Transcript: Culture chat — a Christmas music special 

This is an audio transcript of the Life and Art from FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Culture chat: a Christmas music special’

Lilah Raptopoulos
Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos and this is our Friday chat show. Today we have decided to make a festive show by taking on a topic that comes around every year over and over. We keep getting older. It seems the same, and that is Christmas music. We will talk about the songs we love, the songs we hate, and why it all exists. I am joined by two very special guests with quite strong opinions on the topic. From London, the FT’s longtime pop music critic and a great friend of the podcast, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney. Ludo, welcome.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Thank you, Lilah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And here with me in New York is the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent, my neighbour in the newsroom, and a true Christmas music lover, the wonderful Taylor Nicole Rogers. Hi, Taylor.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Thanks for having me, Lilah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Thanks for being here. OK, so before we jump into the songs themselves, I would love everybody to place themselves. What is your big picture feeling about Christmas music as a genre? Ludo, why don’t you start? I remember you as a real Christmas music hater, but maybe that’s changed.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well, that’s a strong word, Lilah. A strong word. Well, I would say all I have is a limited tolerance for, like, Frosty the Snowman and for red-nosed reindeers and for chestnuts roasting on open fires, for children’s choirs and sleigh bells. I have very limited tolerance, and my tolerance level tends to be reached earlier and earlier each year because there’s so much Christmas music as we know. So, it’s around about now that I find my tolerance for all of these things which are on another day in a more perhaps, you know, sunnier one I could put up with.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Tell me, what about you?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I love Christmas music. I, in contrary, I tend to listen earlier and earlier and earlier every year. I just think it’s a genre that has, like, amazing variety. Like you have everything from, like, the old hymns to, like, really creative pop music that’s coming out every year. I just love how you’re positive and full of love and joy it is. In contrast to a lot of the other music that I listen to, which really has like very heavy themes sometimes. I love how I can just turn on Christmas music and just feel like happy and loved.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow, these are very different. I feel like I should take some in between. I like it. I’m pro. I think Christmas music is . . . It’s a season of repetition. It feels like the only season where everybody goes back to the hits in a unique way and that feels sort of comforting.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I mean, I don’t know Lilah, I would push you a little bit on that because people are releasing Christmas albums every single year. So I do have my, you know, classic favourites. For me, that’s, you know, Michael Bublé, which I recognise is not creative. But every single year there are new albums coming out and I do try to have a lot of really good variety, probably because I do listen to it for two full months.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
So, Taylor, two full months. When do you actually begin? You begin at the beginning of November?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I began November 1st. So my tradition is that when I come home from like whatever Halloween festivities I am doing that year, usually it’s after midnight, so it’s technically November 1st. And that is when I at like two o’clock in the morning, pull out my Christmas decorations, light my Christmas candles and turn on my Christmas music.

Lilah Raptopoulos
What is it for you, Ludo? I know you have to review a lot of Christmas albums for our pages. Is there like a time of the year that you are forced to begin listening?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
So Christmas-wise, the Christmas albums come out around sort of October onwards. Really, they start to arrive, but I don’t listen to them. Then I won’t review a Christmas album in October or November. I will . . . I will hold on to that. So the biggest Christmas album this year is by Cher — Cher’s Christmas that came out on something like October the 17th. But I wait and then I review them at the moment. So it will be in the newspaper next weekend will be my considerations of the Christmas music. So I listen to Christmas music from around about now. I also have a birthday on December the 18th, which is perhaps one problem that interferes. That’s my own personal Thanksgiving, so to speak. So I don’t really like to I mean that after the 18th, then you see then Christmas music can be more . . . is that’s kind of when I’d like to listen to it.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Listen, my birthday is December 20 and so that is no excuse.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Oh, my God. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, let’s get into songs. I’m going to ask you both to tell me your favourite Christmas song. Honestly, I disagree with the premise of this question a little bit because I don’t believe that favourites are really like, no one can have one favourite anything, but I am here for the holiday cheer. So for the sake of argument, if you had to pick one Christmas song as your Christmas song, what would it be? Ludo?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I will go, I think Lilah, for Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” from A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector released in 1963. Now wrecked, of course, by Spector’s awfulness and notoriety. But the song itself does actually survive for me as a Christmas song that I will happily go back to. And I could play that along Taylor’s sort of timeframe as well. I would happily listen to that on November 1st.

