One of the easy-listening radio stations in town has started playing Christmas music.
Everyone I know seems to either detest holiday music, or they find it tolerable only during the two-week period leading up to Christmas. I have my favorites (It ain’t Christmas unless little Michael Jackson is sanging Santa Claus coming to town), but I only want to listen to them around Christmas time. Definitely don’t want to hear them on Halloween (which is when this radio station cues up all the yuletide hits).
Obviously someone must be into two months of Christmas music, or else they wouldn’t be playing it this early. Are you that person? How about anyone you know?
I enjoy instrumental Christmas music year around. O Holy Night, What Child is this, O come all ye Faithful, Silent Night etc… Powerful music that lends itself to orchestral styles. Check out Lindsay Sterling’s violin.
Goofy kid’s Christmas songs are best near the holiday. I wouldn’t play them any other time. I like these songs but only occasionally.
I’ll admit to sneaking a listen or two to Charlie Brown Christmas and the soundtrack to Scrooge (with Albert Finney). Also the cast album to the Broadway musical version of A Christmas Story.
I don’t listen to the radio, but I enjoy singing Christmas music all year round. Sometimes I’ll find myself bursting into a Christmas song, and suddenly realize that it’s July. I think a lot of Christmas songs are just catchy that way. I don’t even celebrate Christmas, I just like the songs.
It sure as hell isn’t me. When i first moved here and one of the preset stations on my car stereo started playing that garbage, I * permanently* removed the station from my presets.
Not me and I don’t know anybody who does like it.
It should be illegal to do anything Christmasy until after Thanksgiving
and even that is too soon for me.
I think they do it mostly as a service to the businesses who have to conjure up a holiday vibe to start their retail season the minute that the halloween candy is getting dumped out of kids’ bags onto living room floors everywhere. :rolleyes:
I started listening to Christmas music a couple of weeks ago. Like some people above, it’s largely the instrumental, often classical, mainly religious music I listen to. Rudolf and Frosty can wait until after Thanksgiving.
I like a lot of Christmas music and really look forward to it every fall… but I still draw a line at when the season officially starts, before which I don’t. Because otherwise, it ceases to be special, and the anticipation is meaningless.
That said, there’s some music that a lot of people think of as Christmas which isn’t. I have no objection to Handel’s Messiah, or Pachabel’s canon in D, or “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” at any time of the year.
I’ve heard that some stations start playing the music this early because small stores use radio instead of Muzak. IANARadio Music Director or Store Owner.
I will listen to most of Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown songs any time. I also draw a distinction between seasonal music for the winter, e.g. “Marshmallow World,” and holiday-related. You can start playing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as soon as it’s cold outside. I don’t want to hear about Santa Claus until a couple of days before Christmas. Well actually, I could do without it entirely.
I worked in broadcasting and still have friends who work in broadcasting. Believe it or not, there are fans out there who complain there isn’t* enough* Christmas music. There are people who would be happy with Christmas music sprinkled in year-round.
So yeah, the retailers like it because they think it gets everyone in a buying mood, but the radio stations have found that, for all intents and purposes, there’s no such thing as “too early” for Christmas music.
When I worked in retailing I was astonished when they’d put the swim suits and prom wear out in January, but it turned out people liked that, too.
