Several years ago I spent a week in France, coaching a top-rated French morning show. (I’ve since been back twice more. Who’da thunk it would be possible to coach a morning show when you don’t understand the language? Go ahead, be skeptical. But it is possible.)
Anyway, at breakfast one morning, I spotted this article in THE TIMES OF LONDON:
NOT SLADE AGAIN, BEG SHOPPERS
Though the crowds may be unbearable and the weather miserable, Christmas shopping is about to be slightly more bearable in one High Street chain at least.
Dixon’s {Dan notes: a ubiquitous UK consumer electronics store} has decided to exclude Slade’s Merry Christmas and Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day from its in-store playlist.
A survey of 50 people disclosed the songs to be the most annoying and unpopular of all those played during Advent…with Cliff Richard’s saccharine Mistletoe and Wine taking third place.
Simple Idea:
This is the perfect time to launch your own competition to select
your audience’s Least Wanted Christmas Song.
Let listeners vote via telephone, email, SMS, online voting, etc.
Explain that the final judging will be based not solely on the number of votes each nominated title receives but also on the strength of the arguments made on their behalf.
Maybe bring in celebrity judges (either nationally famous or just local big names: the mayor, TV news anchor, football coach).
Pay it all off by counting down the 5 (or 10) least popular Christmas songs on your program.
Perhaps you’ll customize the countdown by having each “winning” song destroyed in mid-play by a sound particularly appropriate to your market: Mowed down by gunfire….Eaten by a mad cow….Chopped to bits with axes….Stung to death by killer bees.
Just an idea. Please let me know if you try it.
What’s particularly nice about this is if it works for you, you can make it an annual tradition.
And if this idea offends you…
Blame Dixon’s.
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I know I’m going to catch hell for this, but I’ve never been a huge fan of “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney. I just think the lyrics are simple and repetitive and musically it’s not this former Beatle’s best work. OK, you can toss the pies now…
To me, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing those hardy annuals from Slade, Wizzard and Wham!, as well as tracks from Phil Spector’s 1963 classic album A Christmas Gift To You, blaring out of the radio or instore PA system wherever you go. As a result they tend to ‘burn’ quickly after a few weeks – hence the aforementioned complaints – but they can then be put away for another year; magically sounding fresh again for another brief outing in twelve months’ time.
As an aside, in the mid-1990s while compiling Music Choice Europe’s original ‘Christmas Channel’ – and having to work my way through a large crate of Christmas CDs in the process (and during a rather warm and sunny September!) – I came to the conclusion that there’s quite a cultural difference between US and UK Christmas favourites.
The Americans seem to love sentimental schmaltz such as dreaming of a white Christmas while walking in a winter wonderland or taking a sleigh ride together with you before rocking around the Christmas tree and watching chestnuts roasting on an open fire; all rather reminiscent of those 60s/70s Bing Crosby/Andy Williams/Perry Como-type TV specials.
While we Brits can usually take the American syrupy stuff in small doses, it does seem as though we tend to prefer our Christmas hits to be rather more ‘party-friendly’ – i.e. Slade, Wizzard, Shakin’ Stevens, Paul McCartney etc. – with just the occasional hint of sentimentality from artists such as Mud (“Lonely This Christmas”) and Cliff Richard “Mistletoe and Wine”, “Saviour’s Day”, “O Little Town”).
Also, while most UK radio stations will start to include some Christmas music – usually from the beginning of December – nobody flips to an ‘All-Christmas’ format.
This year, though, we do have ‘Radio Lapland’ on a number of DAB digital radio multiplexes around the UK as well as online.
This station aims to give children an original and exciting station to listen to during the festive period, capturing their imagination as they gain an insight into Santa and his elves getting ready for Christmas. Santa’s voice was recorded by leading British film and stage actor Julian Wadham.
PS. Dixon’s no longer exists – whether or not their demise on the High Street was directly related to their instore music policy I shall leave to the conspiracy theorists to debate.
I agree.
I agree. And although I still dig the music Elton’s “Step Into Christmas” makes me want to check the bottom of my shoes.”
Face it: ALL Christmas music is annoying!!!
Every time “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” comes on I am compelled to turn the studio monitors off for three minutes and change. It’s the most annoying song EVER recorded and I’ve had to endure it for 25 years in multiple formats.
“Again” is the key word for me. Novelty songs are fine, and I don’t mind hearing them. However, the barking dogs 3 or 4 times a day is obnoxious.
Dominick the Donkey. Hands down, the MOST annoying song ever.
a local radio station here is playing “snoopy’s christmas” to death because it’s requested. it wears well, but still gets tired after the upteenth time you hear it during the holidays, same goes for “Rockin Around The Christmas Tree” though personally “Holly Jolly Christmas-Burl Ives” I can’t get enough of.
Thank goodness for all the Christmas Sharity blogs out there. Hell, even Muzak put out a christmas album…LOL!
As for Joe Knapp’s comment, I’m cheering, not throwing pies…probably ranks up there as the most stupidest christmas song out there and proves that if your a beatle, you can put almost anything out and the people will eat it up.
there, i’m done. :
“Feliz Navidad” is the most abrasive and annoying in my book. And what’s with “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music being played all day long? It’s a pretty song but it’s not even about Christmas.
Glad to know I’m not the only one baffled by \My Favorite Things\ being played as a Christmas song.
Agree with most of these choices, but my overall, bigtime least favorite has got to be “The 12 Days Of Christmas” all those birds, all those dancing lads and lasses, it’s just SO Victorian-era sensless today. Aside from the repetition which drives me over the edge!