During the winter holidays many popular artists release Christmas albums. Every year these songs are added to a growing pile of tunes that are played in loop that is played absolutely everywhere. Holiday songs are played throughout the day and never end. Christmas music is meant to be positive during the winter because it is supposed to put all in high spirits for the holidays, but unfortunately there is no pause button on this cheerful playlist.
The most popular holiday song played during the winter months is “Jingle Bells”, sung by various artists over the years. The song “Jingle Bells” is played on the radio 2.2 billion times worldwide during the month of December. Add this number to the amount of times a school choir or a piano player performs this tune at this time of the year, plus the number of times one catches they humming it without recognizing it. The classic hit “Jingle Bells” is everywhere, and you can’t escape it. It is played in stores, on the radio, in offices, and more recently in TV holiday commercials.
“No one has made any new holiday music in years”, says 16 year old Ahmed Salah, “Every time I put on the radio I hear the same songs. There are only so many times I could hear ‘All I Want for Christmas (Is You)’ without getting a headache.
Holiday music is not necessarily bad music; in fact the best selling artists in the world create Christmas albums and never get criticized for it. The Beatles, Mariah Carey, and Michael Jackson have all released Christmas songs, and they have been played over the radio for years. It is the amount of repeats these songs go under that make the holiday season so predictable.
Most artists do not even create original music over the Holidays. They sing classic, already widely popular songs, and sing them with their own twist called “covers”. Although these songs can be entertaining at first, it seems to be a scam to buy the same exact Christmas song twice and to double profit.
The proceeds to this “new” Christmas song still go to the original producer. For example the song “Last Christmas” by the band Wham! has had its fair share of covers, performed and recorded by Taylor Swift, Keanu, Cascada, etc. All these covers are repeated on the radio just as often as the original Wham! version, extensively cluttering up our radio with the same old songs, leaving little room to encourage the making of new, original sounds for the holiday season.
Cassie Rosin, 14, believes that artists should take advantage of the holiday season to sing their own holiday wishes.
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“If people decided to write new Holiday music instead of making covers, it would actually improve the Holidays.”
Hopefully, people will put their own joy and cheer for the holidays into new songs in the future. Music appreciators do not like the possibility that that their children will most likely be listening to the same holiday tunes their entire lives.
