Today 100 years ago German radio started broadcasting “Silent Night”, des famous Christmas carols in the world. That has to be appreciated, even if other songs are now better suited to the taste of radio listeners: five years ago, Antenne Kärnten made “Last Christmas” 24 Send in a continuous loop.

In this section we always present astonishing, impressive, informative and funny figures from the fields of IT, science, art, business, politics and of course mathematics on Tuesdays.

In Germany, the age of broadcasting began in style with a short speech and the song “Silent Night”, played by post officials on the Funkerberg from Königs Wusterhausen. That was a sublime moment, as everyone remembered them in the years A sentimental story from the early days of World War I, when the song was sung by German and British soldiers during the First Christmas Peace. A more contemporary interpretation of the song is recommended for humming along.

It was unfortunately not quite as successful as Bing Crosby’s interpretation of 1934, still the third most successful music single of all time.

That brings us to the most played Christmas song of the present, the “Last Christmas” written by George Michael for his band Wham. He did not make it to first place in the charts when he 1984 appeared – the occupied Band Aid with ” Do They Know It’s Christmas? ” – but the song kept making it to the top. Most recently he even came into the US charts 2016 because George Michael was on Christmas Day of the year 53 years ago. Year after year, millions of people who listen to the radio while baking Christmas cookies or fiddling with the bone saw at the Christmas roast are whammed, which can be translated with the Low German word gewamst: The song beats on the ears.

Radical Masterpieces From a musicological point of view, “Last Christmas” is a very intricately written masterpiece, a 7-tone art song that scholars put on a level with the songs of the great German songwriters Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms. Some performers add the video that appeared with the song to the music as if from a music box: A group of young, intensely blown people change their clothes in a Swiss chalet so often that it creates a story of its own.

A year later, the German filmmaker Andreas Fischer showed how radical that can be with the short film entitled: If you want to sing under the Christmas tree, you have to bite into a fish sandwich.

With ” Last Christmas “art and everyday life and alcohol mix and dissolve into one another. For the first time the Christmas carol 2012 was played in a loop. Allegedly the radio presenter should have locked himself in the studio for this, but it is now clear that the beautiful Spiegel story was a disgraceful publicity stunt.

The current record was set 5 years ago when Antenne Kärnten did Song 24 times sent in a loop. You have to be able to break out of such a loop, with energy and fun, and drive, otherwise you end up in extremely bad films with the “predicate valuable” that glorify Brexit, that’s how it happened last Christmas, which is unlikely this time. Incidentally, you can get over the whole Christmas magic with a little jazz.

(jk)