Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to
Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Joe McCormick, and I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Yeah.
(00:35):
Well we we kicked off with a little Christmas music.
They're at the top, and I know some of you
are probably thinking, what is we just barely started December? You, Robert,
and you warned me that you were going to lean
into the holidays this year, and you have been leaning. Well,
I am. But for those of you who are who
are saying, well, this is too soon for Christmas episode,
I'll let me say that, since this episode is about
Christmas music, you should be thankful that I didn't know.
(00:58):
We did not unleash this in mid October, because that
is when some Christmas music begins to creep into various
retail stores. Oh yeah, they start pushing it earlier and earlier.
It's creepy. So this is I think this is a
suitably early time to tackle this topic, but not so
early that it annoys us the creators of the show,
(01:20):
hopefully just annoys the listeners. Yeah. So, uh, let's talk
a little bit before we get into the you know,
more serious consideration of the topic, just how we relate
to holiday music. For my money, I do really enjoy
singing a number of holiday carols around the holidays. Uh.
I grew up singing in you know a number of
(01:40):
these and in church or in a boys chorus, and
uh I always play them in band as well or
in piano recitals, so they strike a nostalgic chord and
they can just be fun to belt out, especially if
you're belting it out with other people. I especially always
dug God Rescue Mary Gentleman that has a nice cadence
to it. Bonus points for being the rare Christmas song
(02:01):
that mentioned Satan, very good Good King Wins is lost,
very similar song that I also always really dug. And
then when it comes to you know, more like recent
I guess modern holiday music. I'm generally down for anything
that Leon Redbone ever saying that was holiday themed and
uh and I'll tolerate some of the more electronic and
new a g Mannheim steamroll Er stuff, though some of
(02:23):
that can be a little great in in my opinion.
At least it's electronic, right, And uh and I always
Dug Jackson Brown's The Rebel Jesus. That's a nice that's
a nice Christmas song. I believe it's a nice retort
to American Christmas materialism. Wait, I just realized you're so.
You're a big fan of God Resty Mary Gentleman and
Good King Winceslas and those are both like very staccato songs.
(02:46):
They're very similar. In fact, I once did a piano
recital where I had to play one of them, and
I lost my way and started playing the other one.
It is a disaster, as I guess you know a
lot of children's piano recitals should be. Uh, but yeah,
they're very similar. How about you, Joe, what are your
your likes and dislikes? Oh well, I definitely have an
(03:08):
answer for what is the absolute worst Christmas song? And
it is Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney, which always
sounds to me like I cannot believe people play this
on purpose. It sounds like the mantra of a person
on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown, and it's
like the soundtrack of of a psychotic episode. It is horrible,
(03:31):
you know, simply having Wonderful Christmas Time and if it
comes on in a store, I will leave the store.
I generally feel the same way about jingle Bells, even
though that's a standard, that's a classic. A lot of
people probably feel nostalgic about it, but I find that
it has just a it's relentless, you know, Dun Dun dune, Dun, Dun, dune,
Dun Dun, Dun, dune dune, and and you just, yeah,
(03:53):
I just kind of recoil from it. It's like the
Imperial March of Christmas. It's like Santa Claus shows up
like Darth eight or getting out of the ship in plays.
You know. Yeah, Now I do have to confess that
I actually kind of like, do they know it's Christmas?
The Supergroup performance, Okay, yeah, I don't know. It's it's
pretty dumb, but it's dumb, but it's I don't know,
(04:15):
it feels it makes me feel a little warm inside
if I hear it once every now and then, I
will say. One of the funniest Christmas songs and by
this uh yeah, by this measure, maybe the best ever
is one called Christmas Time by the Smashing Pumpkins, which
I don't think you'd heard before I played played it
for me yesterday and uh, and I have to admit
(04:35):
I did. I did not hate it at all. It
seemed perfectly fine. It's Billy Corgan passionately gushing about presents
and toys. Also, while I was looking this song up,
I found in November interview with USA Today in which
Billy Corgan announces his intention to create an entire Smashing
Pumpkins Christmas album. I don't know if it's ever going
(04:56):
to happen, but he said it would happen, and he
also said it would not be hard rock. It would
be like it would be something that you could gather
around the Christmas tree with your family and listen to.
But in contemplating this episode, I was just considering the
way that, at least in the United States, of course,
Christmas music in particular strikes in these timed waves of
(05:19):
attack in public places, especially in stores, malls, other spaces
that are trying to encourage commerce. And while it is
normal for stores and public places to play music all
year around, something does feel very special and different about
the onslaught of Christmas music in public spaces. It feels
(05:40):
potentially uh coercive and psychologically salient in ways that the
other uses of just like normal pop music or whatever
don't right, and it's and on one hand, it is
kind of a cliche to be irritated by excessive holiday music,
and perhaps we don't think about it too deeply because
we just we we can all relate, I think, on
(06:00):
some level to this. But this episode is going to
dig a little deeper and discuss why this might be
why holiday music can irritate us so and in doing so,
you know, we'll look to both the pros the strengths
of holiday music, like why we in many cases love
holiday music, but then also the reverse of that, the
(06:23):
you know, the dark submerged part of that iceberg, why
the Christmas music can drive us mad? All the noise, noise, noise?
