“People have got to pick up the melodies quite quickly so they can sing them in that community setting - but that’s also true of popular music and the hooks meant to draw in an audience so they have that ‘singability,’” Sproston says. He points out that this preference for up-tempo holiday can be traced back to traditional carols, written for congregational performance. “In contemporary pop, the repertoire skews more toward a minor key.” Bennett adds that the dominance of the major key in Christmas music partly reflects the preference for “happy themes” during the chilly holiday season.ĭarren Sproston, director of the School of Arts and Media and deputy dean at the University of Chester in England, has delivered a series of lectures about the history and character of Christmas music. “Major keys in pop music are kind of more dated,” he says. Of the songs Bennett analyzed, 95 percent were in a major key. That nostalgia can be found in the technical aspects of the music, as well. “Even though people are selling iPhones and PlayStations at Christmas, you don’t get that content in the lyrics.” Happy Sounds for the Holidays “The world of a Christmas song, in terms of visual imagery, is the in-person, analog world: firesides, snowfall, presents under the tree,” he says. The most obvious aspect of what makes a Christmas song is, of course, its lyrics - and Bennett found that the words used in these songs fit broadly into eight key themes including “home,” “in love,” “party,” “Santa” and “snow.” But the concept that connects all the themes, according to Bennett, is nostalgia. He looked at the lyrics, tempo, vocals and other elements of the 78 most-streamed holiday tunes on Spotify. Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, attempted to answer the question back in 2017. But what is it that makes Christmas music so distinct? While in some ways it might seem obvious, there are a few surprising characteristics of holiday songs that tell us as much about ourselves as our winter traditions. The familiar collection of sentimental tunes begins to take over airwaves and filter through coffee shop speakers around Thanksgiving weekend and essentially becomes the soundtrack for the entire month of December. With these 26 songs interspersed with all those well-known songs, you'll get into the true spirit of Christmas, whether you love or hate it.It’s one of the most distinctive (or inescapable, depending on your perspective) elements of the holiday season: Christmas music. The perfect Christmas has some highs and lows, and a little bit in between. You've got to make sure there's songs for everyone, including those of us who are just plain Grinches about the whole holiday season. The perfect holiday playlist shouldn't all be upbeat or focused on love. All around, they prove that with the right imagination, you can inject a harder-rocking spirit into Christmas music-mall holiday playlists be damned. Meanwhile, other rockers have just gotten, well, a little weird with things, whether it’s peak Weird Al taking the piss, the Pretenders getting new wave, or Fall Out Boy shutting down any chance of mistletoe romance. (Sometimes it is better to leave things to Crosby and the other classic crooners, after all.) But from Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen, guitar gods have successfully livened up the otherwise straight-laced proceedings, or at least given the tunes more personality. Many rock icons have tried their hand at Christmastime staples, with mixed results. Thankfully, there are plenty of rocking Christmas gems out there that tend to fall under the radar. It's Christmas time, but we all know you can only play so much Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey before you'll go mad.
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