Christmas 2024

[miqrogroove]

Option 1:  Christmas 2024 Vocal

Option 2:  Christmas 2024 Instrumental

Option 3:  Christmas 2024 Additions

Option 4:  Rob's Christmas Favorites



2024 Theme Detail

I like to make changes each year. For 2024, I've reorganized the Vocal and Instrumental playlists. They are now in "custom" shuffled ordered so that you can play them top to bottom without worrying about the extra buttons. This should help folks who were trying to resume the playlist from a specific song without changing the sort order.

Strong traditional and family-oriented musical styles are an ongoing criteria.

Yes, you can still find good songs!

Compatible subgenres: Classic carols, classical & instrumental performances, international / world / foreign language carols, medleys, interludes, orchestras, symphonies, choirs, waltzes, hymns/psalms, folk, showtunes, and jazz.

Here are types of songs often clashing with the theme, and need to be exceptionally Christmassy: Heavy metal, electronica, instrumental solos, vocal solos, blues, lullabies, spoken word, overly-long tracks like The 12 Days of Christmas, classical albums with no recognizable Christmas tradition, and tracks with corporate or semi-anonymous credits.

We have 4 playlists divided by vocal, non-vocal instrumental, new songs this year, and personal favorites. Except for the "Additions" playlist, they are all full of great songs from last year, and we will discuss suggestions for adds and deletes.

Rob's Christmas Favorites playlist is my personal selection, where I get to pick my favorite songs from all the new additions, and delete anything I don't like anymore. Comments and encouragement are welcome!

The Additions playlist is featured so that you can play it directly from this page or follow the links. The widget will update weekly so that the newest songs are added to the list.

Vocal from last year: 628 songs in 32 hours.

Instrumental from last year: 369 songs total in 20 hours.




2024 Kickoff

The adds are a little shorter for the first week so that I could focus on rebuilding the lists before the kickoff.

Vocal:

Barenaked Ladies - Christmastime
Ray Charles - Santa Claus is Comin' to Town


Instrumental:

Björk - Frosti
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - On Christmas Night


Nurfed by Spotify this year:

Craig Duncan - Gloucestershire Wassail
Jessica Campbell - See Amid the Winter's Snow
Jessica Campbell - Under a Tree
Jessica Campbell - Winter Song
Mănăstirea Cămârzani - Condacul Nașterii
Rudolph & Blitzen - Suo Gan
Sam Rizzetta - Good King Wenceslas
Sam Rizzetta - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
The LDS Christmas Ensemble - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Tim Halperin - Under That Christmas Spell


Songs removed by me for theme development:

Alessia Cara - Make it to Christmas [too much autotune]
Holiday Favorites - Ding Dong Merrily On High [uncredited]
Holiday Favorites - Good King Wenceslas [uncredited]
Lena Horne - Santa Claus is Coming to Town [loudness]
Nelidova Records - Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella [uncredited]
Nelidova Records - Good King Wenceslas [uncredited]
Nelidova Records - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear [uncredited]
Nelidova Records - Joy to the World [uncredited]
Studio Sunset - Interlude [uncredited]
The Symphonic Lounge Orchestra - Sleigh Ride [uncredited]
The Symphonic Lounge Orchestra - We Wish You a Merry Christmas [uncredited]


🎄
Discussion Schedule

Suggestions and requests are welcome!

The thread started later this year to allow more prep time. The warm weather really changed the vibe too!

The primary goal is to finish most playlist editing in the first week of December.

Playlist editing officially ends on Christmas Day.



Listening Ideas

On Windows, you can use Chrome with uBlock Origin to block all ads for free.

If your device doesn't have ad blocking, or if you want higher quality streaming, there's a subscription for that. I buy a month or two just to make the editing more enjoyable, but I cancel it for the rest of the year.

Smart devices such as TVs and Blu-Ray players may have a different version of the Spotify app that doesn't work well. In case of any trouble with your home entertainment system, try switching to a desktop or mobile device via wired or wireless audio connections. I've used RCA adapters, HDMI, and Bluetooth with better results than the "smart" apps. In all cases, features are available on select devices and/or subscriber accounts. Spotify's mobile apps may lock free users into random playback mode, for example.

[devito]

Do we have time to add suggestions if we have any?

[rdbomb94]

[flyonthewall]

Would you add a New Year song?

[Phantom Phreak]

I look forward to this every year

[porcelaindoll]

Yarn always goes and wins and finishes first lol

[ThtGyWhoWearsEyelinr]

[xea989]

Badass flyer!

[BlondeHanson]

I'm way too excited.

[bigballofyarn]

Our friend, kevinedward, has a New Year song, but I'm struggling to find the original version or any version on Spotify. I have asked him directly and will edit this post if he has it on Spotify.

[miqrogroove]

Yes there's plenty of time for suggestions. We've avoided Auld Lang Syne in the past and allowed What Are You Doing New Years Eve. So it's subjective.

The new Spotify embeds take up a lot of space in the top post. Some alternatives might be to use URL shorteners to avoid the embeds. Or I could remove one of them, like if nobody uses my Favorites list... any thoughts?

[biancarose]

miqrogroove,
I personally don't click on your favorites. I assume they're all mixed in with the other lists. I try to listen to the full vocal list every year.

[TimidZiggy]

I don't use your favorite list, but I do use vocals and instrumental.

[miqrogroove]

I changed my Favorites to a bit.ly link. That worked. In recent years only the Additions list was embedded but I think that was a cosmetic choice. We can still try different ideas.

[Tampaboy19N]

The embeds are fine. Auto-embed was added because most people wanted it. If you use a mobile link, it probably won't auto-embed.