Skip to main content

The Bah Humbug popstars

Image from Unsplash
I gather from the i newspaper (3 December) that music business millionaires are bemoaning their inability to have their Christmas songs thought of as classics by the public. Tom Chaplin of Keane is quoted as saying 'Getting a song in the [Christmas streaming] chart is like breaking into Fort Knox'. 

I accept that streaming has made it more difficult to get your Christmas song into the canon - but, honestly, my suspicion is that the majority of songs on offer simply aren't good enough to make it. Once you get compared with the best of all time, it inevitably becomes a lot harder than it is if you are only being put up against the best from this year's crop. It's a bit like a serious music composer complaining that Monteverdi, Mozart or Vaughan Williams still get a look in. But is that really a bad thing?

The fact is that songs do get added to the best of the bunch if they really stand out as far as the particularly odd calculation of what makes a good Christmas song is concerned - and, let's face it, that includes a whole lot of other things than pure musical quality. But if a song really does catch the attention of the public, it will get listened to and bump up those Christmas streaming revenues, even if it doesn't get into the top ten.

I personally enjoy a whole mix of music at Christmas. I've always sung in choirs and love a quality choir carol - but equally I'm happy to listen to a whole range of Christmas songs: both classics such as Fairytale of New York, and more recent releases like Keane's. The joy of streaming is both that you can pull in those old standards, and go for something less well known to build a playlist of your own favourites.

Incidentally, I know it's heresy, but for me, the best Christmas number by Keane isn't a Christmas number and it's in a cover version. My Christmas streaming playlist includes the Lilly Allen version of Somewhere Only We Know, which now feels Christmassy thanks to its association with the John Lewis Christmas advert: for me, this is better than the Keane original.

However, we can still do our bit to add to poor Tom's streaming revenue. I've included below his suggestion of his Christmas song that he thinks should be up there with the rest. (I checked - YouTube plays do now count in the streaming charts.) It is quite good, but Midnight Mass simply doesn't have the feel of a big Christmas hit. It's far too wistful and ballady. Be warned, incidentally: I also find the video somewhat generating of nausea. But it's not a bad song at all.

See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense