ghastly xmas songs meme

[fpb]

Having come back from shopping with a strong feeling that Xmas muzak ought to be made a crime, I want to get a little of my own back. Hence I invite all my friends and readers to mention the worst song they can think of - one or many, as many as you like - and a description of what the sentence on the criminals who wrote and/or performed it should be. Then copy this meme and post it on your own LJ.

I'll start:
Santa baby. Its authors and everyone who is so base of soul as to perform it should be forced to wear titanium steel chastity belts for the rest of their natural lives.
Wonderful Christmas time. Sir Paul McCartney should be forbidden from ever publishing any song again until, in the opinion of a jury of 200 music lovers chosen at random, he has produced at least two songs of the quality of Hey Jude or Fool on the Hill.

Comments

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

It's in the mall muzak rotation, and if I work in the calendar kiosk in the hall I have to listen to it at least once each shift x_x

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So what would you do to its authors?

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, maybe let them listen to some really good music, like Beethoven or Gershwin, just for a half hour or so, then make them listen to their own songs on headphones for a day, just to emphasize the contrast.

tsk tsk

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You suffer from an unfortunate lack of bloodlust. The world would probably be a better place with more people like you - but it just might be less fun.

Re: tsk tsk

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for all my interest in criminology and forensics and such, I'm actually pretty much inclined to the "what comes around goes around" theory. ;) Most of the minor stuff will get paid back by karma. lol

Re: tsk tsk

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes, but think of all the other people who have been put through the same aural torture as you have - tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands. Don't you think that people who spread musical misery over such a large range deserve some comeback?

Oh, never mind. That was beginning to sound like it might be serious.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. And it's a special torment for me because every time I hear it, I remember the Christmas season when my grandmother was in the hospital deathly ill with an infection, and every time I heard that song's bouncy cheerful description of a truly horrible situation, I wanted to scream. I want to say that was the year it came out, but I have conflicting memories of hearing it when I was in high school, at least five years before that Christmas season.

[rosedemon.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I always thought Santa Baby was pretty clever. The Golddigger trying to score with the man who has all the best presents makes me laugh. As if Santa wouldn't all ready know she had been bad all year.

Personally, The 12 Days of Christmas works on me. A bit too long and far too repetitive. I think I am more offended when advertisers warp a good song to fit their hard sell package. There is a GPS system that is currently using Carol of the Bells to hawk their wares and it bothers me to no end. I adore the song and hate to have it used in this manner.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with you at all, I'm afraid. As far as I can see, there is nothing ironical about that slutty song. And since ambient muzak is inevitable - would it were otherwise - it might as well be decent rather than repulsive. I would always use good music for background.

[rosedemon.livejournal.com]

The song was written for Eartha Kitt and basically styled for her voice. She is, to this day, the only one that was able to capture the tongue-in-cheek meaning in the lyrics. I would agree with you that the song is rather slutty but only by the standards of who has sung the song since. None have been able to repeat what Kitt managed to do and sadly her version is the least played these days.

As far as good music for the background...it is in the ears of the beholder. At this time of the year I could do with a little less of Sir Paul's attempt at forced Christmas cheer and want to avoid It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year renditions. They smack me as song writers who had to write something cheerful and so holiday happy in June or July in order to make the December pressing. At the same time I am astounded at the fact that many lists of the worst holiday songs also include The Little Drummer Boy and O Holy Night. I suppose it up to whoever is making up the list.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It is. I agree that The Little Drummer Boy and O Holy Night are among the good ones, even though the former belongs to a category I find dubious - building up extra material outside the gospel narrative. But you may have noticed that I would like Sir Paul to be condemned not to publish any more songs until, according to impartial judges, he has come up with at least two of Beatle level. I find what has happened to his genius since at least Ebony and Ivory deeply depressing.

[rosedemon.livejournal.com]

They could take his Sir-hood away from him until he finds his creative groove again. Give it to Ringo, at least he has never strayed from the forms that made him famous. Paul can have it back after he writes another "Revolver" style album.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So... who'll tell the Queen?

[rosedemon.livejournal.com]

Harry can do it. He's in trouble all the time anyway.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Last Christmas--The ex members of Wham should be locked in a very small closet together. Forever.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There are a million other reasons to punish George Michael, but that song is certainly not the least.

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

You and I are of the same mind, because those two songs immediately came to mind. Also, I agree with the above nomination of "Last Christmas," which I have been horrified to hear on the radio long AFTER Christmas. "Santa Baby" has to be the worst, in my opinion, because it is so crudely suggestive of everything opposite to what Christmas does/should represent.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, it is right to play Last Christmas away from the Christmas season, because it has practically nothing to do with Christmas. The same story could be told any day of the year. And I never did like Wham! nor George Michael on his own either.

