A Very Different Type Of Christmas Radio, Just Ask Bionic Santa
Written Dec. 12, 2007 by Sean Ross in Internet Radio with 4 Comments
I've been looking forward to hearing the all-Christmas format spread to the U.K., just out of curiosity about hearing the format in a parallel universe, particularly one that has historically had a lot of Christmas hits of its own. The commercial all-Christmas stations (Real Radio's digital format and the KMFM group) are either not streaming or blocked outside the U.K. But Internet broadcaster Play Radio UK can be heard here, and the segment I heard late this evening is indeed a very different take on Christmas.
(Play Radio UK's stream didn't have song and artist information, BTW. So it took a lot of surfing the British iTunes music store to figure out what some of these songs were. There was also one instrumental I couldn't place that would be two songs from the bottom. But you'll get the idea.)
Here's the station around 10:45 p.m. tonight local time.
Whitney Houston, "Do You Hear What I Hear"
Britney Spears, "Santa, Can You Hear Me?"
Wizzard, "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday"
Pogues, "Fairytale Of New York"
Frank Sinatra, "Hark The Herald Angels Sing"
Bob Seger, "The Little Drummer Boy"
Chris Hill, "Bionic Santa" (a 1976 Dickie Goodman-type novelty record using '70s hits)
Jethro Tull, "Ring Out Solstice Bells"
St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, "We Three Kings"
Whigfield, "Last Christmas" (Euro-disco diva who had the 1994 UK hit "Saturday Night")
Roxette, "It Must Have Been Love" (have no idea how this got here)
Slade, "Merry Christmas Everybody"
Bob Rivers Twisted Christmas, "Grabbe Yahbalz (Like Michael Jackson)"
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
I'm curious which version they played, it might have been the pre-Pretty Woman original:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Must_Have_Been_Love
Re: Roxette
There was a promo version sent that added some jingle bells to it, so they called it the "Holiday Version", but what I recall there was no lyrical differnece between the 2. I never fell for it. :>)
Randy
It's not uncommon for UK radio to include some songs which, although not directly related to Christmas, are considered to have a seasonal "feel" - such as 'I Have A Dream' by ABBA, 'Keeping The Dream Alive' by Freiheit and 'Stay Another Day' by East 17 - so Roxette would not be too out of place as a winter record.
In the mid-1990s when originally compiling Music Choice Europe’s ‘Christmas Channel’, and having to work my way through a large crate of Christmas CDs in the process, I came to the conclusion that there’s quite a cultural difference between US and UK Christmas favourites.
The Americans seem to love sentimental schmaltz such as dreaming of a white Christmas while walking in a winter wonderland or taking a sleigh ride together with you before rocking around the Christmas tree while watching chestnuts roasting on an open fire; all rather reminiscent of those 60s/70s Bing Crosby/Andy Williams/Osmonds-type TV specials.
While we here in the UK can take the American syrupy stuff in small doses, it does seem as though we tend to prefer our Christmas hits to be rather more ‘party-friendly’ - i.e. Slade, Wizzard, Shakin’ Stevens, Paul McCartney etc. - with just the occasional hint of sentimentality from artists such as Mud and Cliff Richard.
We are offering this year's Christmas parody of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, as well as last year's parody/play "Santa's Last Christmas" featuring parody songs from Frank Zappa, Rankin & Bass, David Bowie and The Beatles at:
http://www.youtube.com/N2OBand