HOW TO FIX CHRISTMAS MUSIC

 

I promise to keep this one short because, firstly, I know this week we are all more excited about New Year’s than Christmas and, secondly, people have better things to do than here my dismay and I have better things to do than to bell-ache.

Still, full confession, the past few Christmas seasons I have actively avoided stations that I know play Christmas tunes from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. Now, I used to love listening to Christmas music and I don’t think my love for certain carols has gotten any less but, after some meditation on it all I think I know why I’m starting to ditch a lot of it. No, it’s not because they are starting it too early. Not that I don’t think they are but I used to play old Christmas records as early as September and October and visiting the Christmas Loft in North Woodstock every October is an annual tradition. I can also enjoy Christmas movies year round.

It’s also not because I think Christmas music has gotten worse over the years. The truth is, it’s been hit or miss for almost sixty years. Neither can it be blamed on the common pang, “It’s everywhere”, as that hasn’t bothered me before.

Rather, I think my growing intolerance for it is because the standard playlist has simply gotten stale. Sure, Mariah Carey’s much disdained “All I Want for Christmas” grates me but, frankly, Bing Crosby and Burl Ives are also inducing groans.

Solutions? I say, let’s get back to basics. Avoid album ready renditions of traditional tunes and let’s record the classics with choirs, acapella groups, and less commercial maestros like Andrea Bocelli and Pavarotti.

Yes, I think that’s it! We need to both diversify and de-commercialize (to the degree that it’s possible, I understand) Christmas music. A little secret: this past holiday season I’ve largely ditched the car radio and instead been listening to…Christmas songs on my phone. To my surprise I found that the Westminster Abbey choir delivers phenomenal renditions of traditional Christmas carols, as does the choir of Notre Dame and the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin.

The issue is not Christmas music but the repetition, lack of variety and over producing of recordings. The magic and earnestness of Christmas music is in its simplicity.

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