[‘CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME)’ BY DARLENE LOVE PLAYING]

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I think it’s a great one. I personally tend to prefer like the classic hymn , as I think I have to choose, like my one song I could listen to all year over and over again. But I really like everything that I listen to. Like the brand new albums that come out every year. I thought Cher’s was fantastic, of course. On that note, my favourite one is “Go, Tell It On The Mountain”. It’s an African-American spiritual song, and if you guys are familiar with it. It’s really beautiful, lots of really creative renditions, of everything from, you know, like the classic choir renditions to there are a couple, you know, recorded versions that are really fantastic as well. My favourite is by an artist named Francesca Battistelli.

[‘GO, TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN’ BY FRANCESCA BATTISTELLI PLAYING] 

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so in order for me to answer this question, I had to sort of narrow it down by category. But anyway, I chose to go pop cover songs of classics. And then I thought about album and I realised that the albums that represent the start of the Christmas season to me are albums that I grew up with, which is the compilation albums of A Very Special Christmas. This was a series of pop albums that came out in the 80s and 90s. They were meant to fundraise for the Special Olympics and they gave you real hits. You get “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-DMC, you get Salt-N-Pepa singing “Santa Baby”, you get “Merry Christmas Baby” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And then you get what I think is my favourite, which is the Eurythmics’ cover of “Winter Wonderland”. (chuckles)

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I’m going to look that up as soon as we’re done. 

[‘WINTER WONDERLAND’ BY EURYTHMICS PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
So I think that’s my pick. And the other one that I would pick is maybe “Silent Night” — classic, old school. You know, at a carol event, everyone lights each other’s candles. The song comes on. Her cry. It’s good.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Isn’t there a bit of a contradictory “Silent Night” there, Lilah? Which I agree, I do like, that would be on my list as well. But that shows that Christmas would also have a silent aspect, doesn’t it? I mean, the ideal . . . you know, the ideal imaginary Christmas is blanketed with snow, so you can’t hear anything outside. The world has come to a halt, hasn’t it? I mean, it’s quietness. It’s time for contemplation and reflection, instead of which these inane songs and jingles are just like filling our attention. We can’t . . . “Silent Night” is providing us with a Christmas song, which is telling us to be quiet.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(Laughter) That’s true. It’s telling us.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I would argue . . . I would argue more that, you know, the Christmas story referenced in “Silent Night” is saying that the first Christmas was silent. (Laughter)

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Very good.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so we’ve been working up to this, which is least favourite songs, and now we’re in it. Ludo, what to you is the worst song of Christmas. Like, what is one song that you would happily never hear again?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
My worst is Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe”.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
No. Oh, my god.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Yes. Yes.

[‘MISTLETOE’ BY JUSTIN BIEBER PLAYING]

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Why? 

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Clearly that “Mistletoe” . . . Why? Oh, good God. It’s a so. It’s just the smell. Saccharin. It’s his voice. It’s the idea about being anywhere, the idea about Justin Bieber being near the mistletoe. (Laughter) Everything about it is that mistletoe should be ripped down from the ceiling. I can’t stop. I would also add to that I would add any version of “Jingle Bells” because I really can’t bear “Jingle Bells”.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, it’s just too simple.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
It’s just so peppy and up and just, like. Just like I always say, the sound of jingle . . . jingling bells is not a nice sound, isn’t it?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Yes, it is.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
No. Jingles. All right. An advertising jingle gets in your head, but a jingling thing is just, like, very clashy and . . . no, no, no.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I literally have a jingle bells on the reef, on the front door of my apartment, so I can hear them every time I open the door. And for the record, “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber is one of the classics of my generation’s Christmas music. I fully believe that he will be Mariah Carey in 20 years.

Lilah Raptopoulos
You think that song? I don’t know. I might not agree with you.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well in that case, I will become like, are you familiar, both of you, with the game Whamageddon? Whamaggedon.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
No.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
. . . where you have to avoid hearing Wham’s “Last Christmas” for as long as possible. The moment you hear it, you lose the game. Well, maybe I should be doing that with “Mistletoe”. I’ll definitely be doing that with “Mistletoe”. 

Taylor Nicole Rogers
You will, and you will lose because it will be everywhere. I feel like that song, and then the Ariana Grande song. What is it called?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Yes, that’s “Santa Tell Me”.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
“Santa Tell Me”. I felt like ... 

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
That I do like.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
OK, good. I felt like those have become, felt like the 2010’s classic Christmas hit.

[‘SANTA TELL ME’ BY ARIANA GRANDE PLAYING] 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Can I tell you my least favourite song? It’s not. You’re not going to be happy about it, Taylor. I mean, there are very few renditions of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” that I like. I think the Pointer Sisters did it best.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I would agree. Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
But the Jackson Five version is really excruciating to me.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Interesting.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I really struggle with it. I’m like sometimes it’ll come on in the background and I’ll be like, why am I anxious? Like, what’s going on? And it’s because young Michael Jackson is screaming, “Santa Claus is coming to town” at me and I don’t want to be yelled at.