What is it the Grin says about Christmas carols? Well,
he says a lot. There's a whole Sectionary complains, Yeah,
about the noise of of the who's and the whoville
celebrating the holiday. And certainly that's the thing, right, Like,
(06:46):
the more you feel irritated by Christmas music, holiday music,
you feel like you're being driven to grinch them. You're
you're being you're you're turning into a Scrooge right right
there in the moment, and that's that's not a pleasant feeling.
Nobody wants to be Scrooge, or you know, at least
Scrooge as he's depicted for the vast majority of the story. Likewise,
(07:07):
with the Grunch, nobody wants to be that individual. But
sometimes you can feel driven towards the edge of it.
You know. One thing that I think is interesting is
the very fact and this is not at all unique
to you know, modern Christmas music. Uh, the idea that
there are types of music genres associated with particular feasts
or holidays, and I think it's part of a broader
(07:30):
trend where where within each culture, certain holidays almost become
like a culture. Within the culture, they're like another country
that you can go to that has its own customs,
has its own foods, has its own music, has its
own uh language, has its own like media and movies
and all that kind of thing. Well, this brings me
(07:52):
back to our past episodes on the Winter People talking
about to what degree in general, but then also in
the traditions of certain Pacific Northwest Native people's, to what
extent we become different people during the time of winter,
during the time of the feast, etcetera. All right, particularly
I believe it's among like the Quakwa Kawuk people. Yeah yeah,
(08:12):
And of course they had like, you know, elaborate rituals
about these alterations to their identities and their society as
as the winter months would come on. But in a way,
I think part of the case we were making is
that they're there are echoes of that kind of thing
in all kinds of cultures and even in you know,
mass consumer culture in the United States or something that
you sort of enter into a different country when the
(08:36):
when the winter months come on. It also seems to
me that it's not a coincidence that our most important
feast days are in the dark of winter. The changes
in the weather itself like shape like sort of drive
us toward the family gathering feasting kind of behaviors and
all that. And indeed at those feasts we break into
(08:57):
song sometimes, uh yeah, or sometimes put on songs or
you know, if you really actually I don't know why
I didn't think of this earlier for an excellent psychological experiment. Uh,
just in the middle of summer sometime or like maybe
May or June, go to a place that has a
jukebox that you can program songs in and get Christmas
music going and see how people react an informal experiment,
(09:22):
people don't take kindly to it at all. They're like,
we are not those people right now? How dare you write? Alright,
So let's begin with the with the broader picture of music.
Let's let's state the obvious, and that is that music
is awesome. Music is an integral part of the human experience.
Every culture has its music, every majority, every minority, every institution,
(09:47):
every subgroup, every tribe, every holiday. Obviously, you know, individual
and group A may not care for the music and
group B. But there are no hard fast rules here either.
Especially today, we're in this this time really of e
music exposure where between you know, whatever your favorite music
streaming website is, between YouTube and and so forth, we
(10:09):
have exposure to so many different cultural traditions of music,
so many different genres and subgenres. Uh. There's just absolutely
so much of it, uh, And so our tastes are
going to vary. And I think if you look to
your own musical taste, you like like like like like us,
you'll find that, you know, probably there's some seemingly contradictory
(10:30):
or at least less obvious connections, you know, like different
genres that maybe don't seem like they should set on
the same shelf with each other, and yet here they
are balancing around your head. Oh sure, I mean I
very much identify with this. I I'm not a one
genre guy. Yeah. Uh. And of course music is also powerful. Uh. Really,
(10:53):
music is in many ways a drug. It is a
It is something that many of us will use to
regulate our our moods, our energy levels. Uh. It changes
the expression of who we are. I would say it's
also a performance drug for a lot of people. Yeah.
We we use it to self regulate mood purely for
enjoyment and emotional stability, but we also use it to
(11:16):
motivate certain behaviors. I mean, I think music is incredibly
powerful for self conditioning if you want to, uh basically
perform operant conditioning on yourself. Uh. There are certain types
of music that you should practice putting on when you're
being productive, and then you listen to that same music
again when you're trying to be productive other times. I
(11:36):
think it's incredibly effective, absolutely, and uh, and certainly, music
can at times feel to feel like it, it overpowers us.
I often come back to the Peter Gabriel song The
Rhythm of the Heat, one of my favorite Gabriel tracks
in general, in English or German German versions great to um,
but the lyrics go, the rhythm is below me, the
(11:57):
rhythm of the heat. The rhythm is around me. The
rhythm rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. The
rhythm has my soul. And it's like the devil it is, yeah,
if I remember correctly. Gabriel's lyrics here allude to something
Carl Jung said about tribal music that he was exposed
(12:18):
to feeling as if it were possessing him and and
and making him anxious because he felt like he was
losing control to it. I mean, I think it's no
coincidence that in certain social settings we often like to
listen to loud music, especially rhythm heavy music. Uh in
the same kind of ways that people might consume alcohol
(12:39):
at big parties and then listen to rhythm heavy music
a big parties. It seems inhibition reducing sort of overcomes
natural inhibitory behaviors, And I think, actually it's not it's
not a coincidence that the same types of things are
used in a coercive way, saying, interrogation settings where loud,
repetitive music is used to break the will of who
(13:00):
are undergoing interrogation. Yeah, in the same way one might
attempt to use a drug to break the will of
an individual. Um, it's kind of like a you know,
a light and a dark magic to music. And uh,
and we'll get into a little of that. But we
also touched on here the communal aspect of music. Uh,
there is something about music that is inherently communal. I mean,
(13:22):
there's the private experience of music, certainly, but music has
has long factored into our various rights and rituals and observances. Uh.
