Why is so much of the Christmas music we hear so lame?

[Cheryllynn]

I want to know why they only play 20 songs over and over and over and over?

[MamaB]

I listen to bostonpete.com online and love the cowboy Christmas music. One of my new favorite songs is Corn, Water, and Wood.

[VR-21]

I’ve always liked Jethro Tull’s Christmas Album. I also think Baroque brass music is great during Christmas.

[SkyDancer]

(sarc) Sorry but don’t you mean “Holiday Music”? ... (/sarc)

[LongElegantLegs]

The Holly and the Ivy, by the Cambridge Singers is one of my favorites.

[fatnotlazy]

That’s what I don’t like — even Christmas music on radio has been sanitized, at least sround where I live. Give me the hyms that reflect the true meaning of Christmas.

O Holy Night gives me goose bumps.

[SamAdams76]

I have the Jethro Tull Christmas album too...great stuff. Also love the Baroque era music and in the earlier Mannheim Streamroller days, they did Baroque/Renaissance era Christmas music quite well. Unfortunately, Mannheim Steamrollers has gone to the dogs with their recent releases.

Each of my replies to this thread will include 10 additional songs from my collection (from Shuffle on my iPod)...

Coventry Carol - Loreena McKennitt
Carol of the Bells - John Fahey
Hard Candy Christmas - Dolly Parton
In The Bleak Midwinter - Liz Story
Come On Christmas - Cheap Trick
My Christmas Card To You - Partridge Family
White Christmas - Chris Isaak
Red Ribbon Foxes - A Fine Frenzy
Amazing Grace - Ani Difranco
Preset Dem Konig! (Praise The King) - Amy Grant

[hinckley buzzard]

I had a long drive today and was caught without my iPod so I was forced to listen to what Christmas music was on the radio. It was basically a steady diet of horribly uninspired singers (i.e. Michael Buble, Barry Manilow, Beyonce, Carrie Underwood, Josh Groban, Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, Madonna, etc.) playing endless variations the most inspid, Christmas songs out there (Sleigh Ride, Silver Bells, Happy Xmas, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, Do They Know It's Christmas?, Let It Snow, etc.).

Music arranged as background music to appeal to the sloppy sentimentalities of lounge lizards and drunks in bars, who want to pretend that Christmas means something to them.

The collators of playlists use it to keep the listening inoffensive to the atheists out there.

[mountainlion]

The liberals have censured the music through political correctness.

[paulycy]

Unqualified best Christmas album of all time, best arrangements, best singing, best everything. All acapella.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I’ve been looking for the song “Christmas in America” by Pat Benetar, and can’t find it. It was played regularly on the radio leading up to Christmas in 2001. She and her husband wrote the song in the aftermath of 9/11 as a tribute to America and the Christmas season. I thought it was a beautiful song, but apparently it was not meant to become a Christmas standard.

I know what you mean about playing the same Christmas songs over and over. It could well be that the radio stations playlists are about 200 songs and that’s it.

[Viking2002]

Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Period. Just ordered two tickets for their Birmingham show on Jan. 2nd. The wife and I went last year, and were blown away by the incredible musicianship and the sheer pro-Christmas-and-Christian bombast and spectacle, so it's now a holiday tradition at the Viking Lodge.

[SkyDancer]

I just read where Best Buy has quit telling people Merry Christmas and is saying Happy Holidays but is saying Happy Eid Al-something-or-other to Muslims ... and forget about Happy Hanukkah ....

[ICCtheWay]

What you describe is actually very simple in explanation ... the music is secularized as much as possible... I listened to XM today and what I heard was just jazzy versions of well known tune...

The secularist who run the entertainment industry wants nothing to do with real Christmas music and will ‘genericize’ until is become non religious - not recognizable.

I noticed this last year too...

BTW — do you have Kim Pencil’s Christmas Album -— a Dallas area artist - great mostly solo piano - with at least one original Christmas composition. It is my favorite in my little collection.

[browniexyz]

Our local radio station plays a canned program of less than 100 songs, as you say, the worst ones!!! And plays the canned program over and over and over starting around Halloween. The popular culture intends to dilute the holy meaning of Christmas with this crassness.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Christmas in America is available on the DVD:

$14.97 at Amazon

[teletech]

For those of you that have XM/Sirius radio, check out their lineup of Christmas Music here.

I like listening to Holiday Pops on Ch.77 starting Dec. 7, 2009 through Christmas.

[TruthHound]

Bing, Frank, Nat. All others are wannabes.

[VR-21]

I remember "that crazy beer ad with the insanely decorated Christmas house whose lights were synced to TSO's "Wizards in Winter," but I didn't know who the band was. I might have to look into this...thanks for the tip.