In Defence of Christmas Music
December 2nd, 2005Do you have any idea how often I hear the words “I hate Christmas music” from people my age? I, quite frankly, don’t understand this almost universal hatred of Christmas music. In fact, I rather like Christmas music. It’s catchy. It’s cheerful. More often than not, it’s jazzy. And jazz just so happens to be my favourite musical genre.
I find that most people who complain about Christmas music are those who work in retail establishments, where come December, they play Christmas music over and over again. I can understand getting sick of something if you listen to it millions of times, but then again, is it any worse than listening to the radio, where there is a tendency to play the newest songs over and over again? Christmas music, in my opinion, is much superior to today’s popular music. For one thing, Christmas music actually sounds like music, whereas popular music is just noise.
Conclusion: most young people have bad taste in music. Or conversely, I have bad taste in music. Take your pick.
December 2nd, 2005 at 12:26 pm
I guess the variation in noise on the radio makes it just that BIT more bareable.
I guess I don’t care enough to like or dislike Christmas music. Unless it’s Christmas film-music. Then I get all critical and stuff.
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:16 pm
I pick “most young people”.
I too like Christmas music, and even recently expanded my collection of Christmas CDs with the latest from the Caliban Quartet. (A Canadian bassoon quartet.) It’s good, even though it may not be the masterpiece I’d hoped for. (Their previous two CDs are just great!)
Some other Christmas music favourites of mine:
Bruce Cockburn - “Christmas” (hey! another Canadian!) is just great. A good mix of known and unknown, a new take on the songs, but still *very* Christmasy.
Peter Beitner and the Slovakian State Philharmonic Orchestra / the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia - “Christmas Goes Baroque” (double CD published by Naxos). Great arrangements and well played.
The Blenders - “Nog”. An album that’s a bit more on the funny side by a male a capella quartet. How about “Let it Snow” with a bit of polynesian Tiki bar flavour? Fun, but still musically good.
John Rutter - “Three Musical Fables”. Nice, cosy (and funny!) stories, good singers (The King’s Singers on two of the tales, and The Cambridge Singers on the third.) and nice music make this a wonderful album.
Tommy Körberg and the Oslo Gospel Choir - “Stilla Natt” (Silent Night). “Ah, a gospel choir”, you think. “I can imagine what that CD sounds like.” Probably not. The Olso Gospel Choir is not like most gospel choirs. This is a mostly soft album and even the uptempo songs such as “Mary’s Boy Child” where you can hear that the choir is a gospel choir is a bit different.
Take6 - “He is Christmas”. The very talented a capella group does its thing with Christmas music, and it’s just great. Thick jazzy harmonies.
If you think I’ve simply listed all Christmas CDs I own, you are very much mistaken. These are my favourites, and I have a bunch more (most of which are good). As I said, I like Christmas music.
…and then there’s the music I am (or have been) a part of creating myself. Actually performing Christmas music is also fun, and I have some recorded evidence of that to listen to aswell. A choir I sang with when at University (”Troendegruppen”) recorded a Christmas CD. (And my third year in the choir, I got to read the traditional texts between the songs in the choir’s Christmas program. That became so popular that I even got to continue that for two years after I left the choir. They flew me the 800 kilometers so that I could be a part of the traditional Christmas concerts. That was fun.) I also have some minidisc-recorded Christmas songs arranged by me and played together with my younger sister.
I’ll stop talking now. This is Deirda’s blog after all, not mine.
December 2nd, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Thanks, Rikard. I’ll be sure to check some of those out. And don’t worry about leaving extremely long comments in my blog. I welcome them.
December 15th, 2005 at 1:31 am
Well, I am one of the former Retail Workers who hates Christmas music.
I think that Christmas would be WAY cooler if we played hot TV themes in stores instead of Christmas music. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear “WKRP In Cincinnati” or “Growing Pains” while they are shopping?
Seriously - I would shop forever at any store that did this. TV themes > Christmas Music. Plus - seriously - Christmas music is so annoyingly cheerful all the frickin’ time…. ew.
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:35 am
I am not of this age group, being 43, but I found your comments enjoyable. I have teenage kids and find it interesting how they like classic and new rock equally. However, my passion for a good Christmas album or song has not rubbed off yet. I took them recently to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. I got so-so reviews out of them. I think there are bad Christmas songs but by and large Christmas music is fun and an important part of the whole season. The best thing about it is the different genres of musical styles in the music i.e. classical, rock jazz etc.