Holiday Music Made Me Load Up The iPod

Yes, call me contrary but I hate holiday music.

It started in OCTOBER for crying out loud.  Hearing about Sleigh Bells in South Florida in October when it is 85 is just stupid.

Oh and before the right wing nuts and their foolish brethren get all bent out of shape, it is HOLIDAY music.  The radio station I turned on when my MP3 player ran out of music on the dog walk this morning was playing a Hanukkah song so stuff your self-righteous criticism of my use of the English Language.

"Holiday Music" is

1. More Inclusive
2. More Correct
3. and More Politically Correct.

That unpleasantness aside, I had been listening to the Pops channel on Sirius XM as well as their Classical channel since October as a "change of pace".  It stuck all November.

All the while I was listening to Mendelssohn and Beethoven and Vivaldi I heard the rumbling of the hooves of eight tiny reindeer and a big fat guy who supposedly slips into your house, eats your cookies, drinks your milk, and does god knows what with the dying Douglas Fir that you had killed for the Baby Jesus in the corner of your 2/1 home in the suburbs.

In short, Sirius XM went Holiday Music on their Pops Channel.  Thanks folks, I love paying for something I don't need when you have plenty of empty channels on your service to run something "new and different for the holidays". 

I should never have gotten Sirius about Satellite Radio.  Sheesh!

So in anticipation of having to listen to warmed over "favorites" from the 60s, the 1860s, the 1760s, the 1660s, as well as from the Latin World, the Jewish World, and the Country World, I took the high road.  I turned off Sirius today.  After a month of Classical and Baroque, swapping over to current hits just didn't feel right.

I had spent some Sirius time loading up the iPod with a broad variety of music that I had on CD here and haven't listened to in quite a while.  That collection of Beethoven's 9 symphonies joined some trance music I hadn't listened to in a while as well as a disco collection.

Funny, the iPod doesn't feel heavier carrying all those CDs does it?

You can enjoy your Holiday Music, I have the last movement of Beethoven's 9th singing in German in my ears blotting out all the outside din.  Later, I'll slide into some Armin van Buuren I'm sure.

That's the nice thing about technology.  Properly harnessed it can isolate you from some rather annoying things that are in society and create a bubble of calm in a sea of strife.

Why I got into it today was the local NPR station finally tipped the scale and broke that camel's back.  They're in a pledge break.  I can remember before they had commercials on there for "Listeners like you and the Koch Foundation" and it was just "Listeners Like You".  They weren't shilling for every mom and pop business who could ante up and buy commercial time.  Now, they're down to the level of every other commercial radio station, plus pledge breaks.

I changed the channel fast.

The Classical station here was playing something unintelligeable through the static.

The local dance station was doing some holiday music about Eight Crazy Nights around the Hanukkah celebration.

The Spanish Station played an English song that went into something holiday. I can't be sure, I don't speak Spanish but would love to learn.  Too bad, that's a great alternative station and I actually do enjoy Salsa and Merengue music.

*Click*

Got home, put on the iPod and isolated myself.

Since Beethoven's 9th is over it's time to change tracks... Lets see what's next.

No Jingle Bells required.