And you see that, you see that just about everywhere. Uh,
secularly as well. You look at the various uh you know,
patriotic tunes and national anthems that are employed. But more
than that, just like dancing, a social behavior that that
(13:46):
music by getting everybody in rhythm on the same beat,
there's a natural social unifying effect to that. Yeah. Yeah,
you're sinking up neurologically really now. Emotionally, music can push
us in a variety of directions. Lovey eight, fear, melancholy, pride, nostalgia, community, individualism, relaxation, animation,
(14:06):
and indeed, music has been shown to have a physiological
effect on us. It can mentally and physically stimulate us.
And so the power of music has intrigued us for ages.
And there have been tons of tons of of of
of of theories have been put forth, with so many studies.
Charles Darwin was famously stumped by music's power, writing the
(14:28):
following and the descent of Man quote with Man's song
is generally admitted to be the basis or origin of
instrumental music. As neither the enjoyment or capacity of producing
musical notes are faculties of the least direct use to
Man in reference to his ordinary habits of life, they
must be ranked among the most mysterious with which he
(14:49):
has endowed. I think Darwin, uh, he might have been
calling the shots too early there saying that that we don't.
I think he's essentially saying, well, music sake is something
that has no obvious survival benefit. Like it, you know,
it doesn't fit into the things you need to do
to survive and reproduce. And that's why it's such a
such an enigma. Why we do it. I'm not sure
(15:12):
that we can rule out that it has like survival
and reproduction benefits. I think very likely does. Yeah, I
read a little more from this this uh, this section
of the Descent of Manner. He does get into talking
about birds and so forth, So it's perhaps maybe a
little more of a contemplation than that it might appear
with just this brief excerpt. But but but still, I
(15:32):
I appreciate him getting to the mystery of it. But
I do also agree that music is such a part
of the human experience that I think it is, we
can't quite dismiss its role in in our survival. Yeah. Actually,
you know what I probably wasn't Yeah, I was probably
not being fair to Darwin because I didn't see the
rest of the quote, Because in fact, it is quite
common in Darwin's writings for him to announce that something
(15:55):
is mysterious and then go on to offer explanations for it.
So a great new of researchers looked at the impact
of music, and uh. One paper I was looking at
in particular as a two thousand thirteen paper titled the
Psychological Functions of Music Listening by Schafer at All in
Frontiers and Psychology, and I found this paper to be
really nice. Sums up a lot of findings concerning the
(16:18):
way we use music uh quote. Surveying the literature from
the past fifty years, we identified more than five hundred
purported functions from music. From this list, we assembled a
somewhat catholic list of one hundred and twenty nine non
redundant musical functions. We then tested the verse similitude of
these uh positive functions by collecting survey responses from a
(16:40):
comparatively large sample pc A reveal just three distinct dimensions.
People listen to music to achieve self awareness, social related
nous and arousal, and mood regulation. We propose calling these
the big three of music listening. Okay, so if I'm
understanding that right, it's to reflect on yourself, health, to
(17:01):
fit in with others, or to achieve a particular mental
or emotional state. I think that seems about right, and
that fits in very well with the ways that I've
primarily used music in my life. You like to reflect
on yourself. Think about the way people listen to sad
songs after a breakup or something. It's almost like the
(17:21):
listening is engaging with some kind of information. Nextus that
gives you ways of thinking about your own situation. Uh.
And then of course to fit in with others, as
we've already talked about music and dancing being highly social
activities that form connections between people, get you all in
the same rhythm, which is a a socially encourage a
social bonding. And then of course finally to regulate mood
(17:44):
or achieve certain mental states. And that can be everything
from just wanting to feel good and listening to music
that makes you feel good to trying to encourage like
I was saying earlier, encourage productivity through operant conditioning on
yourself through productivity music. Yeah, and I think all of
all three of these two are worth keeping in mind
when it comes to both seasonal celebration music and communal
(18:07):
religious music, which of course a lot of holiday music is.
So how would those three things uh fit with like
seasonal holiday music. Well, let's see, so um self awareness,
you know again, when when were the environment changes, the
self may change a little bit. We're we're reflecting on
who we are during this time of you know, in
(18:31):
theory fewer resources and ort of less sunlight, etcetera. Perhaps
engaging in exercise of exercises of gratitude as well, to
come back to what we discussed previously. Also, you know,
some a number of holiday songs do touch on the
idea of giving gifts to those who are less fortunate.
