Holiday Music: Love It, Hate It, Or…Meh
Well, here we are, less than a week away from Thanksgiving, and the official start to the Holiday Season. So, where are on the spectrum are your tastes when it comes to holiday music?
For the purposes of this little blog about the topic, I am only referring to secular music, not religious music. I’m talking about songs like “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Frosty The Snowman,” “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and other titles like that. Do you love hearing these songs every year around this time? Do you shake your head every time you walk into a store during the holiday season and hear one of these tunes and try to get out of that store as quickly as possible? Or, are you just luke-warm on the subject?
The reason I even bring it up is that being an on-air radio personality for several decades now, I have played these tunes every year around this time. In fact, one year, I believe it was the holiday season of 2014, Beasley Media Group corporate executives decided 96.3 KKLZ should play all holiday music all the time throughout November and December. Man, you should have heard some of the phone calls we received. We heard from people who said they would never tune in to our station again. Some asked if it was an April Fools joke in November. Some listeners called to tell us they would check back in with us in January. There was a lot of emotion conveyed to us about that decision.
The thing is, every year since then, some friends and 96.3 KKLZ listeners start asking me if our station is going to go back to that “all holiday music” format when the weather starts to cool off in Las Vegas. The answer is: no. But, we do like to sprinkle in some of those holiday favorites that have been around since before many of us were even born, plus some of the great holiday tunes of the 80s and 90s, like “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by Band-Aid, and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey.
So, whether you absolutely love holiday music, you can’t stand it, or you can take it or leave it, you will hear some of those good ol’ holiday favorites on 96.3 KKLZ this time of year, but we won’t go “all holiday music” until Christmas Eve, when we kick off our annual “Commercial Free Christmas.”
In the meantime, keep your chestnuts away from that open fire, and tell Jack Frost to get out of your face and leave your nose as is. All of us here at 96.3 KKLZ wish you, your family and your friends a safe, happy, and healthy Holiday Season!
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Larry Martino is the long-time Afternoon Drive personality on 96.3 KKLZ. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of Larry Martino and not necessarily those of Beasley Media Group, LLC.
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