Best Christmas Season Songs and Artists

[bugo]

I'm a Jew, so I have a short list:

I imagine you find the words to most traditional Christmas hymns offensive to your religion.  But I'll ask you to look at it from a different perspective.  I generally like or dislike Christmas songs not so much by the words as by the music.  So, which Christmas songs/hymns do you like musically–i.e., which ones would sound best with other words or instruments only?

Why would he be offended?  Are you offended by Jewish music?  Islamic music?  Buddhist or Hindu music?

[kphoger]

Sorry if that's the way I came across.  I'm was just asking what melodies you like, regardless of the words.  Myself, I'm partial to the minor modes, especially around Christmas.  I generally dislike songs that have very high melodies and/or a lot of chromatics in them.  This has, for the most part, nothing to do with what the songs are actually about.  I didn't mean to enter into some sort of debate; I was just curious.

I'm a Jew, so I have a short list:

I imagine you find the words to most traditional Christmas hymns offensive to your religion.  But I'll ask you to look at it from a different perspective.  I generally like or dislike Christmas songs not so much by the words as by the music.  So, which Christmas songs/hymns do you like musically–i.e., which ones would sound best with other words or instruments only?

Why would he be offended?  Are you offended by Jewish music?  Islamic music?  Buddhist or Hindu music?

No, I can't say that I am, but I know plenty of Christians who are.  But he said "so" in his post; I assumed he had a short list because he found Christian hymns offensive to his faith.  If that isn't what you meant, Steve, then I am genuinely interested to know what you did mean.

[Alps]

... because I'm a Jew, I don't listen to Christmas songs? Is it really that hard to figure out? Even if I were Christian, I would only want to listen to my usual music anyway. It's not like I turn on Hanukkah songs in December.

[Scott5114]

I find Christmas music annoying, but not because of my (lack of) faith; rather, because most of the classics have gotten tiresome having been heard year after year, and whenever someone comes up with a new one, it just feels like a bald attempt to become one of those old classics that gets played year after year. That, and the new ones tend to be overly treacly (cf. "Christmas Shoes") and/or insipid and badly written (the "last Christmas I gave you my heart" one that Taylor Swift did a cover of).

I would be okay with "Sleigh Ride", but it was the first piece of music written in cut time that I ever had to play, and I will never forgive it for that.

As for the next holiday, I have found out it is a tradition for the Vienna Philharmonic to ring in the new year with Strauss's "Radetzky March", which I greatly prefer over "Auld Lang Syne".

[kphoger]

... because I'm a Jew, I don't listen to Christmas songs? Is it really that hard to figure out? Even if I were Christian, I would only want to listen to my usual music anyway. It's not like I turn on Hanukkah songs in December.

OK.  The only Jewish family whose house I've been to around Christmas did listen to Christmas music, and even had a decorated Christmas tree.  So I guess I'm in the dark a little bit about Jews' relationship to Christmas.  I would be interested to know your reaction to Advent songs that anticipate the coming of a Messiah rather than proclaiming it as already having happened–such as O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  Admittedly, there are very few hymns like that (ones I imagine a Jew singing in good conscience), but O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is a good, well-known example.  It also happens to be in a minor mode, so yay.

I find Christmas music annoying, but not because of my (lack of) faith; rather, because most of the classics have gotten tiresome having been heard year after year, and whenever someone comes up with a new one, it just feels like a bald attempt to become one of those old classics that gets played year after year. That, and the new ones tend to be overly treacly (cf. "Christmas Shoes") and/or insipid and badly written (the "last Christmas I gave you my heart" one that Taylor Swift did a cover of).

I would be okay with "Sleigh Ride", but it was the first piece of music written in cut time that I ever had to play, and I will never forgive it for that.

As for the next holiday, I have found out it is a tradition for the Vienna Philharmonic to ring in the new year with Strauss's "Radetzky March", which I greatly prefer over "Auld Lang Syne".

Wow, you have summed up my feelings towards a lot of Christmas music very well!  I actually cringe every year, knowing there's no way to avoid the corny, over-played, cutesy, annoying Christmas songs on the radio.  It's even harder for me because my wife goes nuts for Christmas music, and only grudgingly waits until December to play them on the radio (at least when I'm in the house, that is).  Many of the classics are wonderful pieces of music, but have rubbed me raw by my having heard them so many times and by so many artists.  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, for example, comes from a wonderfully bittersweet moment in a movie, and it should evoke mixed emotions in me of sadness and hope for that reason; yet instead it's thrown in the mix with Jingle Bells, The Christmas Song, Frosty the Snowman, and all the other happy-happy-joy-joy-warm-fuzzy-smiley-make-you-want-to-puke stuff every department store belches from its speakers for a month straight every year.

