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#1 Christmas Hit of All Time
Dec. 8th, 2013 04:13 pmWhen I was growing up, we had our handful of family Christmas recordings, but the one which was Christmas was a little black cassette tape with 'XMAS' written on a white label in red felt-tip pen. My parents had recorded it before I could remember; it was essentially a mixtape of favourite pieces from friends' and relations' Christmas albums, and was a mix of traditional carols and early music, which bore no resemblance to anything recognizably 'Christmas' but picked up the association by context. Mannheim Steamroller and Celine Dion entered our house down the line, and Janice's harp CD took over as my mum's favourite thing to put on when she was feeling seasonal, but childhood imprinting dies hard and this tape still reigned supreme in my personal Christmas canon.
A few years after I left for college my dad converted the tape into MP3s and burned a CD for me. I ripped it and spent a couple days learning the noise reduction tool in Audacity to cure the tracks of tape hiss, and patched that bit in 'The First Noel' which was swapped with the other side of the tape. The playlist (never shuffled, of course, because these songs have an order) has been on my iPod every Christmas since. I never thought I'd ever be able to track down the original recordings because there was no surviving record of what they were ... but I have just discovered a pristine digital copy* of my favourite track, which I listened to so many times I knew exactly how long to press 'rewind' to hit the beginning of it again:
One down, thirty to go. Actually, less than that now, this album has at least four of the pieces on the tape. Score!
Needless to say, I've never seen the point of modern Christmas music and find most of it really annoying, nevermind 'Christmassy.' Thanks, little black tape, for yet another disconnect from society! I don't know the words to 'Frosty the Snowman' but I can hum 'Conditor alme siderum' like nobody's business.
*as opposed to seventh-generation LP > cassette > MP3 > CD > MP3 > noise reduction filter > MP3
A few years after I left for college my dad converted the tape into MP3s and burned a CD for me. I ripped it and spent a couple days learning the noise reduction tool in Audacity to cure the tracks of tape hiss, and patched that bit in 'The First Noel' which was swapped with the other side of the tape. The playlist (never shuffled, of course, because these songs have an order) has been on my iPod every Christmas since. I never thought I'd ever be able to track down the original recordings because there was no surviving record of what they were ... but I have just discovered a pristine digital copy* of my favourite track, which I listened to so many times I knew exactly how long to press 'rewind' to hit the beginning of it again:
One down, thirty to go. Actually, less than that now, this album has at least four of the pieces on the tape. Score!
Needless to say, I've never seen the point of modern Christmas music and find most of it really annoying, nevermind 'Christmassy.' Thanks, little black tape, for yet another disconnect from society! I don't know the words to 'Frosty the Snowman' but I can hum 'Conditor alme siderum' like nobody's business.
*as opposed to seventh-generation LP > cassette > MP3 > CD > MP3 > noise reduction filter > MP3