Not every song certainly, but but you see that employed. Um,
(18:54):
the Jackson Good sure does. Uh. The Jackson Brown song,
the Rebel Jesus certainly has that vibe to it. Like
this kind of like taking down materialism at Christmas a
notch and saying like this is this is what the
season is supposed to be about. Whether you do this
or not, it is about a Bolshevik revolution. Social relatedness
(19:15):
comes back to the community of Christmas, this country of Christmas,
like you said earlier. And then arousal and mood regulation. Uh,
we see that employed as well, sometimes nefariously, as we'll
get into later on now. In this meta paper that
I was talking about, they point to a number of
theories as well. And there are a lot of theories
about music and what it is and what it does.
(19:36):
And you know, ultimately one of those situations where you
can probably choose several of them and feel pretty safe
about adhering to them. And one of the theories they
cover is that of Ellen Disen Yanki from two thousand
nine and um Disiaki argues that humans use music to
cope with anxiety concerning mortality. They point they point out
that music induced chills produced reduced activity in brain structure
(20:00):
is associated with anxiety, and they they also point to
the idea discussed by several scholars that music plays a
key role in transcendence, taking us out of ourselves and
bringing us into a flow state. Uh In certainly we
see if we're talking about work music, you know, what
what sort of music do you put onto work and
to get into a flow state? But I think also
(20:21):
that's comparable to holiday music as well, you know, like
transcending your personal identity and getting in the headspace of
the season whatever that particularly means to you in a
secular or religious standpoint. Yeah, absolutely so, first of all,
thinking about this idea of Desana Yaki's uh that that
(20:41):
music maybe primarily for the purpose of avoiding thoughts about mortality,
it would seem that that sort of is a particular
instance that would fit into the broader umbrella of terror management. Essentially,
the short version, I'm probably not doing it quite justice
this way, but the short version is that human culture
is a result of attempts to avoid thinking about death,
(21:04):
and that humans have culture because we are uniquely aware
of the fact that we one day will die, and
in order to not think about the fact that we
one day will die, we come up with all of
these elaborate things like art and religion and stuff like that,
all of which exists too in one way or another,
(21:25):
mitigate the knowledge of our own mortality. Yes, yeah, and
it's it's a it's a it's a very thought provoking theory.
I believe there's an older episode of Stuff to Lay
your Mind where Julie and I discussed it a bit.
But it's one of those topics we could easily revisit
because it's again it's not gospel, but it is. Sure,
it's just a proposed explanation, right, but it's one that
(21:47):
you know, when you start applying it to things in
your life and in the world, it seems to hold weight. Well.
I mean, when you generalize it more and make it
not just about mortality but anxiety that the ore a
lot of the positive activities in which we engage do
seem to have almost across the board, a power to
(22:10):
quell anxiety, especially sort of uh, static ruminant anxiety of
the kind that you get when you, you know, just
sit there and let your default mode network take over
and you start to have negative cyclical thoughts about yourself
and your future. And you know, uh, and and so
and for that reason. I mean, it's everything from psychedelic
drugs to meditation, to music, to religious experiences to engagement
(22:33):
with art. All this stuff seems to serve the function.
What it all has in common is that it kind
of quells act that sort of activity and gets you
gets your mind occupied with other things. And of course
it's interesting to compare all of this to Western holiday traditions,
which you know, many commentators have pointed out, you know,
are there about the coming death of the world. They
(22:55):
are about the world growing cold, the crops dying, the
plants dying, and us having to navigate this perilous season
into the hope of an eventual spring. Yes, and it's
that spring. It's like, I think you're exactly right about that.
It's that springtime association that's so important. And like the uh,
the hypothesized proto religions of the fertility cycles, right, it's
(23:18):
that that it's all about reminding you that hey, winter
necessarily leads to spring, the withering of the world necessarily
leads to blooming again, and that death necessarily leads to
the life everlasting. Absolutely. All right, on that note, we're
going to take our first break, but when we come back,
we'll talk a little bit about the holiday brain. All Right,
(23:42):
we're back. So I wanted to touch on a particular
Danish study that came out in the British Medical journal
back End that try to identify the quote Christmas network
in the brain with the fMRI. I. Now, I do
want to stress that this was a very lighthearted study
with a very small sample group of twenty test subjects
(24:03):
divided into a Christmas group in a non Christmas group. Okay,
so you wouldn't read too much into it. Yeah, yeah,
don't read too much into it. But but but here's
what they found when they when they exposed individuals to
Christmas stimuli. And I think we can we can take
something away from from some of these They said there
were five areas where the Christmas group responded to Christmas images.
So we're talking about images, not we're talking about visual stimuli,
(24:25):
not auditory stimuli here. But they responded with a higher
activation than the non Christmas group. This would be the
left primary motor and pre motor cortex, the right inferior
and superior parietal lobule, and the bilateral primary somatosensory cortex.
So these areas have been associated with spirituality, with semantic senses,
(24:47):
with the recognition of facial emotion, and so they say,
for example, the left and right parietal lobules have been
linked to self transcendence, the personal predisposition to spirituality, and
this is key. The frontal promoter or cortex is important
for experiencing emotions shared with others by mirroring or copying
(25:08):
their body states. And I think that that is we're
thinking about. We do have to think about of a
holiday as being a social customer communal custom which I
realize can be easy to miss given how materialistic and
media driven the holidays have become, and how a lot
of those experiences are not communal. I just had a
thought that didn't occur to me before. I wish I
(25:29):
had thought of this before the episode. I wonder if
there are any examples where a I don't know where
this would be, but I'm just imagining maybe there was
some Soviet state that tried this or something, uh like,
to do away with holiday is completely like, could you
have a culture or society without any seasonal celebrations or holidays?
