Bad Music

"I am pretty tolerant of Christmas music but I draw the line at soprano saxophone."
-Calista Martin

On our way to Macon Calista and I listened to the two Kansas City radio stations that are playing continuous Christmas music. It was pretty obvious that the best recordings and versions of songs for the most part were made at least 30 years ago. For the most part new arrangements of Christmas tunes just aren't so good, especially if they are performed by some Christian artist. We complain about this all the time, but why does Christian music have to be so bad. In the car we did our best to decide how these versions could be fixed. Mostly it boiled down to a few basic rules (Christian producers should start taking notes): 1. Use real drums, not funking sounding synthetic ones 2. Go easy on the strings, strings are nice just don't have them swell so much for every climax of the piece. 3. Avoid most keyboard sound effects 4. Cut down on the reverb 5. No chimes whatsoever. I think if we stick to these simple rules and maybe just simplify a little bit Christian music won't be so bad.