In the 1990s, I worked at a video arcade. We had a VHS tape on a loop that we would get updated by mail once a month. It had a selection of music videos, cartoons, and other short things that no one ever paid attention to. That song was on the tape the December it came out. Because I worked a 40 hour week and we had the tape for a month and I had to hear the song once an hour, I heard it for a total of 160 times that month.
Home Depot has had Christmas decorations out since early September. There's a war, alright, and Christmas is the aggressor. Repetitive, banal music is just one of its weapons.
In Canada stores put out thier merchandise the same time they put out the Halloween stuff. However, Christmas blow up displays and tree displays, instore decorations or music normally don't get put up until after Rememberance Day (Nov 11) out of respect.
I am really getting sick of Christmas shit being displayed and pushed in October. Quit ruining Halloween. Save that shit for Thanksgiving at least that closer to it.
For one I say Fuck Christmas and will not celebrate it. It all capitalism bullshit only reason they keep starting so early. Soon as fall hits they start right off with the Christmas shit because I guess Halloween doesn't have the financial draw for retail as Christmas.
Halloween is way too soon for Christmas anything and I refuse to partake in anything Christmas until about Thanksgiving.
I hate Christmas from the business perspective too. It's almost all a cash grab and it's all so fucking hollow and shallow feeling.
I like a quiet Christmas experience. Every Christmas movie basically has the same moral. It's the people and the time spent with them, and I try to focus on that instead of all the corporate chaos. I like the religious aspect of it too, because Jesus isn't trying to sell me anything.
Oh she's defrosted alright. My company sent the memo to start playing the Xmas playlist starting today, for 50% of tracks. Then December up to 100%.
I'm happy I'm WFH and can listen to whatever I like.
We need the holiday music draft. I'll take ALL your Mariah songs if you just take my "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" by Wings. I adore McCartney, saw him in concert. I hate this song.
You and I will have to fight for Mariah, but you can take Faliz Navidad.
My Christmas playlist starts with 3 copies of All I Want for Christmas is You because we listen on shuffle and all we want for Christmas is that song. (That is followed by about a dozen Glee tracks. I'll feed on your hate now.)
Am I the only one who likes this song? I even love Last Christmas. I think it's because I don't go into brick and mortar stores often, so I can go a whole season and only hear it a few times. Somehow I hear Father Christmas and Christmas Wrapping way more often.
Retailers want to play Christmas music to encourage shopping, but only secular music to avoid causing offense. If you look at all the most popular Christmas songs and take out any that with religious lyrics (Silent Night, Joy to the World, Oh Come all ye Faithful, etc.) you'd be hard pressed to put together a playlist longer than an hour or two.
An employee working an eight hour shift will therefore hear the same song a minimum of four times. In my experience it's closer to six, but we'll be conservative here. That means Mariah Carey is telling you that you're all she wants for Christmas at least twenty times a week. Most stores start up the Christmas music in early November, but we're being charitable and saying the music will be playing from Thanksgiving through the week of Christmas.
The TL;DR is that your average full-time retail worker is going to hear the same few Christmas songs a bare minimum of 80-120 times during the busiest time of the year. That figure doubles in a worst case scenario where a one hour loop is played starting after Halloween. A ton of people have worked retail at some point on their lives so while you might not be the only one who likes this song you might have a hard time finding people who don't have a knee-jerk resentment towards it.
There's a reason this song is played a lot at Christmas: people like it. It's just that the people who don't like it really don't like it, probably due to how much it gets played.