Music for the season

If you’ve been anywhere but an unwired cave for the past month, you’ve been listening to holiday music. Whether you wanted to or not.

This appears to be a subject of much interest to journalists, even when it’s not a slow news year. Earlier this week the WSJ gave a forum for a former exec of 415/CBS Records to explain to us why retail establishments play holiday songs & also why the same songs start to make us puke after a short while.

Well, whatever.

The NY Times went into greater depth a couple of years ago, analyzing the “upbeat and inviting shopping atmosphere” that shops aspire to. It shouldn’t be surprising to know that the marketers have squeezed every conceivable drop of blood from that turnip, but it is a bit depressing to note the extent to which they have us in their manipulative little clutches.

But the mix cited by Spencer’s, that schlock-o-rama staple of every mall in America, brings me to other musings on seasonal music: worst-ever holiday songs.

Ah, the field is so wide here, but hardly un-trodden. Everyone, it seems, has a die-die-die list of holiday songs—mostly Christmas.

Spinner totes up twelve of them, including Springsteen’s cover of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”. (He made other lists, too.) Thankfully, I don’t believe I’ve heard any of them. I have a hard enough time getting through December as it is.

A syndicated column available on many sites also takes a stab at a list. It starts out with “Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer” and moves on. This one includes two that would be in my inventory—dogs barking “Jingle Bells” and “Little Drummer Boy”. The columnist specifies Jessica and Ashlee Simpson on the latter, but I hate it no matter who’s singing it.

But apparently NPR had a program called the “Annoying Music Show”, and a few years ago the hosts provided another top-ten, which included “Material Girl” by Petty Booka (embodying “the true meaning of Christmas—a Japanese bluegrass tribute to Madonna”), a medley of “Jingle Bells” (performed by The Klezmonauts, a Klezmer band that plays Christmas carols; performed on rubber bands; and performed on power tools), and “O Holy Night” by the Brady Bunch.

I’m sure you can come up with lists of your own. See if there’s not something that just makes your teeth hurt when it comes on in the elevator.

Happy Holidays, all!