To me, one big component of the Christmas music I choose to listen to is that it feels Christmassy. In other words, it reminds me of past Christmases.
That’s a big challenge when I want to adopt any new music into my rotation. How do I feel nostalgia from something I’ve never listened to before?
On the producer side, of course, that must be constantly in mind: “How do I make something new that is also nostalgic?”
But on the listener side, I have a few things that I will do.
- I look for things that aren’t too far away from the things I already love: things that are musically adjacent.
- I pick just one or two tracks and just integrate those into my rotation. It gives me a taste in amongst more familiar things.
- I binge an album, to the point that it feels familiar. If there are also familiar songs, so much the easier.
I guess that this is how I integrate any new music into my listening at this point: I look for things adjacent to things I love, and then I either slowly integrate them or binge them.