How can this be? I love music, and I love Christmas. Something has clearly gone terribly wrong.
It wasn't always this way. I used to love Christmas music unreservedly. Then I only loved some of it. Then I became alarmed by its tendency to spill over into November, when I wasn't ready to hear it yet. Then I vaguely resented all of it, unless I was singing it with other people, which has happened less and less in recent years. This year, as I was gritting my teeth at the grocery store while some canned singer repeatedly reminded me he was simp-ly hav-ing a won-derful Christ-mas-time, I realized that my distaste has finally bloomed into genuine hatred.
I have some theories about how this may have happened. One is that Christmas songs, since we only hear them for a short time, don't have to undergo the same Darwinian struggle for survival that everyday songs do. Bad Christmas music gets recycled year after year, simply by virtue of being holiday-appropriate. Another reason is that Christmas music tends to involve a lot of choirs and big bands, which I generally tend to avoid. A yet more significant factor is commercialization: a little bit of my heart dies every time something I once held sacred is cheapened by mass-media overexposure, in a blatant attempt to separate as many people from their money as possible. (See also: Lord of the Rings.)
In a further ironic twist, my first response to this realization was to listen to a lot of Christmas music, in search of some that doesn't make me cringe. After some thought, I decided my primary criterion for Good Christmas Music was that it had to be good enough to listen to all year round without getting sick of it. (Anything I listened to as a child is disqualified, as I can't address it with any objectivity.)
Unfortunately, I was not able to compile an entire mix CD's worth of songs that met this standard. However, I present to you some highlights of my search.
Here is the best Christmas song I've heard this year. I don't know anything about the artist, other than that she's from Canada, and that she makes this old German melody sound prettier than I would have thought possible:
Feist - Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming
Several years ago, Sufjan Stevens recorded three Christmas EPs for friends. All of them are now available for free online. I wholeheartedly recommend them; they are gentle acoustic arrangements of carols, hymns, and original songs, with Sufjan's hushed tenor at the forefront. They're reverent without being arrogant, and sweet without being precious. You can download all three (zipped files) here:
http://www.chattablogs.com
Finally, if you're going to record obnoxious Christmas songs, you might as well be as obnoxious about it as possible. Last year on MetaFilter, one gentleman noted:
I like to sing Jingle Bell Rock, but using only the words "bell", "rock", and "jingle".... Drives my wife nuts. I'd record an MP3 of me doing it if someone could find me a karaoke track.Someone could, and he did. As far as I'm concerned, this is now the definitive version of Jingle Bell Rock:
http://quasistoic.org/PinkStainlessTail - jinglerockbell.mp3
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4 comments:
The Feist is lovely, thank you.
While I am slightly troubled that you would put the words hate and Christmas music into the same sentence, I think I may know what you mean. At my new job they pipe Musak into a speaker just above my desk. When I began there, just before Thanksgiving, they played instrumental only tunes that I did not recognize, except for one song that came on every couple of days from the Get Shorty soundtrack. Ignoring them was pretty easy and I was never tempted to torture my cube mates by singing along. On December 1st, they switched to all Christmas, all the time. And they turned it up. These new songs all include vocals. They also include only secular Christmas music. And within the span of 4 songs my skin began to crawl. Even the rare selection by Harry Connick Jr., the most contemporary stuff they have, irritates me.
So, like you, I’ve given this some thought. I like Christmas music, what is going on here? I think what bugs me is that it is forced upon me. I want to be in charge of what I hear. I don’t want someone else making me listen to Yule tunes. Ironically, you will often find me pumping my own Christmas tunes from my mp3 player to drown out the Musak and give me some peace.
In regards to your good-enough-to-listen-to-all-year-long criterion, I take a different approach. I don’t know of any tunes that I can listen to that I won’t get tired of. Even stuff that I love, after a while gets dull and I put it away. This is one of the reasons I love Christmas music, it comes out and it goes away, perfect. I have enough of it, now even more thanks to you, to fill the season and after 8 weeks I don’t think about it. It’s like that box at my Moms house with old stuff of mine that I only get to open once every 10 years, always a treat because it is not overdone.
I will offer you this encouragement from one Christmas music hater to another—keep searching. I know you can find at least a disc’s worth of stuff that will help you mark the passing of another Christmas season on your own time and in your own style.
Peace on earth.
hey Nanofriend :)
At my work we are only playing Christmas music these days. It has been so since the 1st. I am well past hatred at this point. Most of it I can just tune out, but I still become homicidal when I hear "Feliz Navidad."
When I have more time (about to head to work, joy), I will both investigate your suggested Christmas tunes and put some up with You-Send-It, once I fgure how to work it. In the meantime, I highly highly recommend songs from Low's "Christmas" e.p., 'specially the track "Just Like Christmas." Lovely.
p.s. I haven't heard from your friend re: the mixes yet. I have finally finished the winter mix, and am pleased to say that there is only one Christmas song on it, out of 18 tracks. And it's by the Pogues. So all is well.
Hope you're keeping warm and stuff.
"...don't have to undergo the same Darwinian struggle for survival that everyday songs do"Excellent point!
Last December Jonathan and Jen recorded an amazing Christmas album.
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