[(Anonymous)]

Come now! Wham did such classics as... and there was... that was a band, right?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for the laff. That's about how I feel about them.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Eat more Sugarplums, you silly Scrooges! Santa Baby is older than all of us - over half a century. Grandma has been drinking too much eggnog for 30 years. Tchaikovsky's ballet became as ubiquitous as Chocolate Santas in the 50's, when Santa Baby was first a hit.
Classics get that way because they work. There *are* people more focused on getting than giving, and drinking themselves happy (and other people miserable). Yet we STILL expect the best from everyone and everything this time of year. Isn't it wonderful to be reminded of what makes this season special?
The Santa Speedo run is today. Started ten years ago by five drinking buddies, it now has raised close to half a million dollars for charity. All because a bunch of drunks lost a bar bet, and wore Santa Hats and beards as a disguise as they ran more than half-naked down the toniest street in Boston in 26 degree (-4C) weather. Aren't unexpected consequences wonderful?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It is exactly because Christmas is eternal, that these temporary horrors are the more repulsive. When someone wrote Silent Night to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, what excuse is there for Santa Baby?

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Madonna gave it to the Very Secial Christmas project, which raised hundreds of millions for the Special Olympics? You can't convince me to develop taste now, my friend. I'm having too much fun.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Madonna Ciccone being of course a fine moral example. I'll take Tiger Woods myself, thank you.

[evil-whimsey.livejournal.com]

Okay. I cannot in good conscience wish an awful punishment on The Boss. For one thing, I grew up liking the man's music, and also my father would disown me.

But there is no reason on God's green earth for any radio station to play the Springsteen cover of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" a bajillion times a day, for two straight weeks. It was charming once.

My thought is that all the persons responsible for giving this song such ridiculous airplay should suffer the noise of a 60Hertz ground loop buzz (the sound an audio engineer hates worst in all the world), all day log, wherever they go, until January 2nd.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would say that any cover of that particular novelty song is suspect. In my view, one only enjoys it the first time; after that, the fun wears off and the suspect features of the material become evident. But I agree that the Springsteen one is the most shocking of the lot. I wish he had never persuaded himself to do it once for charity - it was once too often. But that is not the only reason why Springsteen, though I adore his music, drives me crazy.

[saturndevouring.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to argue with what's here, but I recently picked up a Stax Record compilation of holiday songs, and while it has good stuff like Otis Redding doing "Merry Christmas Baby" and the Staple Singers' "Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas?" It includes Rufus Thomas' "I'll Be Your Santa Baby," which is I think the male version of Ertha Kitt's tune.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the sort of thing I'd cross a crowded motorway at rush hour to avoid.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking of more to add as I'm forced to endure them at work. Today's nomination is Happy Christmas (War Is Over): John Lennon is so ghastly SMUG, and the lyrics don't make any damn sense. "War is over, if you want it." What?

Anyway, since he's already been punished, in the spirit of Evil Whimsey, I nominate that the management of Old Navy be forced to work in their own store next Saturday afternoon, with only one working cash register.

Incidentally (while I rather loathe the Little Drummer Boy and thus am no help there), I think many people dislike O Holy Night because it's performed so badly so often. I know my mother feels that way about it--she says a young woman at her childhood church was notorious for her wretched flute rendition.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, O Holy Night has just been voted Britain's favourite Christmas song, according to the BBC. Though they did not say who voted and what was running. But I can see that it is not really a "carol" in the sense of a simple song that an ordinary church choir can belt out; it is really a classical piece that requires a certain amount of skill from various performers. The same goes for Joy to the World.

Of course Lennon was an atheist and so had no business writing a Christmas song, but I don't think that Happy Christmas, War is Over is really so bad. What makes me foam at the mouth is Imagine - universally presented as having a message of benevolence and peace, when in fact it "imagines" a world that Stalin would not want to live in, a world without any possessions (no possessions? Not my comics collection, not my nephew's stuffed toys?), where there is nothing worth dying for (what, not even Debbie?), and so on: the most revolting invitation to Hell I have ever seen, wrapped in deceptively lullaby-like music. If that song is ever forbidden by law, it will have been too late already.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

My own pet hates are Holly Jolly Christmas and that stupid "Alvin and the Chipmunks" song, particularly when played over and over and over again.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Thank God, I never heard of those.