Might it be the case that most younger people now think that Christmas began in 1973? John Lennon, Mud, Roy Wood, Greg Lake and others all turned out Christmas hits around that time that must have guaranteed their financial well-being ever since so often have they been played. The only one I heard that appeared to be substantially more recent was Bill Nighy’s version of ‘Christmas is All Around’, and that is from ‘Love Actually’, which is now well over twenty years old. All the rest appear to have been recorded when I was either a teenager or a very young man.
How was it, I wondered, that this very sugary period in pop history, for which I had remarkably little affection at the time, has come to define the whole Christmas period? Isn’t it time that we learned to move on?
Late 60s, early 70s was when recording studio technology really worked for the first time. Multitracking and all that sort of gubbins. There’s never been a shortage of twee and trite Christmas stuff – “something the christmas donkey” is a particular hate. But the first time that a selection could be nailed down in a manner that would last – not be outdone by next year’s advances in recording technology – a selection was nailed down. Rather in the manner that Dickens did with Scrooge – we still use roughly the same language as then, rougly the same publishing tech.
You’d think the Potato would grasp this – technology determines the state of social relations etc?
This was the era before polyphonic synthesisers, sequencers, and digital sampling. It was the era when popular song melodies were not simply R&B pentatonics with coloratura. These are all pop songs, not disco.
The proofs of this are (among others) Wham’s Last Christmas and Mariah Carey’s hideous All I Want For Christmas Is You, both of which eschew the contemporary popular music templates and conform to the 60s – 70s form. Carey’s even uses a Noddy Holder/Roy Wood shuffle, as a disproportionate number of Xmas hits do. It’s easy to dance to when pissed.
So, yes, technology. Electronics. All that stuff that comprised my 80s and 90s music career. Blame me.
Another observation: these songs are not “black music”, as it came to be known and formulated in the late 70s onwards, and then took over popular music culture. The classic Christmas hits are basically white.
There are a lot of Christmas songs from the 40s and 50s which are still heard. It’s beginning to look a lot like this guy has limited knowledge and vision.
(Personally I favour Fairytale of New York, which is scarcely Christmassy at all.)
You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot,
Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it’s our last.
The great polymath of Ely, the nation’s moral conscience, has spoken.
I’d suspect it was also the amount of control the record companies had over the artists. We remember the ones were hits & continue to be rolled out every Xmas. But what about all the ones that bombed? And there were a lot that bombed.
A lot of people in the record industry in those days were those who’d come from the music hall tradition. So they thought of bands as “acts” needed to be given an act.
Maybe that’s why those numbers have aged so well. Xmas is a time when entertainment tends to revert to the music hall format. Seems to be what a lot of people like. The “we’re all together doing this together isn’t it fun?” mentality. And of course familiar numbers helps that. But the music industry really hasn’t been doing that stuff for decades. So it hasn’t produced much newer.
What’s the closest thing to music hall now? Probably shows like Strictly. It has that music hall element that the audience is part of the production. Morcambe & Wise was similar. No 4th wall. But none of this produces musical numbers, does it?
Technology? Technology got a whole lot cheaper. I wonder what the breakeven point was for pressing a single back then including marketing etc 50k sold? Now you can do the same thing virtually free. So there just isn’t the incentive to produce that sort of stuff. Maybe Taylor Swift’s handlers might consider it. But what about the reputational damage if it bombs? An act like that needs a continual success arc to continue. One flop & it’s finished & history because a new one takes over. The 8-14 market it’s pitching at has no functional memory.
Anyone else out there caught up with Liliac’s metal version of Carol of the Bells? Wow!
They are an independent band by the way. Seem to be doing OK.
BiS: “. Xmas is a time when entertainment tends to revert to the music hall format. ”
Oh no it isn’t!
The best version of Carol of the Bells was done by the Muppets. Period.
This is the real news:
So, let’s be clear what DEI is. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (yes, the one the UK government has it in for) has a good definition on its website, they say:
Our colleagues are the key to our success as a regulator. We aim to promote a culture that enables them to speak openly, encourages innovation and supports collaborative working. This helps us to:
build capability
enable our people to act decisively
continuously improve how we operate
We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace environment: one that’s free from discrimination and bias, celebrates difference, and supports colleagues to deliver at their best.
We believe this empowers our people to fulfil their potential and results in better decision making in the public interest.
They add:
In 2022, we used an evidence-based approach to conduct a major review of our internal DEI work. Following this review, we launched a new internal DEI programme that will run from 2023 to 2026.
The objectives of our DEI programme are to:
address areas of under-representation
make adjustments to deal with imbalances and deliver fair and equitable outcomes for our people
foster an inclusive work environment
establish a strong accountability framework for progress against our DEI outcomes
As Deloitte noted in 2018, companies that prioritize DEI are six times more likely to be innovative and agile, and twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets. It would seem obvious why companies should adopt these goals. Doing so reflects what I have described in this morning’s video, which is that companies that want to make a profit must, first of all, make people happy – because that is the only way to achieve that outcome.
DEI is, in short, a recognition of the diversity within the human condition. It is about gender, race, orientation, belief and conviction. But it is much more than that. It is about recognising neurodiversity and all that different people can bring to the table within any organisation. Above all else, it is about recognising the importance of difference and creating inclusivity for all. I am totally committed to those ideas.
But Trump and his allies are not. The DEI agenda is an affront to their belief in the superiority of the white, heterosexual, neurotypical, neoliberal male and as such, they must be opposed.
The claim is that such policies undermine profitability – which is nonsense.
What they do is share prosperity, and that is what Trump and his allies oppose. They want rewards to flow to a few, not many. And they do not care that some will suffer as a result. Instead, they consciously promote the idea that anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, neurotypical, neoliberal male is part of the ‘other’ who should be excluded from the rewards society has to offer. This is how they will maximise profits for their chosen few.
And, for the record, let’s be clear that Kemi Badenoch and Reform are close allies of Trump on this agenda. Kemi Badenoch has already seen fit to challenge the support provided to ADHD, autistic, dyslexic and other groups in society. Reform’s Richard Tice talks about the UK as a Christian country, which it is very obviously not given the tiny number of people who go to church. Both have a bias towards men.
This is not just a US phenomenon. It is going to be a growing part of life in the UK as the right-wing agenda creeps ever forward – and no doubt Labour will be embracing it soon. In fact, Starmer’s utterly contemptible comments on the civil service yesterday might be an indication of that.
In 1983, Neil Kinnock said, speaking of Margaret Thatcher in the sort of political speech that is now but a memory:
– I warn you not to be ordinary
– I warn you not to be young
– I warn you not to fall ill
– I warn you not to get old.
Let me add to that list – all of which are still relevant, most especially with this Labour government in office and add:
– I warn you not to be different
Trump, Badenoch and Farage are coming for all those who are different. And Starmer will no doubt join them in doing so.
We live in very dangerous times.
Thanks Grikath 🙂
O/T did you see that (according to the Staggers) the only country in the world with a greater proportion of staff working in HR than the UK is NL?
He is one miserable bastard for sure:
How was it, I wondered, that this very sugary period in pop history, for which I had remarkably little affection at the time, has come to define the whole Christmas period? Isn’t it time that we learned to move on?
I am not suggesting that we need another load of new, sugary Christmas pop songs. I think Mariah Carey tried that, and as far as I can recall, she did not feature during my visit. I am simply suggesting that there must be better ways to celebrate Christmas, if we think it’s important, than by listening to all that old tat all over again.
I went home to listen to some Rutter.
He is into dogging??
@VP – Easy route for the liars who love DEI to take, but what did Deloitte say?
From https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/4209_Diversity-and-inclusion-revolution/DI_Diversity-and-inclusion-revolution.pdf:
“It’s about looking beyond demographic parity to the ultimate outcome – diversity of thinking.”
“This is not to say that demographic characteristics, such as gender and race, are not important areas of focus. Organisations still need to ensure that workplaces are free from discrimination and enable people to reach their full potential.”
So, black lesbians aren’t what is required, less group think is the key. And what do those who engage in DEI all share? Group think!
Joe Smith
Absolutely – I have renamed it to ‘DIE’ as I do think that any company which focuses on it as a key priority will Die. Chines, Middle Eastern and other Far Eastern competitors will eat their lunch.
IF someone is a proponent of it you can guarantee at best they’re ignorant to the point of naivety and more likely they’re an evil racist (if not White) or someone so filled with a desperate desire to try and appease such people they are happy to offer themselves (and all their countrymen) up as a sacrifice. I am certainly hoping that the likes of Murphy do start to emigrate in droves. So far it hasn’t happened, though, which leads me to suspect this kind of scaremongering is mostly bollocks.
I tend to avoid these Captain Potato threads because they make my scrolling finger ache. However, Dora Bryan’s Christmas hit hasn’t had an airing for ages and is a neglected masterpiece.
So we can add Xmas music to the list of things of which Spud is laughably ignorant. My local runs a playlist of Xmas songs which lasts over an hour. The numbers Spud notes are included but obviously are outnumbered by records from the 50s, 60s, 80s,90s…..
https://youtu.be/57vrqCENNPc?si=MKcDom_abu-GkrAl
A mere 20 years prior to spuds so-called defining period.
Somehow I feel a note to the coffee shop in question would be useful.
Dear minimum wage baristas
You see that pockmarked old cvnt with the premium Macbook who comes in every day for an hour to bogart that corner table and use your heating for free? The one who scowls at your music choices?
That’s Richard Murphy, a tax campaigner who applauds the lazy overpaid public sector, hates the private sector (except when it provides him with his Lattes and expensive PCs). He loves tax increases, like the employer’s NICs increase which will hold down your pay rises so that the public sector can be given inflation busting pay. He thinks the private sector is full of far right fascists overcharging for substandard products and services. He probably won’t tip you because he thinks you won’t declare it to HMRC.
Go and say hello, it’s the season of Goodwill to all men!
I love the bit “for the record”. Does he play it often?
@bravefart
I saw the potato sitting outside a coffee shop in Ely last year. He was having an argument with a newspaper. Seriously – grunting and groaning out loud and manhandling the telegraph (I think)
Strangely he didn’t have any friends.
It seems that a Christmas song written especially for Spud is available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U2XdkBkTTk
The only Xmas music that matters is when a small grandchild sings you Jingoobells for the first time. All the rest is tat.
“I went home to listen to some Rutter”
I didn’t think that it was possible for my opinion of Murphy to fall any further, but him voluntarily listening to Rutter has done it.
Rutter is ghastly. Real 5th rate church music that is neither decent liturgical chant nor decent pop. If he wanted to be modern he could at least have been listening to Taverner or McMillan. But Rutter? That’s religious music for people who understand neither religion nor music. Beyond the pale.
@Chris Miller Oh, that’s entirely possible, given that the past decade the trend has been to only work with “independent” contractors and temps…
“independents” (ZZP’ers) don’t count as personnel, and formally, neither do temps through an employment agency.
If you then also roll HRM, most of Legal, Most of Accountancy, and a fair bit of the Crayon Department into “HR” you get… funny effects.
Like some pretty big companies only having the C-suite and HR on the official payroll as employees…
Mind .. that particular house of cards is coming down fast at the moment…
Liliac’s metal version of Carol of the Bells
It came up on my YouTube feed a few days ago. Quite good, but visuals a bit distracting as the singer has that thing that seems to be endemic in Americans in her upper lip is pulled back towards her nose. Americans are obsessed with cosmetic surgery, why does nobody ever correct this?
I go with the thing that Bowie said back in his Paxman interview in the late 90s that pop and rock were basically done. Every angle had been pursued. And you can look at Britpop and endless Beatles retrospectives as being the point where no-one was doing anything new and were looking back. We had around 40 years of technological innovation that constantly changed how music sounded and then it stopped. And in that time we got all the music we wanted.
The Xmas #1 was always very lucrative. So it always encouraged creation. So you got tons of people trying to do it. Pick a type of sound, a mood, there’s a Xmas single out there for you. At which point, why would someone write another? This is the whole problem with music. There’s something like 10 million songs on Spotify. How are you going to do something original?
Strange that he should miss Slade off that list when it is the XMas song that I’ve heard the most over the years.
visuals a bit distracting as the singer has that thing that seems to be endemic in Americans in her upper lip is pulled back towards her nose. Americans are obsessed with cosmetic surgery, why does nobody ever correct this?
One suspects Botox. I see quite a few strange mouths. Problem with Botox is the effects tend to collapse rather oddly & unevenly & users can pass through a phase where it’s definitely not beneficial at all. So it’s victims tend to have the problem of either going through that phase until they’re as was or repeating something they didn’t much like the result of. So possibly the latter.
Incidentally, from one of the pics on their web page the blonde drummer seems to be wearing an identical bondage harness of Chinese origin I obtained for an amiga. Cost me 6€ delivered. Must be big money in the rock game these days.
I find that Spotify tends to render the time period of music selections meaningless. My festive playlist is massively eclectic and a lot of the songs that are new to me might be really old or really recent, I just don’t know. I believe that some of them come from the Simon Cowell talent shows. I’ve got piano versions of carols by Rick Wakeman, stuff by Jethro Tull, Pentatonix, oh and Christmas Bop by T Rex.
@Stonyground
Thank to things like Spotify (but also before that torrent streams) all music exists in the now. What is new is new to the listener.
I can recall the 16 y/o son of a mate getting into Hawkwind. That’s a band I was going to gigs in 1970. But they new to him. So he was getting downloads of not only release albums but live show recording & off into the pirate stuff. That’s 30 odd years of music. And he was taking a curious journey through it because he was hearing in the order he’d discover it rather than the sequence it was recorded. To him it was all in the now. Band members were simultaneously in their 20s & 50s & all of the line-ups of members contemporary. A “new track”to him was one he hadn’t heard before.
I do much the same. I download a lot of music both to hear in the cars & because our Spanish internet is notorious for going down just when you need it. Since I have very wide ranging tastes, it tends what I’ve listened to & liked & more by the same artist(s). Or maybe the same genre. I have about 200GB of 160MP3 of all sorts of things from different periods & nationalities & cultures. I know some of the Cuban jazz is 60 years old. But which?