Christmas Mix Eve.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be putting up the Popnarcotic Christmas Music Mix for 2011, and I’m very happy with the way it turned out after about 5 revisions. We got you a bunch of new or never-used tracks along with a handful (three or four) old favorites making a return from Mixes Past. So there’s that.
This here post is by my way of curmudgeoning the conventional, lowest-common-denominator lunkhead “I hate Christmas” music types out there. I spent a week or so submerged in the sludge of some of the very worst holiday-themed music any human’s ever had to listen to (and some good stuff, too; credit where it’s due). In one room a bitchy grinch declared that “rock and Christmas don’t mix.” Au contraire, my cynical fellow dj with the magpie intellect. Christmas is all about joy, love, happiness, sadness, disillusionment, longing, nostalgia, and hope. Guess what? Great rock and pop and soul is all about those things too. They can go hand-in-hand.
Which doesn’t mean they always, or even often, do. Thing is, way too many artists, publishers, and record companies recognize rather cynically that this season turns us into hyperconsumers. People seem to turn off any ability for critical thought involved in consumer-based decision-making, which is marketing speak for “people will listen to some really crappy music if you brand it as seasonal in December”. I have observed people playing some of the very worst dreck imaginable in the guise of Christmas music. If there are folks out there who have a kneejerk hatred of holiday tunes perhaps that’s an understandable reaction to nonstop exposure of the likes of Whitney Houston, Vanessa Williams, Mariah Carey, and Jessica Simpson butchering the hell out of songs that should stand on their simple beauty this time of year.
As a final side note, when a whole roomful of folks are blissing out on Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s duet of “Drummer Boy”, probably not the best idea to point out that Ziggy Stardust ended up as the well-adjusted thoughtful father figure out of that pairing. Just saying. Good night for now, with visions of cars big as bars and rivers of gold dancing our heads.
Popnarcotic 