Meme on a variety of topics

[pensnest]

ephemera suggested Christmas music - favourites, pet peeves, and when should it start and stop.


A-HA!

I was in Sainsbury's on Tuesday, and by the time I had worked my way through the fruit and veg section I was ready to kill, and Johnny Mathis was warbling about When A Child Is Born.

This is Just Wrong.

Now, I don't object to Christmas music on principle. There are many jolly tunes, most particularly Santa Baby (preferably the Eartha Kitt version, because nobody does golddigger sexkitten like Eartha Kitt), Santa Claus is Coming To Town (Springsteen), Rocking around the Christmas Tree (?) (I used to know a tap routine to this one), Driving Home for Christmas (Chris Rea) and Merree Christmas Everybodee (or something like it, by Slade). Why yes, I did grow up in the 1970s. Less cheerful but also worthy are Last Christmas (by Wham), Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (by Judy Garland, accept no substitutes), Lonely This Christmas (Mud) and of course, O Holy Night (by Nsync, no other version is as good) (once, once, I actually heard this in a UK shop, and stood there happily until it was done). And I do not object to actual Christmas carols sung by choirs. But crooning is *not* appropriate for Christmas carols (and the little bloody drummer boy does not count as a carol anyway).

However. These tunes should be leavened through the day like little hints of tinsel. They should not be played non-stop throughout December. They CERTAINLY should not be played before December 1st.

There are incredible numbers of hideous, schmaltzy, monstrously sentimental Christmas songs around. It has been a long time since I enjoyed listening to Chris de Burgh wittering on about a spaceman. I have never, do you hear me, never wanted to hear Perry Como sing about anything involving chestnuts or snowmen or reindeer. There's a horrible sincerity that too many American singers bring to all this appalling crap that renders it unforgiveable. A little irony goes a long way, guys. Bing may sing about a White Christmas, and that's your lot.

You know the culprits. You know what they are. Sometimes I've been driven out of shops by the ghastly noise. And these excrescences are visited upon the hapless staff in supermarkets across the land, solidly, from the beginning of December. It is inhumane. One day, a checkout cashier will snap and rampage through the store with a cosh made of £1 coins in a felt stocking and destroy all the festive seasonal merchandise. And who shall blame her?

If the good Christmas songs were sprinkled across the month in a delicate way, and the bad ones featured only during the seven days leading up to Christmas, they might (I suppose, grudgingly) enhance the experience of fighting through trolleys in search of the last packet of stuffing in the shop. Except for the ones that should be incinerated, of course.

That's it.

(*whew!*)

Do you know, I think my Christmas icon might be quite appropriate here.

If you'd like to fill in any of the empty slots, go here.

Comments

[kira-j.livejournal.com]

and of course, O Holy Night (by Nsync, no other version is as good) (once, once, I actually heard this in a UK shop, and stood there happily until it was done).
YESSSS i always make like i'm on my phone so i don't look too suspicious, i can't leave until the song is done, happens every year

my fave xmas song is greg lake's i believe in father Christmas and john lennon's war is over. nothing NOTHING is better than nsync's xmas album. it's scarily perfect. not one redundant song.

[pensnest]

I do tend to skip quite a lot of the Nsync Christmas songs, although I do have a sneaking love for several of them. I'm not a huge fan of the two songs you mention, but they're okay - not quite lively enough to be in my favourite category!

[ephemera]

Hee - you do, indeed, have a perfect icon for this post. I suspected that you might have Opinions on this one - sensible opinions that surely all right-thinking folks agree with :)

[pensnest]

Well, indeed. An excellent choice of subject, since it allowed me to Rant most enjoyably. So many horrible, horrible songs!

[dine]

I heartily approve of your Opinions! you clearly are a woman of discerning good taste and you can pick the music at any of my parties *g*

[pensnest]

*grins* Excellent. It was a fun topic to have a rant about.

[sporky_rat]

My Husbandthing agrees with you about the bloody drummer boy. I've seen him stalk out of a store and refuse to shop there until the song was done and he cooled off.

[pensnest]

I've been driven out of shops, too, though I can't cite a particular song which drives me maddest.

[turlough]

I have so much hate for all the bad yule music they play in the shops! It seems like everyone has to make a yule album and they're all horribly bland and awful. So much hate!!!

I prefer Louis Armstrong's version of White Christmas to Bing's.

[pensnest]

Hmm, I'm not familiar with Louis Armstrong's version, but I can imagine it being very appealing, with the roughness of the voice in contrast to Bing's celebrated smoothness. I've sung harmonies to it, and to the one about Walking in a Winter Wonderland, and I know a lovely version of Rudolph which I've done as a duet several times, great offbeat little harmonies, so I am usually willing to listen to those, and hum along my harmonies.

[rikes]

Apparently christmas albums sell well so everybody wants to record one, and that's why there are so many horrible versions of perfectly good songs around.

