IAN PEEL
Do you ever feel like walking in a winter wonderland has become more like wading through a winter wasteland? There was nothing wrong with the likes of Wizard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday or Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody at the time, because they were only conceived as little one-off novelties, the musical equivalent of a keyring that bleeps when you whistle, or one of those handy spring-loaded holders for one pound coins. The trouble came when whoever programs the music in high street shops thought it would be a good idea to play certain one-offs from yesteryear all day, every single year. There were two great Christmas moments in the Seventies, though. In ‘79, Kate Bush released the sublime December Will Be Magic Again. And in ‘71, Lennon – or rather John and Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir – released Happy Xmas (War Is Over). The Beatles had been the first to use Christmas as inspiration for off-thewall pop in the Sixties, of course, with their annual fan club albums that became freakier and freakier as the decade progressed, climaxing with 1966’s comedy sound collage Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas.