When Esther asked me to write about Christmas music, I cringed. My taste in music is a bit of an embarrassment, and I'm afraid that's even more reflected in my Christmas music collection, since it's harder to camouflage the blushworthy stuff in the smaller pool.
But here goes. I own thirteen Christmas CDs (that I could find). I decided to look through the little stack and see what songs made multiple appearances. Perhaps in someone else's collection the Christmas songs would make more of a showing, but in mine the most popular of them topped out at three appearances each:
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
White Christmas
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Deck the Halls
As for carols, three appearances is the least worth mentioning:
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Gesu Bambino
Coventry Carol
Joy to the World
With four appearances, we have:
Angels We Have Heard on High
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
Showing up five times:
Away in a Manger
What Child is This?
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
The First Noel
An unsurprising six times:
O Holy Night
(Really, Josh Groban? No O Holy Night??)
But most impressively, twelve times out of thirteen:
Silent Night
I think we have a clear winner. Professor Google seems to agree that Silent Night is the most recorded carol, being known to have been attempted by over 300 artists, with the caveat that it's not proven that another song hasn't been recorded by more. Who wants to go dig up the truth?
My favorite songs are the less popular ones, unsurprisingly, since I haven't had the chance to overhear them so much. But really? I just love all Christmas music. Bring it on. (Except the guilt-trip music. Please don't bring that on.)
November 30, 2010 at 6:11 AM
The Christmas Brass CD looks very familiar.... is it IBLP? :)
November 30, 2010 at 8:19 AM
I always loved "Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella" Because it's my mom's name and I always thought that was unbelievably cool as a child.
I am actually just now hearing some Christmas songs I didn't know (on my vinyl records)
November 30, 2010 at 5:44 PM
Christmas in Brass isn't produced by IBLP, but it does look like the kind of thing they would sell! I'm pretty sure we have a hymns in brass CD we bought from them.
November 30, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Duh. It says "Featuring Dallas Brass." I wasn't paying attention :)
December 5, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Josh Groban has an O Holy Night rendition on his "Josh Groban: In Concert" cd. Which I have. It's one of my favorite renditions EVER of the song. (Tied with Celine Dion's version.)
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