It's just too much.  I might be able to actually enjoy it for a week, but not for a whole month, with the same exact songs every year.  Just too much.

I love Sleigh Ride as an instrumental piece of music.  It's one of a short list that's extra special to me, since it's one I played percussion on for a CD recording in college.  Yet I almost can't stand it with the words added.  Again, I just find them to corny.

[NE2]

If you hate this you're a Repub.

[kphoger]

If you hate you're a . . . OK, I got nothin'.

[DaBigE]

I find Christmas music annoying, but not because of my (lack of) faith; rather, because most of the classics have gotten tiresome having been heard year after year, and whenever someone comes up with a new one, it just feels like a bald attempt to become one of those old classics that gets played year after year. That, and the new ones tend to be overly treacly (cf. "Christmas Shoes") and/or insipid and badly written (the "last Christmas I gave you my heart" one that Taylor Swift did a cover of).

I agree with most of what you said. I don't mind the "classics" for the most part or covers of the classics which are tastefully done, however it's the cheesy covers of those songs played over and over and over that make me gag a little just by the thought of walking into a store this time of year. If I hear Grandma got run over by a Reindeer one more time...    It's things like this (and Black Friday) that make me very glad that I don't work retail any longer.

Religious hymns, on the other hand, are in a category by itself, and don't bother me.

...yet instead it's thrown in the mix with Jingle Bells, The Christmas Song, Frosty the Snowman, and all the other happy-happy-joy-joy-warm-fuzzy-smiley-make-you-want-to-puke stuff every department store belches from its speakers for a month straight every year.

Very well put.

I love Sleigh Ride as an instrumental piece of music.  It's one of a short list that's extra special to me, since it's one I played percussion on for a CD recording in college.  Yet I almost can't stand it with the words added.  Again, I just find them to corny.

Someone's added words to that song??    I have vivid memories of playing that one in high school (percussion section as well), and that is one of a few songs that should never have words sung to it.

[Scott5114]

It's just too much.  I might be able to actually enjoy it for a week, but not for a whole month, with the same exact songs every year.  Just too much.

Exactly. At least we should feel happy we do not have to work in the aforementioned department store. If you think it's bad for us, imagine hearing the same 20 songs...on loop...for eight hours a day...five days a week...for a month...

Well, if you run into a clerk while doing your shopping this year who's a bit on the snippy side, I think we can both understand.

I love Sleigh Ride as an instrumental piece of music.  It's one of a short list that's extra special to me, since it's one I played percussion on for a CD recording in college.  Yet I almost can't stand it with the words added.  Again, I just find them to corny.

Agreed. Sleigh Ride simply cannot have lyrics included. But yeah, my feelings on it are split between the positive for having played it and appreciating it on that level and the traumatic memories it's given me for how difficult I found it the first time having to play it. I was in seventh grade, and simply could not parse the fact that half notes suddenly have one beat. What the hell? The seemingly interminable bit in the middle with the weird key signature (I just dug the sheet music out, it's the bit between rehearsal markings D and F) didn't help matters much. G♯? A♯? These are not concepts a novice trombonist understands! Why can't they just write it as the more familiar A♭ and B♭?? (This was before I knew what music theory was.) I played it a few years later in high school and it didn't seem quite so bad, but the memories of having to plow through this up-to-that-point alien piece of music still haunted me.

I am pretty sure that we played the "true" arrangement of it–nobody but Leroy Anderson has a credit on the sheet music, and the engraving certainly looks like it could have been done in 1948, the year of the copyright at the bottom.

[DaBigE]

Exactly. At least we should feel happy we do not have to work in the aforementioned department store. If you think it's bad for us, imagine hearing the same 20 songs...on loop...for eight hours a day...five days a week...for a month...

If you're lucky, you're too busy to notice the music, unless you worked in the stock room like I did for two years. The rest of the year however, wasn't much better, (at least in the days before satellite radio being piped in. Working an eight-hour shift, I'd hear the song They've Paved Over Paradise... at least four times.

[Scott5114]

At times, satellite radio isn't all that much better. I estimate the chances of hearing "Blinded by the Light" at any given point on my shift at the casino to be 80%.

