If you want to thank — or blame — a particular era for the bulk of the Christmas music that clogs the airwaves after Thanksgiving, look to the Renaissance.
That’s when a host of early Christian traditions fully merged with European pagan practices, solidifying holiday classics that remain largely unchanged today.
Of course, we’ve become vastly more sophisticated about marketing and merchandising our Christmas tunes.
Their success owes as much to business-wise reinvention as sturdy construction. We can’t seem to get our fill of the stuff, and the bands, naturally, are there to serve it up.
“When you do Christmas music, you’re competing with the best of the last 2,000 years,” said Paul O’Neill, creator of touring juggernaut Trans-Siberian Orchestra. “In the artistic world, Christmas is the holy grail. It’s the hardest success to achieve because you’re competing with Mendelssohn, Bach, Handel, Dickens. But if you can have a success with it, it tends to span centuries.”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which plays the Pepsi Center on Wednesday, sells over-the-top spectacle and warm emotions at its shows by marrying blistering guitar solos and orchestration to state-of-the-art spectacle. Its reliable crush of new fans propels the group into the upper echelons of the industry: Its two touring acts will play 140 shows in 90 cities by Jan. 4.
Too much? Maybe, but don’t expect a reprieve. Acts like Trans-Siberian and Mannheim Steamroller have perfected a formula that allows their Christmas tunes to continually fall on the green side of the balance sheet over the red.
Marketing joyOnly a Grinch would prevent someone from having their fill of holiday music, but there’s something impressive about the calculated way in which it’s marketed.
Christmas music is, after all, a commodity.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra even identifies itself as one, casting the band as “an attraction that has enjoyed mega- sales from recordings and concert appearances,” according to its press materials.
Indeed, the group raked in $45 million in 2007 and played to 1.2 million people. Its Christmas-themed CDs have sold over 5 million copies, and countless more has been generated in merchandising.
Its over-the-top rock opera approach is no mistake: Artist Greg Hildebrandt (“Star Wars,” Marvel Comics) designs their album covers, elaborate tour programs, T-shirts and more. O’Neill formerly managed and produced bands such as Aerosmith and the Scorpions, and TSO’s stage show unashamedly nods toward the Who, ELO and Queen.
“Actually, I stole the whole idea from Pink Floyd,” O’Neill said, half-kidding. “We went nuts this year. We’ve got stages in the front of the arena and behind the sound board. We’ve got something like 136,000 pounds of lights just over the main stage, and the entire trussing system is moving in time to music like a giant Transformer.”
While O’Neill has been known to compare himself to Tchaikovsky and Dickens when it comes to creating something timeless (or more accurately, wildly popular) by accident, a humbler but equally successful touring act is Mannheim Steamroller.
The New Age synth group, created by composer Chip Davis, first gained noticed with its “Fresh Aire” series, but jumped into the Christmas pool in 1984 when its synthesized “Deck the Halls” splashed across radio stations.
“I wasn’t even thinking about writing a Christmas album,” Davis admitted. “I’m just a big fan of Renaissance music. One day I was sitting at my grand piano and messing around with a version of ‘Silent Night,’ then to counterbalance it I started goofing around in my basement with sequences for ‘Deck the Halls.’ Once I’d done those, it was kind of like dominoes — one thing led to another.”
That chain reaction has positioned Davis as one of the contemporary kings of Christmas music, rivaling Bing Crosby for ubiquity and pretty much anyone in terms of album sales. Mannheim Steamroller has sold 36 million albums in its three decades, and 20 million of those have been Christmas- themed.
Like Trans-Siberian orchestra, Mannheim Steamroller boasts two simultaneous touring acts that will play 47 cities before New Year’s Eve. The wave only comes once a year, but its tsunamilike impact nods as much toward smart merchandising as our appetite for holiday standards.
Merchandise under the tree
“I worked in a record store from 1985 to 1995, and Mannheim Steamroller’s albums didn’t sell 330 days out of the year,” said Matthew Donahue, an instructor in popular culture and music studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “But Christmastime would come around and people would be immediately drawn to it when we played it in the store.”
Donahue said that the rituals associated with Christmas ensure our annual return to traditional celebrations, but “when you get into the whole marketing aspect of it, it takes on a whole life of its own.”
A mind-boggling collection of merchandise helps keep bands (and brands) such as Mannheim Steamroller on people’s minds throughout the year. Mannheim Steamroller’s website peddles band-themed books, apparel, travel mugs, bath and body products and even food — including grilling supplies, pumpkin-pie spice and variously flavored chutneys.
“The hot chocolate is actually our largest-selling non-music product,” Davis said. “We’ve sold somewhere around 60 tons. It’s a favorite in a lot of the Midwest stores where it’s carried as a standard, year-round food item.”
The declining market for CDs means that Mannheim Steamroller albums are also sold next to greeting cards in addition to music-section shelves. The nimble business evolution of acts like Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra ensures their success even in tough economic times.
“People tell the truth with two things: their feet and their money,” said TSO’s O’Neill. “Over the years, whether we had a new album out or not, every time we toured our attendance increased. The last three or four years we’ve been in the top five biggest-selling bands in the world, and our demographic breakdown is very diverse.”
TSO generally keeps its tickets between $30 and $50, lowering its prices in down markets even as its production costs rise. As a former rock ‘n’ roll manager, O’Neill knows that bang-for-the-buck is paramount. Roughly half of TSO attendees are repeat customers.
“Despite the fact that we’re in the worst financial era since the Great Depression, ticket sales are ahead of last year’s by hundreds of thousands,” he said. “Some people come back for the stories, some come back for the rock concert and some come back for the production. But we’re just lucky that we do the numbers we do every year, because at the end of the year we take all the money from the tours and pour it back into making the next concert bigger.”
Mission accomplished.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
