Besidese the repetition, why should I like a song just because it’s a Christmas song. At Christmas I’m forced to listen to a lot of musical styles I wouldn’t enjoy any other time of year. I don’t enjoy them more just because they have a Christmas theme.
StG
I’d probably be less likely to be annoyed by Christmas music if the holiday itself wasn’t crammed down our throats starting Labor Day weekend!! I’ve seen people where their tree was up on Halloween!!!
By now, I’m so sick of Christmas, the last thing I want to hear is Christmas songs!
If it weren’t for the parodies (Bob Rivers in particular), I’d lose my mind. A well crafted parody that can make me laugh is worth its weight in gold.
I wish we’d go back to the old days when you wouldn’t see any mention of Christmas until Thanksgiving day or the day after.
I didn’t see “the other poll”.
I actually like nice carols, if I don’t have to listen to the exact same recordings of the exact same carols over and over again. If you want to put The Magnificat, “The Wassail Song”, “Lo how a rose e’er blooming”, “Estampie Natalis”, The Messiah, the Coventry Carol, “I Wonder as I Wander”, “There’s a Song in the Air”, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and others (in sufficient quantity and good quality performances) on a one-month soundloop that plays from Thanksgiving thru Christmas, I will mostly enjoy listening.
But 11 seconds of ! jing! jing! jing! jing! Roo-dolf the Red nozed RANE deer and I’m ready to start smashing speakers and faces and other things :mad:
As others have said, it’s the banality, mawkishness, and general low quality of the music. The repetition just makes it worse.
Unfortunately, my general hatred of Christmas music spills over onto the few Christmas songs that are actually pretty good. Merry Christmas, Baby by Bruce Springsteen is decent, and Joan Jett’s Little Drummer Boy is awesome. But they rarely bother to play that one. Regardless, I don’t want to hear them.
That said, I do like certain traditional carols, like Silent Night, especially when sung under the right circumstances and with the requisite amount of gravity. Actual human carolers standing outside holding candles singing Silent Night = good. Novelty version of Silent Night coming out of the radio while I’m bombing down the NJ Turnpike at 80 mph = atrocious.
I’m a big fan of Henry Rollins’ deliciously violent reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas, complete with anti-aircraft gunfire bringing down Santa and his sleigh near the end. (From this now-out-of-print album in 1991: http://tinyurl.com/yb29a4t “A Lump of Coal” Best. Christmas. Album. Evar.)
Give it a nice sick and fresh twist, and I’m all for it. However, for the other 99.9% of Christmas music… just shoot me. I’m not even a Christian. For me, it would be like if you lived in the parking lot at Disney World and were forced to have happy-happy-cheerful-cheerful crammed down your bitter throat 24/7/365… It’s enough to make anyone stabby.
I like Christmas songs but I don’t like the repetition. I manage to avoid songs for most of the month, and play the ones I want to hear for myself when called for.
The thing I hate most about Christmas songs is that there are only so many Christmas songs. There are maybe one or two versions of each that I like. I also like original songs (like The Waitresses song or “I Believe in Father Christmas”). Everybody feels like they need to make a new version of a classic song and make it their own. By singing it slower than anyone possibly needs to sing it.
That’s where it breaks down. The dozens of truly hokey, “soulful”, dragged-out versions of every song. Every year I’m in at least one store, and I hear something like a 5-minute sad version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer” or something. I heard one at Pier 1 the other night, and I can’t remember what it was exactly, but I thought to myself “there it is again!”
Blech.
For those who hate “Little Drummer Boy,” I think The Annoying Drummer Boy is probably the real story. Joanne Bogart deserves awards for the lyrics, particularly the limerick choruses and nonsense syllable refrains.
Mary nodded “Yeah, it’s late, but thanks for stopping by.
I’d love to chat, but I just gave birth to the lord our god on high.
Here we are at 3 a.m.
With Ringo Starr of Bethlehem.
Baby Jesus* needs to sleep and god knows, so do I.”
*Note: The version I had had the Spanish pronounciation.
For me, it’s because of the years I worked in radio, and was stuck in the control room – first maybe one song an hour after Thanksgiving, quickly increasing up to the all-song every-song orgy on December 24 and 25. If you get tired of hearing Christmas music on the radio, at least you can turn it off. Imagine the poor DJ who’s stuck with it hour after hour, every day.