It’s Christmas! The time of year when you throw on your dodgy Christmas jumper, decorate your Christmas tree and dance like crazy around your living room to Wham’s “Last Christmas” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”.
From Bing Crosby to Slade, East 17 to Paul McCartney and Brenda Lee to Wizzard, there’s no avoiding these festive songs, whether you’re feeling festive or not. But if you look a bit closer, you’ll notice they all have one thing in common - to varying degrees, these songs are all pretty old
According to research on regional radio stations published earlier this month by the Performing Rights Society for Music, the most recent song to break into the top 20 most-played Christmas tracks is Cliff Richard’s “Millennium Prayer,” from the year 2000. Even the more obscure festive tracks like 2003’s “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness”, date back well over a decade now.
But why has it been so long since a new Christmas tracj has broken through to become a hit? Are we just unable to break tradition?
Most of us, regardless of our generation, listen to Christmas music dating back to before we were born, whether it is Bing Crosby or for the younger generation Shakin Stevens. It would be easy to attribute this to the songs being better, but that might not be the case. Nostalgia is a powerful force in popular culture, combined with the feelings of belonging and family that come with Christmas. We pass these records on to our kids, we listen to them during magical childhood Christmases, and consequently, these records have this cyclical impact on generations.
In 2017, forensic musicologist Joe Bennett from Boston’s Berklee College of Music analysed the elements of the ultimate Christmas song through Spotify Data during Christmas week. He looked at the top 200 that week and found that 78 were Christmas songs. Of those 78, plenty of golden oldies were in there - of course, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas was in the top 20 - despite being initially released in 1942. It was joined in the top 40 by Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song (1945) and the oldest of all Carol of the Bells - from way back in 1914! Even newer releases were often covers of older songs, combining classic sounds with contemporary quality recordings - Santa Baby by Kylie Minogue and Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Sam Smith were both in the top 40 too. Some classics appeared several times in the top 100, including three versions of 1942’s Baby It’s Cold Outside (Idina Menzel with Michael Bublé, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Cast of Glee).
Lyrically, they all contain something that was either about the home, being in love, lost love, parties, Santa or reindeers, snow or coldness, religion and peace on Earth. In terms of sound, 49% of the tracks feature sleigh bells, 95% are in a major key which typically comes across as happier, and the median tempo of the tracks was 115 beats per minute. And that running theme - nostalgia. Think about ‘White Christmas’, which is the biggest selling song, not just out of the Christmas songs but of all time. All the lyrics are about nostalgia and going back to Christmases in the past.
So, there are clearly some running themes, surely we can use them to create plenty of new Christmas hits? Well, songwriters Steve Anderson and Harriet Green tried! They wanted to use this information to create ‘the happiest Christmas song’ ever. They took all these nostalgic elements and combined them together and came up with – “Love’s Not Just For Christmas”. So how did it do? Well, it didn’t even enter the charts that year, let alone stick around as something we listen to a few years down the line! How could it be that a song that emulates so many characteristics of other popular Christmas songs be a flop? It followed the exact formula! Well, perhaps that was the problem? Humans love authenticity, without it, it feels like we’ve been tricked into enjoying something, and a little bit of novelty, to spice it up. It’s been proven that something sticks with us that follows a formula but with an edge - something that makes it stand out from the crowd. I actually covered this during my “why you can’t get that song out of your head” video and blog which explains this. So, take that A.I.! You can’t take over the music industry as well! The love of authenticity and novelty also explains why people love my least favourite Christmas song, The Pogues Fairytale of New York. Although I’ve never taken to it, it’s undoubtedly both authentic and novel - I’ll give it that.
So, you might be wondering why haven’t we got sick of the old classics and thrown them out for something new? Typically, pop hits go through a bell curve of enjoyment, which consists of going from not liking a song, to loving it, to hating it after it’s been overplayed. But we find ourselves experiencing Christmas music in a completely different way. With Christmas music, we don’t usually hear it all year round, so we don’t get the chance to get sick of it, and if we do, we get a break from it for an entire ten to eleven months.
So, will we ever see a shakeup? But will this change? Will there ever be a new wave of Christmas tracks that catch hold? Ultimately, there’s no reason why a track released this year can’t become a Christmas classic in the future. ‘Love’s Not Just For Christmas’ is based on the 1940s to 1990s model of what a Christmas song is. For something to catch hold, it’ll have to be played enough and be popular with a broad spectrum of people. If someone releases a Christmas grime track, it might be unlikely that it gets on to your granny’s playlist! But if you and your friends might listen to it, and again next year, and five years later - and then it passes down a generation - perhaps it could become a classic in the future! But it needs to keep getting played every year, and that takes time. A Christmas song needs years for it to percolate and enter the festive repertoire. Perhaps we’re already on the way to one with Leona Lewis’, One More Sleep which is undoubtedly working it’s way into more Christmas playlists each year! Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” had reached number one in the U.S. for the first time in 2019, 25 years after it was first released, showing even massive Christmas classics really do take a while to become a chart hit.
Now, you might be wondering ‘But - what about Buble!? He has had loads of Christmas hits, and he’s modern!’ Well yes, in that same study of the 78 Christmas songs that appeared in the top songs streamed in 2017, Buble appeared ten times, that’s 13% of the Christmas songs! So, does he disprove the theory? Not really! First of all, most of his Christmas hits are covers of nostalgic classic songs that everyone knows, touching on the idea of older songs in a more contemporary way. The same thing - nostalgia but with an authentic twist. But there’s more to it than that; he works with a really innovative combination of old and new. His classic big band arrangements and live instruments evoke the much-loved Frank Sinatra era of the 1940s or 50s. But at the same time, contemporary production gives the recording a polished and modern radio-friendly quality. He does the same with his vocals, subtly blending old and new; combining old jazz crooner vocal nuances with subtle modern riffs and runs. Christmas is - in normal times at least - a time when whole families get together. So this blend makes him the perfect yuletide artist for families who usually span several generations and all getting into the festive spirit, he manages to include something for everyone.
This leads me onto something I think is really heartwarming about Christmas songs and one of the reasons I love them so much. In the western world, we are divided in almost every way, from musical taste to political views and for much of the Western World, Christmas has become less of a religious festival and more of a cultural event that everyone can get involved in. A successful Christmas song is a song that unites people no matter what demographic they fit into. Allowing friends, families and neighbours to find common ground, perhaps through the dulcet tones of Michael Buble.
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Resources
PRS For Music Study: https://www.prsformusic.com/press/2019/so-here-it-is-our-merriest-christmas-songs
Joe Bennett Study How to Make A Christmas Song with Science: https://joebennett.net/2017/12/05/christmas2017/
