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.

[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 :)

[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*

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.