Music: Festive: Do they know the Christmas song is dead? Mr Hankey

Breton La Villain

Well-Known Member
It’s often difficult to place the exact moment you first hear it. You may be scanning the supermarket shelves for your favourite Pot Noddle or filling up your car in the station forecourt.

Remember the day when the Christmas season came in full swing.Everyone go mad to see who was going to be number one for Christmas.Ever since Dreaming Of White Christmas or Baby it‘s cold outside.Or hearing Wizard singing,I wish it could be Christmas everyday or Slade‘s Noddy Holder ring in your ears every Christmas night & day.Hearing John Lennon sing (Sweetly So this is Christmas) or the political message of Do they know it‘s Christmas Time at all.

The Time Shane MacGown & Kristy MacColl could make a classic song like Fairy Tale In New York without,it being seen now as unstable lyrics for this time and place or being questioned if they should still play it.

Or something heart felt like East 17 Stay Another Day was seen truly as the last real traditional song for Christmas.

After that it seemed Christmas number one‘s was losing it Traditional love affair with younger audience.Who once sat around the fire place at Christmas Day or bought singles in the shops,like it use too be they lost interest in watch Top Of The Pop.

And then all of a sudden South Park did it’s own Perfect parody of the whole Christmas song meaning in one.
Mr Hankey was a character on South Park who,was there to remind as the whole point of Christmas number one‘s were s*it.
They were just money making novelty and were forgot about the next year,like the old gift we got that are now useless.
It seem Mr Hankey came at the right time to tell us,Christmas is not about number one and music sales.
After that nobody really cared who was going too be number one for Christmas TOTP was dead.
Radio and Music Tv become more obsessed by celebrities than artists or the band.

It seem Mr Hankey put a end to the that good fashion tradition of Christmas number one’s.

But where are all the modern-day equivalents? In the past 10 years John Legend, Sia and Kelly Clarkson have all jumped on Santa’s sleigh and jingled a few bells, while Kate Rusby appears to record a festive album every other year. Aiden Moffat and Sufjan Stevens have offered their alternative spins and Annie Lennox recently re-released her Christmas Cornucopia with a 10th anniversary edition. And let’s not forget Mr Christmas himself, Michael Bublé.

However, is it just me, but none of these worthy efforts have quite embedded themselves in the collective public conscience the way Slade, The Pogues or John Lennon did. In short, is the festive song dead?


Top of the Pops returns on December 25, wheeled out from the BBC retirement home for worn-out TV formats for its annual sympathy outing. But with performances from Joel Corry ft. MNEK, Clean Bandit & Mabel, Celeste and Aitch x AJ Tracey I doubt it will be considered quite the essential viewing for families that it was in the 70s and 80s.

Changing musical tastes, a multitude of alternative entertainmentsources and a vast catalogue of old recordings hogging the airwaves (Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You is topping the charts after 26 years) have left any new songs quivering in the snow like a half-starved robin.

So maybe it’s time to regard the Christmas song as an old relative, slumped in the armchair after a heavy turkey dinner, with little new to say or prove. If it’s nostalgia you want, there’s plenty to choose from, just don’t ask St Nick for anything new or original.



 
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