And how would that change the people who went through it?
(25:52):
You're talking about a war on Christmas? Um? Well, I mean, yeah,
it's true that they've almost won and nobody celebrates Christmas anymore.
Uh well, you know that's certainly we can look to
examples of the suppression of religious practices and in various cultures.
But I wonder if whenever that's done, it's replaced with
other kinds of things that could serve for seasonal social bonding,
(26:13):
if other holidays take the take their place, or can
you just get rid of holidays? That this might be
interesting to come back to in an episode. We could
do an episode on the War on Christmas. By the way,
I mean, I think it's clear we're joking, but that
idea is the most bs thing in the entire world.
I cannot believe people still talk about this. Well. Um
(26:37):
to come back to the communal aspects though, of of
of Christmas stimuli, holiday stimuli, and holiday music, I I
think I think it does make sense, especially when I
think to when holiday music is actually pleasing to me.
So it's pleasing to me during say a family setting
and one in which I have some degree of control
over the music, a church or caroling setting in which
(26:59):
there is a communal and or faith based experience to
be had with the music. And of course personal music
listening time in which I say, I I just suddenly
get a wild hair to play that Jackson Brown song
to you know, sort of is a critique of what's
going on around me. Or you just queue up a
playlist with like a hundred sequential instances of Christmas time
(27:19):
by the Smashing Pumpkin. Yeah, maybe that, But but when
does it not please me when it is forced on me,
especially in a retail setting, a public transportation setting, advertising,
or some other environment that is not communal, celebratory or transcendent. Yeah. Absolutely,
And I think, uh, I mean just to acknowledge what
we we mentioned him earlier, but to acknowledge again the
(27:41):
idea of like CIA interrogation techniques or not just c
i A, I mean general uh coercive interrogation techniques and
and and the the attempt to sort of torture and
break detainees by subjecting them to loud, repetitive music. I
don't want to go overboard and claim that like in
store Christmas music institutes torture. I mean, obviously these are
(28:02):
incredibly different things. Uh they're extremely important differences, but it
is worth exploring for a moment how music has been
used in psychologically coercive ways. One of the ways I've
read about music being psychologically coercive is that when the
United States government has subjected detainees under interrogation to loud
(28:23):
music day and night in order to sort of break
them down and get them to give in to interrogation.
I think one thing that's often emphasized is playing music
that is culturally unfamiliar to the detainees, so like playing
especially genres that they would not have heard much of before.
I was reading a piece in Box about music as
(28:43):
torture that pointed this out that like, um, they don't
tend to play at the detainees like American pop music,
which filters out more to uh, to the home cultures
that the detainees come from. They're more likely to play
unfamiliar American genres like metal and country and wrap that
(29:03):
these people have been less likely to encounter before. And
it's that the combination of like the loud, repetitive subjection
to the sounds and their total cultural unfamiliarity that seems
to make them especially potent in breaking down the will.
But when it comes to holiday music, no, certainly, and
this is something that does come up in critiques of
(29:25):
the use of holiday music and retail settings. There are
individuals who, of course do not or you know, for
whom these are foreign songs, for whom these are songs
that are not a part of their, uh, the traditional culture.
But for a lot of people, certainly for what is
probably the core audience, the target audience you're targeting, sort
of like the basic American holiday shopper, who would presumably
(29:49):
be familiar with jingle bells and UH and so forth
and have some sort of nostalgic reaction to it. Yeah,
I think you're right about that, But I think there's
another element that's, like, whether or not these songs are
culturally familiar to you, they music has an almost unique
power to uh, to be psychologically invasive in ways that
(30:10):
you don't really have control over. I mean, I guess
you could literally plug your ears with wax or something.
But like generally, if music is playing, it's getting in
and it's working on your brain. And it's not like
say a visual advertisement that you can look away from.
The music is playing in your physical space. It has
a sensory pervasiveness and unavoidable nous and you can't prevent
(30:35):
it from working on you. The rhythm has my soul.
So as as we've been touching on here, like, there's
an obvious reason that stores play holiday music, and the reason,
of course, it's the same reason that a retail environment
does anything, you know, the reason they employ any kind
of sensory change, and that is to encourage more sales.
And studies have shown that holiday music can encourage a
(30:57):
more festive mood in shoppers. Of course, a big part
of our modern holiday model is the purchase, giving, and
receipt of gifts. You know, this is the materialistic model
of the holidays, and we all know this. Storefront Santa's
and holiday window displays do produce results, and that is
why stores continue to utilize them. However, has pointed out
(31:20):
in the Robert Clara article for ad Week, how retailers
can keep Christmas music from driving shoppers crazy. More and
more savvy stores have had to wake up to the
fact that there's there's there's no one path on all
of this. You have to know your product, you have
to know your customers, and then you have to tweak
your approach. So the music may bring some people in,
(31:43):
but it's going to turn other people off, and you
have to, um, you have to pivot based on that.
