A related poll, for those of you who selected “none” or “one week” on the other poll. Is this hatred fueled by the music itself, the repetitiveness, the awful parodies, or a general grumpiness about the season in general? I find myself in all of these categories, but I thought I’d ask others.
By far, the repetitiveness. I think my hatred of recycling started with Sesame Street, where they used the same damn shorts every single time. Particularly irritating was the pinball machine animation to introduce the number of the day.
And then, I got really pissed when they recycled the same charlie brown specials and claymation crap every single year.
Once in a while, a parody version of a christmas song comes around (I saw Mommy kissing santa claus or somesuch) that relieves the monotony.
Mostly the repetitiveness. In this entire past decade there’s only been one or two songs of any genre that I liked enough that I never tired of hearing them on the radio yet I didnt like enough to actually go out and buy them.
And then consider that I have heard most Christmas songs about 10 times as often as those songs. As an analogy, I’m only starting to like early Beatles again after their playing about once an hour each on oldies radio that my mom listened to in the 80s. Now that I haven’t heard them in 20 years or so I can listen to them fresher again. Not so with Christmas songs, although I guess I would like them if I never heard them again until I lived to be 200 or so 
Repetition and the twee, cheesy nature of many Christmas songs.
All of the above.
I hate all of it and everything else about this holiday.
The repetition, and the music itself.
By “the music itself” I mean that the standards seem so low. I propose that if two songs are equally good by whatever underlying metric truly detects the pleasantness of music, and one of them is about Christmas, the Christmas one will never be played outside of December, but during December it will be played not 12 times more than the other, but maybe 100 or 1000 times more.
The repetition definitely wears me down, but I don’t hate “Christmas” music, I hate crappy music, and lots of Christmas music is crappy.
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
I’m feeling the same way this year.
Other than the repetition and the general crappiness of the songs, I hate the fact that almost every store feels compelled to play it all month long. Christmas shopping is annoying enough without having to deal with an additional, inescapable horror.
I like many of the songs. But I really hate many of the songs. Luckily for me, I’m rarely anywhere where I’m forced to listen to them.
I like Christmas music, but I said parodies, simply because that is what the abomination called Grandma got Run Over by a Reindeer is.
Bah Humbug!!!
As I said in the other thread, I was a collaborator in the atrocities for many years. The constant repetition coupled with the inherent banality have completely destroyed Christmas music for me, especially the quest to find some new pop/rock/hip hop/country anthem. Christmas music has come to represent everything that is tacky and commercial about what used to be a mass in honour of someone born in a stable.
For all that, I haven’t heard the Bach Christmas Oratorio, the Berlioz ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ or the Poulenc ‘4 motets for the time of Christmas’ in years, so it can’t be just that the subject matter is Christmas that ticks me off. I’d actually like to hear each of those maybe once in the next few weeks. The aforementioned ‘Grandma got run over by a reindeer’ is something I wish it were possible to un-hear.
Allow me to provide a dissenting opinion on “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” True, it is annoying, but I find it a welcome antidote to the forced sentimentality of so much of the other Christmas music that is shoved down our collective throats every December. That said, I wish I knew who was responsible for the “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” TV special, so I could inflict some form of painful and humiliating torture on them.
The things that get to me most about Christmas music are the mawkishness and the repetition. Not everyone gets to have the traditional holiday idealized in Christmas carols, with snow and a decorated tree, and presents they want, and relatives they get along with. I wish people who write Christmas carols would remember that. This is why “Fairytale of New York” is one of my favorite songs to listen to every December - that and “The Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne.
As for the repetition, I already mentioned my coworkers’ fondness for the all-carols radio station in the Pit. Not to mention the stores - I’m trying to get whatever I need online as much as I can, so as to set foot in the mall as seldom as possible. Needless to say, my iPod is getting a serious workout this month. :mad:
Oh wow. In a civilized society, it would be illegal to subject your coworkers to non-stop Christmas music.
For the normal Christmas music tripe it’s the repetitiveness of it. I didn’t despise all Christmas music until three years ago. In fact, I used to help my SIL put together playlists for the family gathering.
I started working for my present employer just prior to Thanksgiving three years ago. The parent company (furriners) mandates the music they pipe in be played over the PA system. The Christmas season when I started working there they decided to repeatedly play a few different two hour blocks of Christmas music with a six minute break at the end of each.
Not all of it was that bad but that six minute break was filled by the Star Wars Disco. A short time later, the PA system mysteriously went down for hours at a time, fights broke out in the cafeteria over the level of shittiness of the music, the PA system in Design stopped working (no idea who did that one) and, eventually, the big drum shaped receiver on the roof went missing (no idea who did that one either).
In the two years since, there has been no Christmas music but the damage has been done.
Even the best food in the world would tire you if it was the only thing you ate. There’s good and bad Christmas/Winter songs, but seriously: playing “Little Drummer Boy” five times in a row and claiming it’s not repetitive because it’s five different people singing? Really? If I kick you alternating feet will it not count as repeated kicking?
Yeah, the repetition is the worst. I spent the evening in Barnes & Noble, and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” was played FOUR times. And it goes on all month, some places even longer, starting in November. EVERY GODDAMN YEAR. I think Christmas should be like the Olympics. Once every four years would be plenty for me. Maybe then it would be special again.