Every year around Christmas time, websites, news outlets and blogs pile on poor Christmas music, mocking the Christmas music that the writer considers the worst. The dynamic usually feels like a return to high school, where the songs are deemed inferior for the listed reasons, but really, they’re shunned because they’re not cool enough. Is Christmas music really that uncool? Or are there cool Christmas songs? If there are, what makes them cool?
Tulane University professor Joel Dinerstein has made a study of cool, and he is my guest this week on “12 Songs.” In 2014, Dinerstein co-curated the “American Cool” photography and cultural history exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, and he wrote three books on the subject, American Cool, Coach: A Study of New York Cool, and The Origins of Cool in Postwar America.
In our conversation, we talk about the Ray Conniff Singers, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, The Crystals, Dean Martin and more to discover that yes, some songs are cool, some are definitely uncool, and some become cool part way through.
Pink Martini
Jimbo Mathus of Squirrel Nut Zippers
Johnny Mathis
Lowland Hum
Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5
Darling West
The 179 Days of Christmas
Los Straitjackets, and The Band's "Christmas Must Be Tonight"
Chris Butler of The Waitresses
Rodney Crowell and Flow Tribe
PJ Morton, and "All I Want for Christmas is You"
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Kristin Chambers and Mars Williams
Delicate Steve, and Outkast's "Player's Ball"
Wizards of Winter, and Faith Hill's "A Baby Changes Everything"
The Sultans of String and The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling"
Robert Earl Keen
Michael Cerveris and Kimberly Kaye of Loose Cattle
Ben Schenck of the Panorama Jazz Band
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