[‘SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN BY JACKSON FIVE PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. I’d love to zoom out for a minute now and just ask what is going on with Christmas music? Big picture. Ludo, you’re an expert. Brenda Lee’s song “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” is approximately 60 years old and it just hit number one in the Billboard Top 100 this year for the first time. What . . . Can you explain that?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Ah. Brenda Lee is 79 and we originally released that song . . . Oh, gosh, something like 1964. And it didn’t do particularly well. And it’s then become a Christmas staple. And in the last four years, Christmas music has taken over the charts because of streaming. And this song has become one of the big songs for this time of year, and it’s always battling Mariah for the top spot in the US and Mariah always wins. But this year, Brenda Lee, her song, has gone and reached number one, making her the oldest now person ever to have a number one in America.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Wow. That’s incredible.

Lilah Raptopoulos
How does it all work? Like, how are old songs topping charts now that’s different from the past?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well, so at the moment, we now have these charts that go with all of these songs, 15 out of 20 in the UK, 13 out of 20 in the US, and they’re all there because they’re being streamed. And what streaming has done is it’s made everybody aware that there are lots of people like Taylor who love Christmas music, which I think wasn’t so apparent before, even though there’s always been a lot of Christmas music being made. It never really was in the charts in the same way because it wasn’t so easy to and tabulate, frankly, how much people love Christmas music. And now because of streaming, it’s a sort of democratising mechanism in that sense, because everybody knows how much everybody loves all of these songs, but they also changed the rules of the charts so that old catalogue songs were able to get in the charts, which previously they were disallowed. The result of that is basically that we now have this explosion in Christmas music. Mariah Carey is thought to make about $3mn per year from “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. I mean, these have become . . . it’s become a very . . . it’s become a business. It’s become a big business. And so lots of people are now being attracted to it. Hence the amount of Christmas albums and Christmas music being made each year grows and the catalogue of Christmas music remains sort of current because of the fact that they can be listened to on streaming platforms.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. And then why do stars put them out? Is it just an easy way to get press without having to do too much original songwriting?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well, that’s a cynical . . . that’s one a cynical . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Sorry. (Laughter)

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I think that Taylor’s advocacy of Christmas music has rubbed off on me and I’m not going to be that cynical. I mean, Cher . . . let’s take Cher as an example. This is her first Christmas album. So she and . . . Cher was sung back-up vocals on that Darlene Love song that I mentioned earlier. And Darlene Love, in fact, turns up on her version of that song on her album. So Cher has been in music for a long time, and this is her first Christmas album. Why should she go and do that? Well, I suppose that it’s become a gap in someone’s catalogue now. If you don’t have a Christmas album, you need to have one.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Yeah, I was just going to say, as a listener who’s by no means a music expert, but more of, you know, an enthusiast, I remember seeing my favourite artists come out with Christmas albums and I was always like, Oh, they must have nothing else to do. But in my mind, you know it def-- The profile has definitely risen of Christmas music, and I think we’re seeing a lot of really cool, interesting and creative Christmas music in the past couple of years, which I really appreciated. You know, my . . . I think my favourite new Christmas album this year is an EP by Sabrina Carpenter called Fruitcake, and I think that is really interesting. All of the songs are original and super creative.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Nice. Ludo, As we get towards the end, are there any albums that you’ve been listening to, to review this year that you’ve . . . that have interested you?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I’ve enjoyed the Gregory Porter one. Cher, I’m hesitant to say what I think about Cher with Taylor’s having enjoyed it so much. What did you like about the Cher album, Taylor? If you could just . . . 

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I just like Cher. 

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
OK. Yeah. That’s fair enough.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I will say I did only listen to it once, whereas I do tend to like repeat other albums more.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, I actually. Sorry, Taylor. I love Cher. She’s my Armenian queen, but . . . But she . . . I didn’t. I just liked it to spend time with her. I’m not sure I really, like, liked it.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I think that’s fair. 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. What about you, Ludo? 

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I was some . . . It doesn’t feel like a very nice or seasonal thing to do to be mean about Cher, does it?

Lilah Raptopoulos
No, it’s the worst.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
She’s reached that level where you can’t really be mean about her. But the album does slightly sort of push one in that direction. And I enjoyed the “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” that she does with Darlene Love, that she sang the back-up vocals for on the original. Darlene Love joins her on this one. I did like that. There was a nice sense of ends being tied there, but I have to say that the other songs were a bit of a struggle for me. And as a really horrific hip hop song on there.

