoko version with Yoko screeching in the background isn't exactly a treat either. But for it's time it was a very appropriate song. And for that matter is quite relevant today.
As for the Band Aid number, are those starving kids wandering around downtown looking at the Christmas displays in the store windows. No. Perspective, my dear.
I can't stand Mariah Carrey. The song is still valid to those in love who can tolerate her excessive use of notes. But if you REALLY want to hear a song, stick with Vince Vance and the Valiants with a song with the same title, but a MUCH better song.
I AM a bit of a Christmas music fanatic. In fact, later this month I'm a guest on our local public radio station telling the stories behind some of the most popular Christmas songs of our time.
TIB
I think a Christmas Carol is something like "The First Noel" and "Silent Night" and "Good King Wenceslas" in the familiar classical style with the choir singing.
Me I have a folder of more rockin' Christmas songs like Little St. Nick by the Beach Boys and Run Run Rudolf by Chuck Berry and lots from Darleen Love's album and many more that I insert into the mix about two weeks before Christmas and remove it on the 26th.
"Baby It's Cold Outside" Pulled from Cleveland Playlist
Gosh, it turns out that the lyrics of the well known song do not meet the standards of #METOO.
Radio Station Drops Song from Christmas List
Don't Take This Too Seriously
This morning I was thinking about what a good voice Bing Crosby had and I started wondering if "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" has racial overtones. I've decided not to pursue the idea because I'm already in pretty deep with the other thread on rap music.
The main thing is that most people think about having snow on Christmas. Although that's not the best idea either, I'll let it go at that.
I think the majority of the world doesn't have snow at Christmas. How did Christmas get connected with snow anyway?
Why would you want snow at Christmas when your guests would have to try to drive home in it.
As for "Baby it's Cold Outside" when you think about it, it's about a guy trying to get a girl to stay when she wants to go.... against her will.
Lots of songs seem innocent enough but aren't listened to that closely as lots of songs I won't play on my station.
What Comes Around Has Gone Around
This flap over "Baby It's Cold Outside" has become the buzz on talk shows all over the place and today we learned it was written by Frank Loesser for the movie "Neptune's Daughter (1949). The song won an Academy Award for Best Music that same year.
Frank Loesser and his songs and musicals are way up at the top of the show world...
I have some other Christmas songs he wrote for the Broadway show "Greenwillow" which are very beautiful songs.
I think you have to be careful interpreting songs written long ago in today's terms.
And they are only words, not unwanted actions (the latter of which are deplorable in any time).
Just as that radio station has the freedom to choose its playlist, others have the right to play and listeners have the right to enjoy classic Christmas songs.
I have to wonder when someone will take Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer as animal abuse.
There are many much more important issues every day than this, which ultimately boils down to freedom of expression.
Defense Against Christmas
Artisan Radio is right again: "There are many much more important issues every day than this, which ultimately boils down to freedom of expression."
From what I have been reading and hearing it is a small but vocal enclave of misandrists who pick away at romantic dialogue such as with "Baby It's Cold Outside".
I see these song lyrics as caring... he wants to protect her from the fierce winter elements and I think he's perfectly polite about it. The girl's part, from 1949, presages the coming age of women's liberation when women don't want men to hold doors for them or pay for dinner because the new feminist is determined to show she can do it herself, something which no one doubted in the first place.
Even more beset by hostile Christmas outrage are the secularists who ask simply to be excluded from the whole festivity and are then accused of staging a "war on Christmas", another fallacy.
I have several people who always force me to accept Christmas gifts and completely disrespect my desire to simply be out of it.
Christians imagine they are celebrating Christ's birth, but if you think about it Jesus had a birthday every year, and yet no one ever celebrates his 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th or any other birthday... always the birth.
KDX reminds you that we need more light this time of year for the mental health of our eyes and knee-caps. String up as much lighting as you can.
I never really thought any of this about "Baby it's Cold Outside" till this came up here.
But the song does bring up the differences in the way men and women think about things.
When it comes to being alone with a man, or it's getting late, the woman is always the one to have reservations about it a lot more. It's a sin in a woman's eyes. Especially when that song was written and is to me just an accurate account of the way men and woman think.
The song is innocent enough though. More romantic than anything.