Home
Why such resistance to change? "People are just more comfortable with the old reliables," says Kip Taylor, programming director of station WDCG, in Raleigh, N.C. Adds Amy Grant, who's tried for years to pen a new Christmas classic: "You have to be very stupid or very brave to even attempt it." While Grant's Home for Christmas was one of the big holiday records of 1992 (in 1996, 50 holiday-specific titles generated a total of $9 million in CD and tape sales, according to SoundScan), she admits it's unlikely she'll ever compete with standards like "The Christmas Song."
Nevertheless, many retailers spend the preseason listening to new Xmas music, mostly from an endless supply of novelty acts and superstar benefit albums. This year's best package, A Very Special Christmas 3, features rapper-turned-reverend Joseph "Run" Simmons, but instead of trying to top "Christmas in Hollis," he leads an all-star cover of "Santa Baby."
In fact, if you're thinking of honing your own Christmas tune, think "The Chipmunk Song." Novelty tunes like David Seville's squeaky noodling--a standard since 1958--are more likely to sleigh listeners than straightforward sentiment. Adam Sandler's "The Chanukah Song," which quadrupled its sales last winter (after a slow fall), received more than 20,000 requests weekly at one radio station. And don't forget the 1983 smash "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," recorded by Elmo & Patsy, which, per Billboard, was more popular than "White Christmas" for several years. Reached in San Francisco, where he's just deposited his latest royalty check (he refuses to give the specific amount), Elmo Shropshire says, "It's been very lucrative--and it gets larger every year."
But Santa's most successful new musical workshop is currently based in the unlikely environs of Omaha, home of Chip Davis, 50, the former jingle writer now known as Mannheim Steamroller.
Steamroller--the name is a whimsical coinage that's supposed to evoke both 18th-century Germany and modern American muscle--sold 3.8 million holiday records in 1995 and 1996, according to SoundScan. From his 1984 release, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, to his fourth and latest holiday album, Christmas Live, Davis' anodyne synthesizer-driven New Age cheer has kept him at the top of the tree. Says one covetous label exec: "This guy's a Christmas phenomenon. He's sold 150,000 this week. It's gotten to the point where he can sleep from January to November and wake up and make a record."
Davis insists that crafting a new album is not as easy as making a list and checking it twice. "My stuff has to be simple yet original," says the new gatekeeper of Christmas music. "It's really difficult--it busts my chops." And what does Mannheim Steamroller do after Christmas? "Rest," Davis says. Just like Santa.
