Why Christmas Music is Lackluster and Has Lost its Flair

The Christmas spirit has remained powerful for centuries in American pop culture, captivating listeners with songs about Christmas and other various wintertime festivities. But honestly, it’s grown stale. The “Queen” of Christmas, Mariah Carey, only rose to number 10 in the billboard top 100 for “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and is slowly losing her hold on the festive holiday cheer. I personally believe that Christmas music has become rather lackluster and has lost its flair as a sub-genre of music.

The main problem that this genre faces is that most of the new music being made in this genre is rather mediocre. Most of the classic songs of the genre, like “The Christmas Song” by Frank Sinatra and various other songs are famous from the likes of Tony Bennett and Dean Martin. While these songs are classic, they are also almost 70 years old as of 2024. This has created a bit of a gap in relevance with new music in the Christmas season, leading to some of these songs being lackluster after years of play. 

Along with the lackluster new releases of music, the music industry has oversaturated the genre in an attempt to keep it relevant and joyful during the holiday season, creating the aforementioned issue of a few good songs in a sea of mediocre ones. This, along with the feeling of being forced into celebrating Christmas with this overused genre, has created a feeling of oversaturation in the genre, making me, along with others who formerly loved the time of year, have a bit of a falling out with Christmas music as a whole. 

In the defense of Christmas music, the music is still good for the few good songs. However, I have fallen out with this oversaturated genre of music, and believe that if we people really want to enjoy the holiday season, perhaps we need some new musical ideas to emerge in the sub-genre of Christmas music. 

Graphic by Tanner Lehtinen using Canva