Global InformationChristmas music information
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols, may employ lyrics about the nativity of Jesus Christ, traditions such as gift-giving and merrymaking, cultural figures such as Santa Claus, or other topics. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme, or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons.
While most Christmas songs before the 20th century were of a traditional religious character, the Great Depression brought a stream of U.S. songs that did not explicitly mention the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with it. These included songs aimed at children such as "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", as well as sentimental ballad-type songs performed by famous crooners of the era, such as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "White Christmas", the latter of which remained the best-selling single of all time as of 2018.[1][2] Elvis' Christmas Album (1957) by Elvis Presley is the best-selling Christmas album of all time, having sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.[3]
Performances of Christmas music at public concerts, in churches, at shopping malls, on city streets, and in private gatherings are a staple of the Christmas season in many cultures across the world. Many radio stations convert to a 24-7 Christmas music format leading up to the holiday; though the standard for most stations in the US is on or near Veterans Day,[4] some stations adopt the format as early as the day after Halloween (or, exceptionally rarely, even sooner)[5][6] as part of a phenomenon known as "Christmas creep". Liturgically, Christmas music traditionally ceases to be performed at the arrival of Candlemas, the traditional end of the Christmas-Epiphanytide season.[7]
- ^ Glenday, Craig, ed. (2007). Guinness Book of Records. Jim Pattison Group. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-904994-67-1.
- ^ Moore, Kimberly (December 20, 2011). "A Brief History of Holiday Music: Crooners, Movies, and Novelty Songs". Psychology Today. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
- ^ "The rise and fall of Christmas music". The Economist. November 27, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2021.
- ^ Venta, Lance (November 10, 2023). "iHeartMedia Launches Christmas Music On Over 85 Stations". Radio Insight. Retrieved November 13, 2023.
- ^ Venta, Lance (October 31, 2023). "No trick: WMXL becomes first all-Christmas station of 2023". Retrieved October 31, 2023.
- ^ "November Blizzard: Christmas Flips Are Busting Out All Over The Dial". Insideradio.com. November 1, 2023. Retrieved November 1, 2023.
- ^ Clancy, Ronald M. (2008). Sacred Christmas Music. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-4027-5811-9.