Ariana Wyatt, of Virginia Tech, explains how traditional hymns and carols influence modern holiday hits. Themes of longing, family, and tradition remain central, even as commercial tunes and romantic holiday songs shape today’s playlists.
Some people are fans of Christmas music, but not when it shows up particularly early in the holiday season.
Ariana Wyatt, a professor of voice and associate dean for outreach and engagement for the College for Architecture, Arts and Design at Virginia Tech, loves Christmas music, but she’s not a fan of the increasingly early arrival of the sounds of the season, like the day after Halloween.
Wyatt said that’s a little too soon for her, but, “That seems to be where we’re at as a culture.”
The themes of the earliest Christmas music — the hymns and carols that celebrate the birth of Christ — continue to influence modern holiday music, Wyatt said.
“When it starts to get cold, we’re seeking comfort, light, joy, togetherness. And those things are all found in Christmas music,” she said. “I think there’s a real power in tradition.”
Many of the popular Christmas songs that end up in heavy rotation in grocery stores and in people’s personal playlists are more than 80 years old.
A common theme is one of longing, Wyatt said. Over and over, songs of the time mention home, family and tradition.
“And that did start with ‘White Christmas,’ which was broadcast for the first time on Christmas Day 1941, just a couple weeks after Pearl Harbor,” Wyatt said.
“Songs of longing have been around since the beginning of time, but it was definitely attached to World War II,” said Wyatt, who added that songs of the period featured “nostalgia for Christmases past and that hope for Christmas present and future.”
Wyatt said it was in the 1950s when a “whole new genre” of Christmas music began to feature shopping, Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, a character originally created as part of a store promotion dating back to 1939.
“We have songs that are really about the green side of Christmas: the gift-giving, the Santa Claus, the commercial part,” Wyatt said.
Songs from both eras have been covered again and again by everyone from U-2 to Bruce Springsteen, but one original piece of music has come to dominate the season: Mariah Carey’s 1994 “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Carey has often been referred to as the “Queen of Christmas,” and Wyatt said there’s no denying the popularity of the tune.
“It is the No. 1 Christmas hit of the 21st century, and it wasn’t even released in the 21st century. It was released in the 20th century,” Wyatt said.
Yet another genre of Christmas music that can be heard during the season, Wyatt said, is the holiday tune mixed with romance.
Carey used that in other songs, such as “I Miss You Most at Christmastime.” Those songs evoke the holiday, with references to snow, sitting by the fireplace, hearing distant carolers and more.
“It’s like visiting an old friend,” she said, referencing the love for traditions that surround the Christmas season.
When it comes to her personal favorites, she puts “O Holy Night” at the top of her list.
“It’s the one that makes me weak in the knees when it’s sung powerfully by a beautiful voice, there’s nothing better than that,” Wyatt said.
She also loves “White Christmas.”
“I love those old tunes from the 40s and 50s that we still kind of love today,” she said.
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