So the article points to a pair of polls from
the time period that showed that holiday music was only
hotly anticipated by Americans polled with disliking it. Another poll
reported that twenty three percent of the people polled dreaded
(32:06):
holiday music, while thirty six percent would leave a store
sooner if it was present. Well, this is what they say. Now,
can we trust people's reporting of their feelings on poles
to accurately be reflected in their behavior. Well, you know
it's with with poles in and you have to take
them with a certain grain of of you know, of salt,
of course, as always. But Clara writes that the experts
(32:28):
have chimed in and advised care in choosing a holiday playlist,
and they have they have some key suggestions. First of all,
no annoying novelty songs like Grandma got run over by
a reindeer that one has pointed out specifically as something
to be avoided. I remember my younger years in Tennessee
there was a certain classic rock radio station that I
(32:49):
listened to as a boy, and they got a bug
one year where they just really got into this song
called Christmas Balls. That was It's like, I don't know
who sings it. It's a novelty comedy song. It goes
Christmas Balls, Christmas Balls. I've got great big Christmas balls.
I think it's about it is. I mean, you get
(33:11):
the joke. I don't know why. I was trying to
tell you what. I think it's about, like ornaments, but
I guess, uh. But yeah, so they're they're saying, don't
do that, don't play Christmas Balls, don't play Grandma got
run over by a reindeer. What about like I want
a Hippopotamus for Christmas? Does that fit in with this? Um?
(33:32):
They don't specifically mention that song, but certainly we've discussed
before how music music that is sung by children, musical
recording song by children are exactly the sort of recordings
that can hit a a negative chord with with listeners. Likewise,
I think things where chipmunks are singing are probably worth avoiding.
(33:54):
But but then on top of this, so you know,
one thing is like trying to steer away from songs
that are inherit crently annoying. But also, don't do a
one holiday mix just because it is December or even November. Like,
don't do one holiday music. Make sure that there are
some non holiday songs in the mix, and then also
(34:14):
switch it up to mesh with different demos. They're coming
into the story at different times of the day, like
maybe your your clientele at ten am in a grocery
store might be rather different than the say, the five
PM crowd, and therefore it might pay off to take
that into account when choosing your music. I think that's
a very good point. One thing I would say is
(34:37):
that it's probably got to be difficult to study Christmas
music overall, uh, just because Christmas music accounts for such
a different range of things. I mean, all that's required
for it to be Christmas music is that it makes
thematic references to Christmas in like the lyrics or something,
or even that it's an instrumental version of a known
Christmas song. But like, there's just hugely different stuff that
(35:00):
stores could play They could play traditional Christmas carols sung
by a choir, or they could play Smashing Pumpkins Christmas
time has come, they can play one of those Amy
Grant Christmas albums, or you know, it's like wildly different
sonic profiles in this music. And I would expect, of
course that that within that cohort of Christmas music, you
(35:23):
would get some extremely different effects just based on the
oral qualities of the music. Oh. Absolutely, there's so much
to choose from. Um you know, for instance, at times
when I want to actually put on a Christmas playlist,
I'll inevitably go to either um Dr rubber Funks funky
Christmas mixes He's an English DJ that that puts out
some fabulous funk mixes, or some FM. My my favorite
(35:46):
internet radio station, has a number of different Christmas channels,
some of which play a lot of like quirky even
novelty songs and you'll listen to you'll listen to that
for a bit and you know, they'll play stuff you've
never heard before. So there is Yeah, I think it
is important to know there there's a lot of Christmas
music out there. It doesn't have to just be that
one being Crosby song. But anyway, I just wanted to
(36:08):
point out that I'm sure that that makes it difficult
to get consistent results on studies about the effects of
Christmas music. To other pointers that they made in this article,
don't turn it up too loud. I think that's pretty obvious.
And then don't play any particular song too much, even
if it is a huge pop hit or a standard
um and again, don't play on holiday music. Whatever the
(36:31):
evidence to support this or not. In terms of encouraging
consumer behavior, I would say it was like, it's a
moral imperative. You should follow this advice. Do not play
Christmas music absolutely. Okay, we're gonna take one quick ad break,
but we'll be right back. Thank thank alright, we're back now.
At this point, I want to get to something that
(36:53):
made the rounds last holiday season and is making the
rounds yet again this year in uh and that is
clinical psychologist Linda Blair spoke about this very topic with
Sky News in and then was subsequently you know, quoted
in various articles touching on this uh and and she
said that especially for folks who have to work amid
(37:15):
holiday music, you know, individuals working in a retail setting
during the holidays, for example, for them, this exposure can
become so unpleasant that they have to exert an increasing
amount of mental energy to block it all out. Basically,
the idea here is it induces cognitive fatigue. Cheery tunes
especially can drain workers and shoppers as well. I would
(37:37):
say there might be something to this. Again, not to
draw too strong a comparison to actual torture techniques, because again,
extremely different things going on here, but to look at
a at least mild thread of continuity. Another thing that
is often done to detainees being exposed to this kind
of like sonic torture, is excessively cheery music, such as
(37:57):
the Barney song that I Love You You Love Me
song and the like. Commercial jingles that are extremely cheery,
like the MEO Mix theme song uh and I think
It's It's sort of hypothesized that this also has some
kind of will breaking power that it like It's so
it ultimately becomes increasingly uh, cognitively demanding to resist the
(38:21):
power of humiliation that comes on with listening to really
cheery music over and over. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, Again,
very different settings torture and UH and and retail setting.