[Takumi]

Exactly. At least we should feel happy we do not have to work in the aforementioned department store. If you think it's bad for us, imagine hearing the same 20 songs...on loop...for eight hours a day...five days a week...for a month...

At least at my store(s), the Christmas songs are interspersed by two regularly-played songs, and even then you hear an occasional oddball like "Christmastime" by the Smashing Pumpkins (which is probably the only Christmas song I'm not tired of; otherwise throw me in the group of Christians who are tired of Christmas songs), so it's not as bad as some other places. In the case of the regular songs, I hear most of the same songs every day, but never more than once (anymore), and they'll play something like "Island in the Sun" by Weezer or "Sunset Grill" by Don Henley a couple times a week.

And I hate Sleigh Ride too.

[kphoger]

Exactly. At least we should feel happy we do not have to work in the aforementioned department store. If you think it's bad for us, imagine hearing the same 20 songs...on loop...for eight hours a day...five days a week...for a month...

If you're lucky, you're too busy to notice the music, unless you worked in the stock room like I did for two years. The rest of the year however, wasn't much better, (at least in the days before satellite radio being piped in. Working an eight-hour shift, I'd hear the song They've Paved Over Paradise... at least four times.

When I worked in retail, I was fortunate enough to work outside.  I had the not-so-desirable job of pushing shopping carts full-time, along with various minor tasks inside every now and again.  I might have been soaking wet from rain, but at least I didn't have to deal with people (has anyone noticed that might be a struggle for me?  ) or listen to Oops!... I Did It Again 6,000 times a day (gee, that was a while ago, wasn't it?).  I actually didn't work there through Christmas.  There was a blanket policy that nobody could take time off during December, and I was going home for Christmas.  So I quit.  They offered me a chump-change raise and agreed to the time off if I stayed, but.....well, the economy was a little better back then, and I just opted to look for another job anyway.

Agreed. Sleigh Ride simply cannot have lyrics included. But yeah, my feelings on it are split between the positive for having played it and appreciating it on that level and the traumatic memories it's given me for how difficult I found it the first time having to play it. I was in seventh grade, and simply could not parse the fact that half notes suddenly have one beat. What the hell? The seemingly interminable bit in the middle with the weird key signature (I just dug the sheet music out, it's the bit between rehearsal markings D and F) didn't help matters much. G♯? A♯? These are not concepts a novice trombonist understands! Why can't they just write it as the more familiar A♭ and B♭?? (This was before I knew what music theory was.) I played it a few years later in high school and it didn't seem quite so bad, but the memories of having to plow through this up-to-that-point alien piece of music still haunted me.

He he he.  We percussionists are laughing at your distress.  Key signatures and enharmonic equivalents?  Bwahahaha!



I may be the only 30-something guy out there for whom this is true, but I enjoy orchestral and choir arrangements of classic hymns most of all.  Give me a madrigal arrangement or a seminary men's choir over a rock-and-roll rendition any day (and this from a guy who plays drum set in church).

Least favorite secular:  Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer; I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.

Least favorite hymns:  O Little Town of Bethlehem (St Louis setting); It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.

Favorite secular:  Sleigh Ride (instrumental); hmmmm, I'm struggling to come up with another one, as I'm pretty much sick of them all.

Favorite hymns:  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel; Savior of the Nations, Come.

[agentsteel53]

does John Lennon's "Happy Xmas" count?  that is a great song, but I don't think it is part of the regular holiday rotation.

[1995hoo]

I find Christmas music annoying, but not because of my (lack of) faith; rather, because most of the classics have gotten tiresome having been heard year after year, and whenever someone comes up with a new one, it just feels like a bald attempt to become one of those old classics that gets played year after year. That, and the new ones tend to be overly treacly (cf. "Christmas Shoes") and/or insipid and badly written (the "last Christmas I gave you my heart" one that Taylor Swift did a cover of).

Agree completely. I get so sick of hearing "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Mommy Kissing Santa" (or whatever it's called) at the stores, and they never play any real Christmas music because the real stuff includes religious themes and so they're afraid they might offend someone. "Mommy Kissing Santa" might have been mildly amusing or cute 50 years ago. Now it's just become overplayed crap.

"Jingle Bells" has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, for that matter. I've never really been sure how it came to be seen as a Christmas carol.

....

As for the next holiday, I have found out it is a tradition for the Vienna Philharmonic to ring in the new year with Strauss's "Radetzky March", which I greatly prefer over "Auld Lang Syne".

I like "Auld Lang Syne" as performed by the E Street Band just after midnight at the Nassau Coliseum on January 1, 1980. Springsteen was cramming in as many short songs as he could to stretch it to midnight, at which point they played this and then segued into "Rosalita." RIP, Big Man:

http://mysite.verizon.net/1995hoo/GOS.mp3

[agentsteel53]

Springsteen was cramming in as many short songs as he could to stretch it to midnight

why short songs?  wouldn't a long song have allowed time to pass just as effectively?  (i.e. what is the rationale for choosing two 2:30 songs over one five minute one?)

[1995hoo]

Springsteen was cramming in as many short songs as he could to stretch it to midnight

why short songs?  wouldn't a long song have allowed time to pass just as effectively?  (i.e. what is the rationale for choosing two 2:30 songs over one five minute one?)

I think it was just a case of having the setlist made out in advance and discovering it was close to midnight and then just guessing at what to play. He played "Ramrod" (4 minutes 32 seconds) and then "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" (about 3:50, though on the bootleg the track runs 4:55). Then he asked what time it was and started checking watches from the people in the crowd and he figured out that they had about five minutes, so he decided to play "Held Up Without a Gun," the B-side of the "Hungry Heart" 45. But it only ran about 1:30 and then he started asking what time it was again....and he found, not surprisingly, that everyone's watches disagreed. I think he asked someone to signal him just before midnight because he then had the band kick into "In the Midnight Hour" and he stopped the song after 1 minute 50 seconds to count down to midnight and New Year's.

So I think it was just a case of making it up as he went along. Two nights earlier they did a 10-minute version of "Incident on 57th Street" at exactly the same spot in the setlist ("Ramrod"-->"You Can Look"-->"Incident"-->"Rosalita"), but obviously that wouldn't work if you wanted to stop at midnight.

[vdeane]

This debate about music has me thinking about this:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2813

[agentsteel53]

sounds like a fun show!  any improvisation in the songs themselves, or just the setlist?

[kphoger]

does John Lennon's "Happy Xmas" count?  that is a great song, but I don't think it is part of the regular holiday rotation.

A great song, and I don't know why it's not included in the regular rotation–especially when U2's 'Christmas' often does find its way into the rotation.  Maybe the lines 'For black and for white/For yellow and red ones' are too politically incorrect to air on the radio?  Maybe it's unpatriotic to wish for an end to war?  Who knows? 

[agentsteel53]

Maybe the lines 'For black and for white/For yellow and red ones' are too politically incorrect to air on the radio?

that's always been my guess... I don't know how liberal-sounding that line was in the early 70s (or how little John Lennon cared when writing the song) but in 2012 it does sound a bit sketchy and dated.

[US71]

Maybe the lines 'For black and for white/For yellow and red ones' are too politically incorrect to air on the radio?

that's always been my guess... I don't know how liberal-sounding that line was in the early 70s (or how little John Lennon cared when writing the song) but in 2012 it does sound a bit sketchy and dated.

I started hearing it a lot more after Lennon was shot. Many radio stations have it their regular holiday rotation now.

[Henry]

Here's my "top ten" personal favorites list, in no particular order:

Andy Williams
Nat King Cole
Bing Crosby
Dean Martin
Amy Grant
Beach Boys
Perry Como
Herb Alpert
Johnny Mathis
All Motown artists

Reminds me a lot of Christmas in Chicago, especially when Bing sings White Christmas...

[kphoger]

By the way....  John Lennon and Jethro Tull....  Who woulda thunkit?

[huskeroadgeek]

Manheim Steamroller has several Christmas CDs out.  They do music similar to Trans-Siberian Orchestra (I DEFINITELY recommend you see TSO live in concert! An absolutely awesome show!!     ).  They have a jazzed-up version of "Deck the Halls" that you've probably heard before, but didn't know who did it.  I really enjoy their rendition of "Silent Night".  Listen to it on Christmas Eve night after all of the stores have closed, everyone has made it home, & drive slowly looking at all the light displays while listening to it....VERY soothing.   

When Mannheim Steamroller was new back in the 80s, I hated it. I preferred the traditional stuff. Now Mannheim Steamroller is easily my favorite. When I listen to the radio stations that play assorted Christmas music, I get tired of it after awhile. I can listen to Mannheim Steamroller for hours and not get tired of it.