So I this is just my second Christmas in Japan and I’m from Europe, so I could be completely wrong.
But is it possible, that the Christmas music in Japan is sometimes a little odd? I was hearing a lot of popular songs from Western countries, but never the original (always cover versions!). Sometimes the tunes and jingles sound also a little weird. Sometimes like something is missing or out of tune.
Of course not all stores play Christmas music and some skip it completely. Some also just want to play some calm alternative once only as background music.
But heck, I was not even hearing once “All I want for Christmas”. I’m not used to that (not that I miss it, but in Europe this plays everywhere, all the freaking time!!!)!
P.S. I live around Shizuoka. How is it in other prefectures? And once again, Japan is big, I could be completely wrong and was always on weird spots, when I heard music!
Have all a nice Christmas! 🙂
6 comments
I think one of the most common song (at least in my experience) is Last Christmas, which i think is a weird choice also
What I hear, is mostly the stuff in the supermarkets or other shops, and that is usually fully electronic, played way too fast and “bangy”. It sounds like it was “arranged” on an ancient midi-keyboard. At least for me, no “Christmas-mood” comes from that.
OTOH, the rest of the Christmas-mood also has left me years ago. I am not sure, if Japan is to blame.
You want odd? The supermarket by me plays an instrumental of la cucaracha with Christmas bells behind it.
Christmas in Japan is more than anything a marketing tool to sell chicken and cake. To that end, music has been added randomly over time. I don’t think I’ve ever come across an original Japanese Christmas song, i.e. a song that wasn’t borrowed from elsewhere and got a weird translation. Obviously, with a single digit percentage of Christians here that’s not very surprising. Earlier this evening I put on a playlist of Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby crooning some lovely winter tunes. When I stepped out of the room my wife had changed it to music with sleigh bells but also befitting a pachinko parlor. Jingle bells but on ecstasy. Ho ho ho at 190bpm, merry Christmas everyone.
Christmas here is not traditional festivity. Most people don’t really celebrate it in the same sense and many not at all. So is it worth paying high license fee for popular Christmas song?
My old workplace used to have the radio on all the time, and I would hear either Christmas Eve by Taro Yamashita or Meri Kuri by Boa at least once an hour every day of December.