is the pendulum swinging the other way?
On Tuesday I mentioned that Michael Silence had quoted from my blog entry about radio airplay of secular vs. religious Christmas music. I was thinking about those comments yesterday while in traffic near the mall. I also was flipping between three local stations that are playing only holiday songs. Love 89 is all-Christmas for just this week. B97.5 switched on the day after Thanksgiving. EZ88 has been in the Christmas spirit since a week after Halloween.
Every time I came out of a store and got back in the car, it seemed that B97.5 was playing a religious song. I heard "Mary, Did You Know" by Kenny Rogers, "O Holy Night" by Josh Groban and "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by Whitney Houston. Could it be that this station was reacting to all the "War on Christmas" hype by playing more religious songs?
With this on my mind, I went to Wal-Mart's "Holiday Shop." I had hoped to take a photo of their "Illuminated Donkey" to show you. For some reason the phrase "illuminated donkey" makes me smile. Anyway, they were sold out of illuminated donkeys but they still had some camels and sheep. All the giant nativity figures seemed to be selling well. The ones they had left were prominently displayed and you could tell that the shelves and pallets were being depleted.
Just inside the "Holiday Shop" entrance was a little boombox playing an all-Christmas radio station. Between songs there were announcements for local churches and other Christian messages. I realized that I was hearing Love 89, the Christian hits station, inside a Wal-Mart. Here's where it gets confusing. The Christian station was playing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," a secular song. But it wasn't the Brenda Lee version. The deejay said that it was by Mercy Me and that they would be performing the song on that night's Jay Leno show.
So now I'm thinking that I'm hearing religious songs on the commercial station and secular songs on the Christian station. When I got home, I clicked onto a great website called Yes.com. It lets you look up the songs played on many radio stations in the last 24 hours. B97.5 did play the religious songs I heard but they were spread out over a couple of hours and almost all the songs in between were secular. Love 89 is filling their time with some secular songs but often using versions performed by Christian artists. EZ88 plays a lot of songs that the Yes.com software doesn't recognize, making it look like they play less music than they actually do.
I loaned some of my Christmas CDs to Star 102.1 to freshen up the Christmas rotations. This morning we played five Christmas songs, four of which had come from my collection: "Santa Baby" by the Pussycat Dolls, "My Grown Up Christmas List" by Kelly Clarkson, "Angels We Have Heard On High" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra and "Silent Night" by Lifehouse. Nearing the end of the morning show the score was Religious 2, Secular 2. The tie breaking song was... "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney.
Every time I came out of a store and got back in the car, it seemed that B97.5 was playing a religious song. I heard "Mary, Did You Know" by Kenny Rogers, "O Holy Night" by Josh Groban and "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by Whitney Houston. Could it be that this station was reacting to all the "War on Christmas" hype by playing more religious songs?
With this on my mind, I went to Wal-Mart's "Holiday Shop." I had hoped to take a photo of their "Illuminated Donkey" to show you. For some reason the phrase "illuminated donkey" makes me smile. Anyway, they were sold out of illuminated donkeys but they still had some camels and sheep. All the giant nativity figures seemed to be selling well. The ones they had left were prominently displayed and you could tell that the shelves and pallets were being depleted.
Just inside the "Holiday Shop" entrance was a little boombox playing an all-Christmas radio station. Between songs there were announcements for local churches and other Christian messages. I realized that I was hearing Love 89, the Christian hits station, inside a Wal-Mart. Here's where it gets confusing. The Christian station was playing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," a secular song. But it wasn't the Brenda Lee version. The deejay said that it was by Mercy Me and that they would be performing the song on that night's Jay Leno show.
So now I'm thinking that I'm hearing religious songs on the commercial station and secular songs on the Christian station. When I got home, I clicked onto a great website called Yes.com. It lets you look up the songs played on many radio stations in the last 24 hours. B97.5 did play the religious songs I heard but they were spread out over a couple of hours and almost all the songs in between were secular. Love 89 is filling their time with some secular songs but often using versions performed by Christian artists. EZ88 plays a lot of songs that the Yes.com software doesn't recognize, making it look like they play less music than they actually do.
I loaned some of my Christmas CDs to Star 102.1 to freshen up the Christmas rotations. This morning we played five Christmas songs, four of which had come from my collection: "Santa Baby" by the Pussycat Dolls, "My Grown Up Christmas List" by Kelly Clarkson, "Angels We Have Heard On High" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra and "Silent Night" by Lifehouse. Nearing the end of the morning show the score was Religious 2, Secular 2. The tie breaking song was... "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney.
posted by Frank Murphy at
2:36 PM
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