Sounds of Christmas
I have finally figured out why I hate Christmas shopping. It came to me Thursday, in the massive Beverly Center mall. It wasn’t the crowds; there were no crowds. Early on a weekday, there were still only a comfortable number of shoppers. Enough to keep you company, not enough for jostling and bumping.
It wasn’t the parking: I walked over.
It wasn’t the prices; they were pretty reasonable and I’m not as broke as usual.
But something was setting my teeth on edge no matter what store I went into. Finally I figured it out. It was the music. Verily, I do loathe today’s music. It didn’t matter if it was a recent popular song or a Christmas song, everything I heard ran over my nerves like a pumice stone on a sunburn.
That I hate todays’ popular music was not a revelation. My sister and friends have patiently heard my diatribes on the arch yet nasal postulations of this year’s big-haired pouty princesses, who never seem to vary from one of two themes: Ooo baby you so fine and hot ooo baby baby yeah, and Don’t mess with me, you don’t know how tough I am that’s right, that’s right!
But there is something about today’s cover of Christmas songs that is a whole fresh, new form of torture. Female vocalists all seem to be striving for that intimate, jazzy, wry-in-sequins air of a Four Seasons lounge act, and male vocalists are convinced that they must sing Rum pah pum pum in some unique, arrhythmic tempo never before attempted.
As a result, Christmas shopping is like being on a cruise ship that has hit rough weather. After two hours of it, I was finished. Finally I went to the West Hollywood Target, which does not aspire to atmospheric pretensions. And for once, screaming children were music to my ears.
