LogFAQs > #970177081

Judgmenl posted...

Once that generation dies off will these songs dies off as well?

Considering that every generation since has basically grown up hearing them constantly spammed over the radio (and everywhere else), they're not really tied to the 50s (any more than Carol of the Bells or 12 Days of Christmas are tied to the 1910s), and they probably aren't going anywhere.

It's why new Christmas songs occasionally get added to the traditional repertoire, but you rarely see the older ones falling out of fashion. Sure, it can happen - and you occasionally get a situation like people realizing that "Baby It's Cold Outside" is kind of rapey so growing adverse to it - but generally once a song enters the "universal playlist" it's probably going to be there long after the people who heard it first are dead.

If anything, the more interesting thing is that there really haven't been all that many big Christmas songs becoming "universal" since the 90s (Mariah Carey being the last big one that caught on). Everything else since seems like more of a flash in the pan that might be trendy for a year or two, or sort of an also-ran for a bit after - but it feels like people are more likely to forget every song from the last 50 years before they start forgetting the ones from the 1950s.

Basically, the growing cynicism of the public and the homogeneity of corporate music may have made it nearly impossible for new Christmas songs to catch on at all. So far from the older ones eventually going away, they may wind up being the only ones we ever have.