Christmas music is a vital part of the holiday season, and BYU students are finding inexpensive ways to get their “Jingle Bell Rock” fix.
Rod Stewart, Lady Antebellum and Colbie Caillat are a few of the artists that released Christmas albums this year. But for some students, paying $12–$15 for a CD seems an unnecessary expense. Online options like Pandora, Playlist and Spotify have made it easier for students to listen to Christmas music for free.
Lindsey Potter likes new Christmas music but doesn’t see the need to buy music that may just fade away.
“I only listen to Christmas music on the radio or Pandora,” Potter, a senior studying English language, said. “It’s a good way to listen to the new Christmas music without buying the CD.”
Cee Lo Green, Scotty McCreery and Blake Shelton also released Christmas albums earlier in November, along with compilation albums and a CD by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
Other students, like Brittany Tennant, are open to buying Christmas albums, but only on the rare occasion.
“If it’s a style of music that I know I already like, then I would maybe buy it,” Tennant, a junior studying psychology, said. “It’s got to be a style that I would already listen to anyway.”
Aubri Robinson, a junior studying business strategy, has been using online sources for several years and is unlikely to buy Christmas music in the future.
“I am a very traditional Christmas music person, but I wouldn’t buy Christmas albums,” Robinson said. “I like timeless songs, but I am cheap and I don’t like to buy music in general. I use Playlist, and I listen to a Christmas playlist I have been using for over three years.”
Some students, like Stephen Farnsworth, think that buying CDs in general is a poor investment.
“First of all, you can only listen to Christmas CDs for one month out of the year,” Farnsworth, a junior studying strategy, said. “You can listen to Christmas music in so many other places that it just doesn’t seem like a good use of money. Plus, we sing Christmas music in church and when we go Christmas caroling. I have thousands of songs on my iPod but only a few that are Christmas songs.”
