Holiday music serves as a time machine to childhood memories
A good holiday song should make you overflow with nostalgia and sentimentality. It should transport you out of the harsh Target lighting and to a cozy fireplace, or your favorite winter memory. It should make you want to drive around in your car with the heat cranked and the volume blasting, clutching a steaming drink. The sound of the opening chords alone should melt away your stress.
According to The New York Post, millennials, or individuals from ages 24-40, account for the largest percentage of holiday music fans, standing at 36%. Millennials and their excitement over holiday music have influenced major radio stations to flip their broadcasting formats to non-stop Christmas tunes from Thanksgiving until the end of the year. This is also an attempt to win back the streaming service listeners, as Spotify’s largest population of listeners are millennials aged 25-34.
But why do millennials love Christmas music so much? According to Santa Radio, “Millennials are significantly more likely to feel nostalgic and to buy into anything that reminds them of their childhood.” Holiday music is known for the joy it promotes in listeners because of its catchy lyrics and gleeful chords, which have the power to transport people to childhood memories.
All generations are sentimental for their pasts, but perhaps the complete world-wide restructuring that millennials saw through their young lives such as the popularization of the internet and unprecedented globalization makes them yearn for a simpler time around the holiday season more than others.
Millennial taste in Christmas music has a strong influence on what is considered popular. The most popularized holiday songs on Spotify’s top 10 globally streamed chart all represent the steady globalization of Christmas as a commercialized celebration.
“Holiday music is known for the joy it promotes in listeners because of its catchy lyrics and gleeful chords.”
This list includes hits like: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me.” The lists lacks some of the more religious classics such as “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World,” which tracks with the declining religious population within younger generations.
For those who prefer a soulful listening experience compared to millennials’ largely pop taste, Joni Mitchell’s “River,” Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me,” and The Eagles’ “Please Come Home for Christmas” check that box. These songs simultaneously touch on the longing and reflection experienced by many during this season, as well as the warmth and humanity that are shown.
