What music are people listening to today, especially while cooking? [View all]

I'll start. So far, it's been Broadway original cast albums, Nanci Griffith, Gordon Lightfoot, and my only Xmas album.

I grew up on the Firestone annual Xmas albums, bought by my dad. (He also collected as many of the Lucky Strike 'Remember How Great' albums as he could - anybody remember those?) I guess I like the classics well enough, as long as I'm not subjected to them all day, every day starting with Thanksgiving on. Just don't get me started on Christmas Shoes, or Santa Got Run Over, or even All I Want. Either version; Mariah Carey or the kid missing his 2 front teeth. I did once translate the Chipmunk Song into Irish for a party - having done all the work, I was Alvin - but I'm not tempted to buy it. And the only Santa Baby belongs to Eartha Kitt. No other need apply.

But DH's whole family is extremely, and justifiably, proud of their heritage. So his aunt asked relatives in Ireland to recommend a traditional Irish album, which she bought. We got it within a week or two, with an Xmas card telling how/why she got it and the addendum "This is the most awful thing I've ever heard, and I thought of you."

Honest, she didn't mean it that way. She just knew we liked more traditional music. Her idea of good was the Irish tenor from the Lawrence Welk show, doing Toora Loora Loora. And this album dared to suggest that there was economic inequity in the Old Country and it might just be undeserved. She was as Republican (old school, not MAGA) as it gets, and this was not to be bourne.

It was Christmas and Winter Songs, by Noel McLoughlin. It's quite good.