Lilah Raptopoulos
There is. (Laughter).

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
There’s a rich, rich, really? Well, don’t unwrap that one, you know, take that one under the sofa. Don’t go near it. So, yeah, that was . . . I wasn’t so sure about that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
As my final question: what is the dream? You know, like, do you have a dream song that you would love to hear that doesn’t exist? Or is there something that you want out of Christmas music that you’re not getting? Like, looking to the future, you could have anything you wanted. What would you want out of this season?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I want Adele Christmas.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, you want Adele Christmas? Good, yeah. Why?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I love Adele, and I love Christmas. I think that would be spectacular. I would also love to see — I don’t know if you guys remember, like years and years ago, there were, like, you know, random viral videos of, like, choirs of celebrities singing various Christmas songs. I would love to see, like, all of the main pop girls at the moment, like, do some sort of like mass collab Christmas album as well. Like, I want to see like Taylor Swift, I want to see Dua Lipa, like, I want to see all of them together.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, as a choir. Yeah, as our 2024 choir.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I think that’d be so fun for next Christmas.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Great. We’ll make it happen. Ludo, what about you?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I tune in for both of those. I have to say, those are good ideas. I’m going to go to. I’m going to go to another extreme on that one. And I was listening the other day on the radio. Iggy Pop has a radio show over here in Britain on the BBC, and he was joined by Tom Waits. And the pair of them were talking and their voices were rumbling away. You know, it was just like my kitchen was vibrating. And I would love to hear the two of them do a Christmas duets album.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Ludo, last time you were on, you said that you wanted Tom Waits song to go viral on TikTok.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well, I’m predictable, I’m afraid to say.

Lilah Raptopoulos
But I want this for you. I want Tom Waits to get the . . . get the Gen Z, Gen Alpha.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
I should be careful for what I wish, shouldn’t I? Should really be careful what I wish. Maybe my love with, you know. The power of the FT Arts podcast could well be you know, I’m nervous now. I’m nervous. Thought well, I might have unleashed, what you’re going to unleash on the world for me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, that’s funny. Ludo, Taylor, thank you so much. We will be back in just a minute for More or Less.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Welcome back for More or Less — the part of the show where we each bring in one thing we want more of or less of culturally. Ludo, why don’t we start with you? What do you want?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Well, I want to go to the cinema more because I think that we’re reaching a sort of use it or lose it stage with the cinema that they’ll all shut down if we don’t go to them.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, that’s a great one. Taylor, what about you?

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Are either of you familiar with this trend of dopamine decor?

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
No.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
So it’s this . . . It’s . . . I mean, I’m not on TikTok, but I believe it originated there. It’s this trend where you, like, put things in your home that make you very happy to look at. I think it’s a bit of a reaction against the, like, minimalist, neutral thing we’ve been having for the past couple of years. And in this vein, I recently purchased a vintage 1970s pink couch for my apartment, and it just makes me so happy every time I look at it. So I want to lean further into the world of like, things that just, you know, like, radiate joy in interior design.

Lilah Raptopoulos
More dopamine decor.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Absolutely.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Beautiful. Mine is more . . . this is a little broad, but mine is more talking to your grandparents.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I love this.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I’m writing a piece about recipes right now, like how we write down recipes as a way to preserve culture and memory and stuff. And so I’ve been making this Middle Eastern dish called dolma a lot, so I’ve been like stuffing peppers and stuffing grape leaves and stuffing tomatoes and stuffing cabbage. And last week, I stuffed an entire pumpkin.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
That’s fantastic.

Lilah Raptopoulos
With rice to make this dish. And it was bad. It looked beautiful and it tasted bad. And I wanted to call my Armenian and Greek grandmothers, but they died a long time ago. So that’s my cultural recommendation. Call your grandparents, write down their recipes, cook them. And then tell me about it.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
I second that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Get that stuff down. Ludo, Taylor, this is amazing. Thank you so much. And please come back again soon.

Taylor Nicole Rogers
Thanks, Lilah.

Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Thank you, Lilah.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I highly recommend you check out the show notes. We have links in there to everything that we talked about, including some of Ludo’s reviews and a Spotify playlist that we made of the song that we referenced in the show. All of the links in the show notes will get you past the paywall on FT.com. In the show notes, we also have discount codes for a subscription to the FT. And as always, ways to keep in touch with me and with the show on email and Instagram. Side note: if you have strong thoughts on recipes, get in touch with me. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos, and here is my talented team: Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a lovely weekend and we’ll find each other again on Monday.

[MUSIC PLAYING]