But still I think they both both examples illustrate UH
the power of music now and another piece that I
ran across up Melody Wilding writing for inc dot com
(38:43):
an article title of neurosciences holiday music is mentally draining.
She points out that there's a there's a U shaped
relationship between how often we hear a song and how
much we like it, what's known as the near exposure effect. Yeah,
I was reading about the mirror exposure effect and this
is interesting. The core finding of the mere exposure effect
is that humans have a tendency to like a stimulus
(39:07):
more after they've been initially exposed to it, and then
continue liking it more the more they're exposed to it
as familiarity increases. And this does of course apply to songs,
but it also applies to all kinds of other stimuli visual, auditory, conceptual, linguistic. UH.
This effect has been studied for many decades. There was
(39:27):
one meta review I was looking at by Robert F.
Bornstein from nineteen eight nine called Exposure and Affect Overview
and meta Analysis of Research in Psychological Bulletin, and this
surveyed a couple of decades of published research and found
that the effect was very robust for many different kinds
of stimuli, and it looks like the mere exposure effect
(39:48):
is most pronounced on like brief initial exposure to things,
and then our our liking for things continues to increase
as we're exposed to them more and more, but with
the limit depending on the stimulus, of course, on average,
maybe somewhere around after ten to twenty exposures, the effect
loses power, so are our liking of the thing plateaus
(40:09):
and does not continue to increase. And then with some stimuli,
as you continue to be exposed to them more and
more after this period, you're liking of them might sharply
drop off. You actually like them less. And I think
this is the U shaped curve that the author there
is referring to. Okay, so that means there there is
always hope that whatever is a fad and is annoying
(40:31):
will go away, it will follow this curve into oblivion.
Well right, I mean, if something isn't still a fad
and other people are still enjoying it, but you've already
dubbed it annoying, you've probably just gone over the U
curve faster than other people and everybody else, or maybe
you had initially less tolerance for whatever it was. Anyway,
I mean sorry, what were you saying? Oh and specifically
(40:51):
talking about the meme whor the cat and the woman
yell at each other. I don't know that meme. Well,
get ready to ride the U on that one, I guess. Now.
An interesting question is why do we like things more
once we've already been exposed to them, And the primary
explanation I've come across is processing fluency, the amount of
energy required to mentally process a stimulus. Like the brain
(41:14):
is lazy and it wants to avoid work whenever possible,
So when a stimulus is familiar rather than new and unfamiliar,
the brain has to do less physical work in order
to perceive, understand, categorize, and react to the stimulus, and
the processing demand is reduced and made more fluent. And
this is where processing fluency comes from. This easing of
(41:36):
the mental burden feels good and emotionally manifest to us
as increased comfort and pleasure with the stimulus. So I
would kind of say that familiarity feels better than unfamiliarity
with a picture or a song or something, the same
way that playing a sport or a musical instrument that
you've already practiced and gotten good at, feels better than
(41:57):
playing a sport or a musical instrument or something that
you've not yet acquired any skill fluency with, and with
music especially. This is this is why we we hear
that that in the new song that we we instantly
dig and it's why we have to listen to it
like five times in a row, yes, and why later
on we'll come back to it and we'll we'll remark
just how how much more we're finding in the like
(42:18):
the musical architecture of the thing totally. Uh. In fact, though,
I just wanted to point out, if you've been listening
to the podcast for a while, some familiarity might be
lighting up in your brain, because processing fluency as a
concept was also a major factor in explaining the illusory
truth effect. Remember this was the pair of episodes we
(42:39):
did about the body of research showing that merely having
been exposed to a claim makes you more likely to
believe the claim is true, even if you should know better.
Uh So, in that case, familiarity with the statement factor
claim makes it easier for the brain to process the
same statement or claim when you hear it again later on.
(42:59):
And the acro effect of this for truth statements is
that we're more likely to rate them as true or
credible if we've heard them before or heard them a
lot of times before. And so I think the mirror
exposure effect could be considered kind of a cousin of
the illusory truth effect. It's the illusory liking effect. But
as we were saying, yeah, it appears for some stimuli,
(43:19):
including music, the effect doesn't last forever. You like a
song a lot more after you've already been exposed to
it once or twice, and you keep liking it more
and more the more you hear it. But at some point,
maybe around you know, who know, maybe ten or twenty
exposures or so, the pleasure plateaus. You stop liking it more,
and after that it's possible that you will like it
less and less the more you hear it. And I
(43:40):
think this very well could be the case, especially for
songs that recur year after year at a certain time
table throughout the year. Yeah, absolutely, I can. That matches
up well, I think with their experience with a lot
of holiday songs. Now, another criticism it often comes up
is that as one is bombarded with all this holiday music.
