Why are so many Christmas songs from the seventies? ( and a few from the eighties)

[Appalonia]

It always makes me feel so nostalgic, cos that was my era and I love them, but wonder why, and if you're younger how you feel about them and why are there so few decent modern Christmas songs?

My young dcs love all them! They've had no choice but to listen to them when im blaring them in the car. Haha.

The 70s was the best for music and fashion. 🔨 (gavel)

X Factor ruined Christmas number 1’s.

I quite like Robbie Williams Rudolph from a few years ago. It’s got the catchy tune necessary for a good Christmas song.

Ladbaby shite sausage roll covers have now overtaken X Factor as well. I know it’s for a good cause but I can’t stand them and they’re not Christmas songs.

The only two modern? ones I like are Ariana Grande (Santa tell me if you’re really there) and Leona Lewis (one more sleeep)

I think they're both about 10 years old now though?

I agree, a combination of declining interest in the charts followed by the X factor which changed the Christmas No 1 into a foregone conclusion and something to be sneered at rather than aspire to.

I have to say I do get out my Hanson Christmas albums every year 😂

Most Christmas songs I hear though on the radio or out shopping etc seem to be 80s maybe it was just a popular time to make Christmas songs

It’s subjective though... my Christmas playlist has some older songs, but then 5 from the last couple of years... so...

I used to love finding out who was the Christmas number one, it was huge! Still remember it being Mary's Boy Child and singing away. Everything is different now , not necessarily worse but definitely different

I used to work in a studio, when a certain record executive, and now very famous talent show TV personality, booked in for a remix of an Irish boy bands single. Said record exec, requested an overdub on “jangling sleigh bells” as it was planned for a Christmas single.

On the subject of missing TOTP, is there any chart show on telly these days? In the 90s they used to have The Chart Show on Channel 4 I think, just the videos with a ticker tape along the bottom of the screen. MTV existed. Now I don't see anything like that at all - why? It's free telly for a channel. There's no way of knowing what is topical though in a way this makes it cooler for the kids because the middle-aged can't gatecrash.

In the 70s, naff and tacky novelty records had a chance of making it big - and a lot of Xmas records fit that bill. Now, ironically in spite of what I wrote above, acts need a big video to get going, money needs to be spent and the act has to be a sure thing - less opportunity for eccentricity to creep in.

That said, I think a lot of Xmas smash hits got forgotten until the Now compilation of Xmas songs came out in the 80s, pairing Macca's Wonderful Christmastime (Top 3 I think but forgotten soon after) with Lennon's Merry Christmas (War is Over) - also would have been forgotten but for his murder, along with other songs. After this, these kinds of hits supplanted carols as the thing that gets played in shopping malls and so on. It is slightly sobering to realise that from now until the very end of our lives we'll be hearing these songs for several weeks of the year every year whether we like it or not. Same with the Royal Family, in a way.

I quite like Underneath the tree by Kelly Clarkson! That's my teenage dds favourite Christmas song, maybe because it's modern and upbeat?

I have a preference for Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby etc - the more jazzy style of Christmas song. I put a compilation together years ago and that's what we listen to - it's very soothing. And when we want something more upbeat 1970's Christmas songs wouldn't be our choice.

these kinds of hits supplanted carols as the thing that gets played in shopping malls and so on.

I was shopping the other day and 'Mary did you know?' came on. It was a lovely surprise.

X Factor ruined the Christmas number 1.

Agree this was the beginning of the end. Funny because it was around the same time as Love Actually which immediately made the concept of waiting for the new Christmas no 1 not make any sense!

Christmas is all about nostalgia, I don't care about some rubbish new song, I would rather listen to the rubbish old songs that make me think of childhood christmases, that would never make it onto a playlist at any other time of the year.

Same as why everyone wants to have prawn cocktail for Christmas starter even though it's considered outdated otherwise. And was never the only starter anyway back in the day, it's just the one everyone remembers.