The radio at work is usually tuned to either the local easy listening station or the oldies station. Neither of them are stations that I would choose to listen to. Currently, it’s on the easy listening station.
Guess what they’re doing for the holidays?
They’re playing Christmas music.
All day, every day. 24/7 ad nauseum.
They started the day after Tanksgiving, and they’ve threatened to keep it up until after Christmas.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. I even take the time to remember Christ’s birth. But don’t you think that this is taking things too far?
What makes it really bad is the fact that they only seem to have a few Christmas songs in their inventory. You’ll hear the same song about four times during the course of an 8-hour work day.
This station doesn’t have a very large music selection to begin with. My coworkers and I suspect that their entire music archive consists of the following five CD’s:
[ul][li]The Beatles’ Greates Hits[/li][li]Elvis’ Greatest Hits[/li][li]Easy Listening Favorites, volumes 1 & 2 (probably purchased from a tv commercial)[/li][li]said Christmas music disk[/ul][/li]
If I hear “Feliz Navidad” or that damn Beach Boys song one more time, I may go postal on the office radio.
Do you have the option of bringing in your own radio, tape/ CD/ MP3/etc. player with headphones? If you work in a retail store (instead of an office) you’re probably S.O.L. I feel for you if this is the case. When I worked in an office supply store they had a 5-disc CD changer and kept the SAME DAMN FIVE CDs in it for MONTHS! During one eight-hour shift the entire set would play all the way through twice. I can’t say in mere words alone how sick I became of listening to Ace of Base, Garth Brooks (neither of whom I like anyway), and a couple others which seemed to be permanantly affixed to the CD tray. Occasionally, very occasionally, someone would switch out one of the CDs and we’d get stuck listening to it for several weeks at the very least, if not months. How glad I was the day the player finally broke and they put a radio in. Only problem then was that the radio station they put it on (one of those “adult hits” stations) had a very limited playlist, as most of them seem to have anymore.
The town where I lived used to play Xmas songs over the p.a. system during the whole month of December. You couldn’t walk down any street without being subjected to Holly, Jolly Christmas or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I wrote to the mayor and explained to him that,
a) Not everyone in town is a Christian, and that even many Christians do not feel the need to have religious music forced-fed them for a whole month every time they went outdoors.
b) Whoever chose the tapes had lousy taste in music. The Pope himself couldn’t listen to Andy Williams’ Little Drummer Boy more than twice before snapping.
Portable radios, CD players, and the like are not allowed at work
Most of us employees, if given our druthers, would set it to a rock station, but the boss doesn’t like that kind of music. Once, the boss’ son set the radio to Young Country. It was a nice change, but before long we found ourselves back to Oldies and songs by guys who’ve been dead since before half of us were born :rolleyes:
I have so far managed to entirely avoid hearing any carols whatsoever this year, and if it’s even remotely possible I intend to keep it that way. I know the Xmas Juggernaut will get me; it always does, and I end up having to hit myself on the noggin with a hammer to get “Jingle Bell Rock” out of my head. But I’m not going down easy. I listen only to public radio, I watch very little TV, and at work I listen to angry punk rock on headphones.
I must confess to liking the big, lighted snowflake decorations the city has put up on Poplar Avenue though; they’re beautiful in the rain/snow.
I would not have a problem with Giftmas musci except they never play anything good, like maybe, Run DMCChristmas in Hollisor The Waitresses’ Christmas Wrapping. Even the Band Aid
songDo they Know It’s Christmas.
They’re doing it here, too, Diceman. For you Dopers in the OKC area, the offending station is 96.9 KMMZ (Memories). It’s an easy-oldies station that switched to all Christmas in mid-November. Waaaaay too early…and they got about 50 songs in rotation.
I hate to even admit the fact that I used to be one of those DJs you’d hear playing Christmas carols and sounding happy about it.
Finally I got up to Program Director and banned all Christmas music until December 15th. 10 days is enough for anyone!
Our listeners thanked me - I received many calls and even two letters to the editor of the local newspaper thanking our station for not playing all that Christmas music - and when you’re the one behind the microphone playing it, you get burned out REAL quick on it.
Now that I’m out of Radio the only Christmas music allowed in my house is Mannheim Steamroller. And I swear to high heaven that if I hear “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” ONE more time…
I don’t have to listen to a radio full of all Christmas Carols everyday, but once I hear one, I cannot get it out of my head. So I hear carols when there is no radio around. And I think Christmas songs without words might even be worse to get stuck in one’s head. I have gone a whole day with “Carol of the Bells” on my mind, singing “da da da da. da da da da.”