(44:00):
You know, it may of course aggravate other holiday seasonal
stresses that are going on already, stuff regarding say money, family, politics,
or other factors. And also, I've I've heard a voice that,
you know, part of the holiday stresses is sometimes having
to shop, having to you know, take care of the
you know, the checklist for the holidays, and holiday music
(44:22):
is kind of like this, this voice telling you that
you're not done yet, reminding you of all the work
you have to do. Uh and uh and yeah, I
can see where that can be an unwanted bombardment. Well,
it may be exactly part. I mean, so we listen
to holiday music around the time that we're trading gifts
(44:42):
with people. People listen to holiday music on Christmas Day
and their opening presents and stuff. So I mean, I
wonder if there's supposed to be a conditioned association between
the music and the gifts. They play it in the
store to get you thinking about the gifts. You might
not have thought about gifts while you were in there. Otherwise,
that seems like a pretty clear thing that could be
going on there. Again, I mean, I'm wondering if if
(45:05):
these stores have access to research that we don't have
access to, making the case really strongly that Christmas music, yes,
absolutely does make people buy more. I'm not sure based
on the publicly available research that the case is that
strong that Christmas music makes people spend more. Maybe there's
just a uh, maybe there's private research, or maybe they've
(45:26):
got secret you know, Christmas music labs where they've dug
up this research, or you know, maybe maybe it's not
even all that well informed. Maybe all this mayhem is
going on in our ears for nothing. Well, I mean,
I I have some of the sources that I was
looking at that they didn't speak of it as being
an accepted fact that that the Christmas stimuli can enhance purchases. Now,
(45:48):
one paper I was looking at him. Sorry, I don't
have the title one it off hand, but uh it um,
it was looking at what happens when you pair auditory
Christmas stimuli with smells of Christmas. Yes, I was looking
at some stuff like that too, and I think they
were finding that the smells on their own did weren't
as potent, weren't as commanding, which is interesting because you know,
(46:10):
our our sense of smell is very primal. It it
connects to with our brain and our memories in a
way that the other senses do not. Uh. And yet
they I believe they were finding that the Christmas smells
on their own were not as pervasive as smells combined
with sound. So I could certainly believe that. I mean,
I don't know, I'd say maybe I'm being overly skeptical
about this. I just don't find myself fully convinced that
(46:33):
the onslaught of Christmas music is justified by by the research. Well,
I mean, certainly, I think a lot of you know,
coming back to that business article of talking about earlier,
like a lot of people are just doing it because
that's what you do. Clearly, Um, some are you know less,
you know, informed on exactly how you should calibrate it.
It's just it's Christmas time. You put up the Christmas
(46:55):
window display, you put out the Santa, and you just
play Christmas music NonStop and and and I think it
seems reasonable that a more nuanced approach is really in order.
Uh and uh. But but I don't think we're gonna
see it go away anytime soon. Okay, what is the
Christmas song that is going to make you least likely
to spend money in the store. Oh man, I mean
(47:16):
there there are so many, but uh, I mean we're
the Grandma got run over by reindeer is probably probably
a big one that would prevent me from from from
staying in the store like that one. That one's kind
of a walkout song for me. I will shop at
your competitor. Do Christmas Balls one more time? Yeah, I
don't think I've even heard Christmas Balls, but this already
(47:38):
sounds like a walkout tune for me as well. Well, Robert,
after we finish up in here, we're gonna listen to
Christmas Balls, all right, uh, if we must, all right,
So obviously we'd love to hear from everybody about this topic,
your experience with holiday music, your experience being subjected to
holiday music. And I think it's especially nice because I
know we have uh you know, we have a large,
(48:00):
you know, US based listenership, but we have international listeners
as well, and I feel like we could probably get
some unique feedback from those individuals. Uh, you know, what
is it? What is it like? Uh, you know, what
is the Christmas music bombardment like in your part of
the world, and what are the the equivalents in non
Christmas cultures. In the meantime, if you want to check
(48:20):
out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head
on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That's where you will find them. You can also find
us wherever you get podcasts. Just make sure you subscribe
because that way you'll you'll know that more episodes are
going to come to you, and there will be there'll
be at least one more Christmas episode. We have one
in store uh that I think we'll we'll delight you,
but also some non holiday stuff. We're gonna adhere to
(48:42):
the rules here of Christmas music in the store, uh.
And we're not going to bombard you with just one
holiday episodes. Gods be praised for that. Halloween is the only, um,
the only holiday that we really bombard you with. Also
check out Invention. That's our our other podcast. That one
deals with human techno history, and we have some we
(49:02):
do us some holiday episodes there as well, dealing with
various toys, uh. The the invention of various toys like
the yo yo, the frisbee, the hula hoop. Where did
these these classic toys come from? And why do they
resonate with us? So also I'll see horror. Fiction wise,
the second oil age is all out and you can
you can mainline that entire run. And uh, I think
(49:25):
that's it. Yeah, I was trying to take anything else
I need to plug. No, I guess that's it. Um,
just merch pit, the merch pit, you know, the merch
pit does still exist. If you want some stuff to
blow your mind, merchandise shirts and so forth, maybe for
your holiday shopping, then you will find that there's a
tab for that. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Right,
it's our t public store if you want to google it. Yeah. Um, anyway, huge,
(49:49):
thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, just to say hello, you can
email us at contact that Stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
(50:12):
of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.