Rutgers professor knows what makes a holiday hit
“Yuletide Zeppelin’ -- a mash up of Zeppelin songs and Christmas carols – is no “White Christmas.” But as holiday songs go, it’s got one up on “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” the 1984 ensemble recording by Duran Duran and a choir of English pop stars, according to Rutgers University professor Christopher Doll, who teaches courses on popular music.
“It’s a terrible song,’’ he declares. “People love “Do They Know It’s Christmas?’’ But I have problems with it.’’
Things were different during the golden age of chart-topping original Christmas songs (as opposed to covers of Christmas carols), when pop stars ranging from Nat King Cole to The Ronettes recorded holiday hits.
The genre’s peak was during the 1950s, according to Doll, a composer who teaches at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. But once the late ‘60s rolled around, the trend began to fizzle, except for isolated breakthroughs like “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” (a parody of an obscure Merle Haggard song) and the most recent Christmas blockbuster to join the holiday song pantheon: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.’’
“They no longer become classics like they used to,’’ says Doll, a theorist-composer specializing in recent popular and art music.
Although the early 20th century is filled with popular Christmas songs -- many of which were composed by Jewish songwriters, like Irving Berlin, who wrote “White Christmas’’ – it wasn’t until Gene Autry’s 1949 version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’‘ that Christmas songs began their annual climb up the Top the 40, Doll says.
Since then, hundreds of Christmas songs have cracked the charts, but the ones that stuck around are in the minority -- which is why you won’t hear carolers singing “I Want Eddie Fisher for Christmas’’ by Betty Johnson and Spike Jones or “Leroy the Redneck Reindeer,’’ by Joe Diffie, a minor hit in 1995.
An enduring Christmas song often has an element of nostalgia or playfulness, according to Doll. “It can make you long for some kind of white Christmas of your past or maybe it’s a humorous take on what Christmas really is.’
Some novelty tunes with staying power? “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth,’’ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers and “Jingle Bells’’ as performed by barking dogs. “Christmas in Hollis’’ by RUN-DMC is a rare example of a holiday rap song that stood the test of time.
Doll prefers offbeat Christmas songs to holiday standards. His least favorite is a deathless classic: “The Christmas Song’’ by Nat King Cole (otherwise known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.’’)
“I just never liked it for whatever reason,’’ he explains. “It’s too slow and maudlin.’’
Doll would rather listen to a novelty tune called “Mele Kalikmaka” by Bing Crosby and The Andrew Sisters. “It’s a classic song and not as overplayed at the others,’’ he says. “It’s the antithesis of what you usually hear, not a white Christmas but Christmas in Hawaii.’’