DJ play a Christmas song/ I wanna be dancing all night long,” commands Cher on the first single from her new festive album: Christmas. Yes, Christmas is coming, which means Christmas adverts, Christmas films and Christmas albums. It feels only right that Cher is getting in on the act. And, OK, “DJ Play a Christmas Song” is a tacky kind of number. The electro pulse strung through it feels off the peg. But the 77-year-old singer knows how to sell a line. By the time she tells us that “The red and the green lights/ Are hitting me just right”, I imagine we’re all in. Cher has been making records since 1965, making her feel like family to most of us. And Christmas, after all, is the time when even the musically snobby households cast their “taste” aside and grant safe passage to all the gaudy, cheesy, awkward, oddball, clashing sounds they’d reject at other times of the year, just as they agree to tolerate the discordant worldview of their wider circle of friends and relatives.
“Oh look!” I will find myself warning my kids in mid-November: “Here comes Aunty Mariah Carey! Now, c’mon, I know the high notes are really annoying, but she’s had a hard time, what with Twitter/X refusing to blue tick her status as Queen of Christmas, so be nice and sing along. Oh, and there, right behind her? It’s Paul McCartney simply having a wonderful time and his old mucker John Lennon – he’s always asking what you’ve done with your year. Be nice if Chris de Burgh tells you he’s seen a spaceship, and remember to give George Michael back his heart on the way out – he left it here last Christmas. Uncle Chris Rea? I think he’s still stuck in traffic, but let’s keep our hearts warm for him…”
