🎄 Holidays! Holiday Playlists

[Rudy]

I'm listening to a great playlist on Spotify, compiled by legendary XM Radio DJ Matt The Cat. Click the link to listen:

A Matt The Cat Christmas

Do you often "mix it up" for the holidays, and have your own selections of tunes you play yearly? Let's hear about 'em! I'll post a playlist later myself--still compiling.

 

[Harry]

As mentioned in other threads, I've been compiling WMA discs for play in the car every year since I discovered my car played those kinds of discs. Initially it was just a bunch of files thrown onto the disc in no particular order - all of the TJB tracks, all of the Carpenters tracks, and all of the SOMETHING FESTIVE tracks, mixed in with a few perennials like Bing Crosby, Mannheim Steamroller, etc.

Gradually, I've increased the number of what are my other favorite Christmas recordings onto the list and have recently been doing more "programming" of the disc in the last couple of years. Most of the time it sounds a good bit like a typical pop holiday radio station with a serious bent toward A&M.

I always "debut" the disc in a rental car in Chicago over Thanksgiving, and then bring it home for our travels around town. It'll remain active for another week, and then get hauled in right after New Years.

Harry

 

[Rudy]

I have been wanting to redo my Something Festive compilation, but various technical issues have come up. The new cartridge (ordered from the UK two days ago, thanks to some unused Amazon UK gift certificates) is on the way, and now my outboard analog/digital converter is no longer supported with drivers, so I can't do anything about it now.

At least on Spotify I can find my favorites and compile them into a list. I had Matt's playlist on for about three hours yesterday, and am going to hit it today also. I bought this neat Bluetooth audio receiver that lets you use any Bluetooth device to stream music to your audio system. I am using the laptop for that.

 

[Rudy]

I actually think I might listen to Xmas music more if I had it in a playlist. (As a rule I don't bother with burning to CDs anymore, but still could put them into ~80 minute segments that could easily be burned out to a disc.) Since there are few albums I can listen to all the way through, I'd rather just cull the best from all of them and sequence it all nicely.

I was so busy this season that I pretty much just kept Matt's playlist in constant rotation. I'd tried on Xmas Eve to play a couple of favorites, but getting up to change the LP every couple of tracks got to be very trying on my patience.

At least I have a year to perfect my holiday playlist though. And having Matt's playlist, I've discovered quite a few more I could add.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

What I play depends on where I'm at.

At the store, we have lately been listening to "Classic Vinyl" on Sirius XM. They mix in the occasional Christmas song -- I"ve heard Elton John's "Step Into Christmas" and the Eagles "Please Come Home For Christmas" and a few others I can't remember.

In the theatre, for pre-show we started playing XM Channel 4, "Holiday Traditions," the day after Thanksgiving. They seem to have updated that channel somewhat this year -- previously it was all Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Andrews Sisters and the like. But this year I've heard a lot of Carpenters, and even heard Herb's "The Bell That Couldn't Jingle" the other night which was a nice surprise.

In my vehicle, I'll play whatever strikes my fancy -- I listened to Herb's Christmas Album twice this year (once straight through, once on "shuffle" just to mix it up).

At my home office, I have an all-Christmas playlist, and I also turn off the "skip when shuffling" feature on iTunes so that the occasional Christmas song pops up if I'm listening to mainstream stuff.

For my wife's apartment (she has a place in Billings for when she spends 2 or 3 days there working), I found two new (to us) Windham Hill compilations that we were planning to play on Christmas Eve, but then the CD player in her boom-box quit working so we went to local Christian radio which was playing non-stop music all night.

This year for the first time in many years, I didn't hear Arthur Fiedler's rendition of "Sleigh Ride" or "Carol of the Bells," which I usually manage to hear a few times. Just never came up in the rotation this year. I also did not listen to any Mannheim Steamroller this year, but we did go see their Christmas concert on Nov. 16 so I got a good dose of their tunes then.

 

[Dave]

Here it is already the New Year (and when WILL I ever stop hearing "Happy New Year!"????) and still more Christmas stuff that I'd recently got, mostly in eBay wins--and get this: CD's just for a DOLLAR in PERFECT SHAPE, that I am continuing to play!!!!

It's been Various Artists sets on CD's & some vinyl, w/ a Pat Boone track, or two, that I'd thought I'd never buy just because I'm not Christmas Music's Biggest Fan & because whatever Pat did, even Christmas wise, I already have...

None-the-less, I am enjoying all of it, (Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", Buril Ives' "Have A Holly, Jolly Christmas", and especially the 'Original Mix' of Bobby Helm's "Jingle Bell Rock", are worth having & playing--even when it ISN'T Christmas!)...

Even if it is like ordering a whole roasted pig, just for a baked apple!!!!


-- Dave