holiday culture wars

In the life of every society, the culture wars are always there.
Sometimes these forces engage deep beneath the surface, enacting slow change measured in generations or centuries. Sometimes cultural clashes are out in the open, splashed across newspapers or fashions or town squares. A pink-skinned television starship captain kissing his ebony-skinned communcations officer...two female pop stars locking lips on national TV...the greatest sporting champion of all going to jail rather than become a soldier.
Perhaps the greatest culture war in recorded history is the struggle between secular humanism and religion. Science versus faith. And curiously enough, nowhere has this clash played out more obviously than in...Christmas albums. Just beneath the surface, but there for anyone to see, the greatest culture struggle of our time has unfolded before our ears, as we hung our stockings and decked the halls.
In a larger sense, Christmas itself has been the epicenter of the secular/religious tussle. Clement Moore birthed the modern incarnation of a certain "jolly old elf" in the early 19th century. Within a hundred years, secular Santa had made Jesus a secondary figure on his own pretend birthday. But we still gave lip service to Jesus in our most cherished Christmas songs. It took the recording artists of the 20th century to change that, one new classic at a time. How complete has this de-christing been? Over the first five years of our new century, guess how many religious tunes made ASCAP's 25 most-performed Christmas songs list? Maybe half, you say? Maybe less? Try one (unless of course, "Feliz Navidad" has some godly lyrics that have escaped my ear). The lone holy holdout? "The Little Drummer Boy" (ah, the power of Bowie and der Bingle).
Taking a look at the best-selling holiday albums of all time is, of course, more of a mixed bag. I could roll out a listed breakdown, but that would feel a little too much like "outing" the artists (in either direction), thereby perhaps spoiling some Christmas cheer for that minority who intentionally put religious views aside to simply embrace a day devoted to presents, goodwill, and boozy mistletoe clinches. It's a fascinating study though, to look at all the holiday albums you've loved, and realize the ideological currents that may have been at work. You may find that musical devotion, like sacred devotion and lust, can be a very illogical thing. For example, three particular albums both revealing or personally resonant:
BECAUSE IT'S CHRISTMAS, Barry Manilow
On this best-selling Christmas album of 1990, Barry tipped his hat to the surprising number of all-time Christmas albums that are purely instrumental (an artistic choice that alienates almost no one). He cleverly recorded beautiful instrumental intros of cherished sacred classics for most of the songs, while avoiding a single religious lyric in the songs themselves. Where i come from, we call that making a point with style.
THE CHRISTMAS ALBUM, Neil Diamond
The 33rd best-selling Christmas album of all time demonstrates the power of a given artist to rise above content that would be offputting coming from almost anyone else. Neil, a Christian Jew at the beginning of a too-cool-for-school late-career renaissance, rolls out a collection full of sacred classics that are so creatively, brilliantly rendered that i'll play them every year until even the Jesus freaks cain't take it no mo'! The doppelganger to this album is...
A LOVELY WAY TO SPEND CHRISTMAS, Kristin Chenoweth
I acquired this all tingly at the prospect of loving it forever. With her incandescent talent and pixie perkiness, Kristin rises above her religious views to take her place on the "Ten Most Fuckable Women in the World" list. There are just some women that, no matter what rambles out of their mouths, men simply need to put babies in. Despite some charming efforts however, the album falls flat as she rides that Jesus train.
Ah well. Whatever music brings joy to your ears, i wish you all a very merry, cherry cherry, holly holy, rock n' rolly Maxmas, all through the year.