The Infinite Dial

I've fielded a number of consumer press calls this holiday season about how hard it is to come up with a "new" holiday radio standard. It's not hard to figure out why so few new songs take hold each year. For starters, Mainstream AC has become the agenda setter, and one that is now clearly going to default in most cases to a new version of "O Holy Night" or "I'll Be Home For Christmas" than to an unfamiliar song. It's also hard for any song to get traction with no more than eight weeks of national airplay--more like five at most stations. Even Britney Spears' "3," as obvious in concept as any record, had just taken hold at Mainstream CHR after five weeks. And it is hard, of course, for a new song to quickly develop the emotional attachments of the songs associated with childhood holidays.

So what. then, is special about the songs that have made it through to become enduring Christmas hits in recent years?

Going back 30 years, which is recent in Christmas music terms, consider some of the original songs that still play on holiday formats today:

* Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime" (1979)
* Dan Fogelberg, "Same Old Lang Syne" (1980)
* Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas" (1983)
* Wham, "Last Christmas" (1984)
* Mariah Carey, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (1994)
* 'N Sync, "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" (1998--less of a standard, but hangs in at CHR)

Now consider a few remakes that became standards:

* Bruce Springsteen, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (came to radio on a wide-scale around 1980 with help from "The River.")
* Hall & Oates, "Jingle Bell Rock" (1984)
* Madonna, "Santa Baby" (1987) -- not a new song, but probably one that would have faded without this remake.

The pattern here is that a lot of enduring holiday records are contributed by the artists who are CHR core acts or at least prolific hitmakers at the time, and manage to sustain that status for at least a few years. And, yes, that still included McCartney & Wings in 1979 and even Dan Fogelberg in 1980. Band Aid, of course, had the advantage of having multiple CHR acts and being an early event record of that sort. Making a Christmas record has become the way a veteran act extends their longevity at radio, but those aren't the acts who can offer us more than just another version of a standard and get our attention.

So now consider Lady Gaga's "Christmas Tree." It came out last Christmas as her star was ascending. Five hits in to her career, it's back for a second holiday. Even if she's taking a hiatus from new product, it's probably guaranteed some airplay next Christmas. And then, its durability will be a function of what kind of career she pulls off.

Today, it's hard to imagine a song with the couplet "everybody knows/we will take off our clothes" on an AC holiday format, next to Johnny Mathis and Bing Crosby. But even "Let's Dance" and "Paparazzi" got a little airplay this year, and it seems inevitable that being "this generation's Madonna," will also include following her audience to AC radio over the years. The Top 40-to-holiday-standard route has also been compromised a little by AC's greater presence in the Christmas space, and its tendency to use new recordings (usually of standards) as a way of acknowledging the format-breaker acts like Josh Groban, Susan Boyle, and the Glee Cast that it would be reluctant to play in regular rotation.

But reinvigorating the "new song by ascending superstar" formula is worth considering for anybody lucky enough to be A&R'ing a successful CHR act in, say, August 2010. (Imagine if the Black Eyed Peas had a new holiday song this year.) If there aren't more new songs added to the Christmas canon (besides "Christmas Canon"), it may be because the acts who could get a holiday song considered haven't wanted to do so.