Excellent choice of icon. :D

[solariana.livejournal.com]

Ah! Our *oldies* stations used to play 2-4 Christmas tunes per hour leading up to Christmas, and I was fine with that. A few years ago, they went to a 24 hour Christmas format beginning on Thanksgiving. This year? They started the 24 hour Christmas music on 15 Nov! It's like people putting up their Christmas decorations on 1 Nov! Way too early.

So yeah, I used to have to avoid that oldies station 4 weeks out of the year and now six. The only reason I can think of is that the over playing of Christmas music has affected their thinking in a very wrong way so they now think 6 weeks is a good thing to do. Who can listen to Christmas music 24 hours a day for 6 weeks and not lose their mind?

A couple Christmas songs per hour is plenty and I agree with a 1 Dec start time!

[pensnest]

We don't have Thanksgiving as a natural barrier between November and Christmas, but if that has broken now, you have no defence either! :-(

It's just as well it comes but once a year.

[solariana.livejournal.com]

I am oh so sad to say that *Christmas in July* pokes its head up now and then in the way of sales and sometimes other things.

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

I am in complete agreement about the when and how much of holiday music! Many places started here with holiday ads/décor before Halloween! Meaning, yes, that some Christmas music has been heard before November. Sigh.

Do you prefer Brenda Lee to rock you around the seasonally festooned conifer or are you more favorable to Hall & Oates doing this?

Since I happen to genuinely like holiday music, I'm okay with coming across Perry mooning on about how the holiday was when he was but a young thing. However. You're quite right that there is an abundance of overly sentimental renderings of so many songs. And they are not to be thrown at an unsuspecting public. That is not what the holiday is all about.

I shall have to disagree about the crooners, though. Beyond finding some of those older arrangements just fabulous [either sincerely, or in their overblown orchestration], I also have the history of my grandmother telling me how 'dreamy' several of them were- a sentiment she held regardless of never knowing what some of them looked like.

PS: Mariah Cary should never have been allowed to sing Christmas music of any kind, let alone record it. Ouch.

[kira-j.livejournal.com]

whaaaat? you don't like mariah or you don't like the all i want for xmas song?

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

For years I happily belted out All I Want For Christmas when it was played. It's upbeat, happy. Then about 3 years ago, the stations decided it was the only song of a holiday nature and played it to the point of ruining it for me.

However, Mariah terrifies me. I don't like her music at all. Logically, I recognize the woman has pipes and amazing range. Unfortunately, everything she does sounds like a wounded banshee recorded it. Not my thing.

She did do that fabulous melt down on live TV thing a while back, that was fun.

[kira-j.livejournal.com]

I agree that song is overexposed. It's lost it's sparkle. I love her like crazy but it's so hard to be excited about the new album. I don't know why everyone sounds like they're singing underwater? I want something clean/clear.

[pensnest]

I spose I have, in the past, done my Christmas shopping quite early, so in that respect it can be nice to have Stuff in the shops in September. But not with the decorations and the "music".

Brenda Lee, that's the name! Very tappable.

I suspect the sentimentality of many of these songs does not improve with repetition!

Well, I like the crooners and their predecessors in the ordinary way, I just want them to be singing *good* songs, not pouring all that soulfulness into second-rate kitsch.

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

Awww, c'mon. 'Zat you, Santa Clause? is first rate kitsch! ;-)

[pensnest]

I'm hesitant to admit that I don't think I know that one...

[msktrnanny.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3TXwWANFbM

[I do not remember how to code a link! lol]

Enjoy!

[morgana-st.livejournal.com]

One of my particular Christmas music peeves is "The Little Drummer Boy" sung by adults. For some reason this sets my teeth on edge. And all the pop divas who feel compelled to tackle "O Holy Night" and "Do You Hear What I Hear?" I end up stabbing away at the radio buttons in my car, but I swear at least three of the stations seem to be playing carols now.

[pensnest]

When they get to "I played my drum for Him" I think to myself, Yes, and I bet his mother was Really Grateful.

I'm sure the Christmas songs drive away at least as many listeners as they lure. So *why* do they do it?

[nopseud]

You would hate being around me in December. :-)

I looooooooooooooooooooove Christmas music, to a possible unhealthy degree. Now I've turned off the SeSa playlist, I'm on all cheesy Christmas tracks all the time. Although I do hate that bloody Chris de Burgh song about the spaceman. GAH. Although, not as much as I hate 'Windy Night'. Fortunately, even though it has an angel in it, it gets a lot less play time.

And I have to feel sorry for people working in shops where they have an single Christmas CD that they play for a month and a half. Nice for me, wandering happily around the shops, grim for them.

[pensnest]

You horrify me. *stares sternly*

I do feel very sorry for the staff - even a mix of my favourite Christmas songs would drive me to madness when repeated all day and every day.

They could, instead, have "I'm sorry I haven't a Christmas Clue" playing. That is my pre-Christmas warm-up, and what I listen to when I wrap presents. It is Humph and crew's version of "A Christmas Carol", and it is magnificent.

[nopseud]

Ha! We always wrap up our presents while watching 'The Muppet Christmas Carol'.