Tell me if you like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra so that I may form a low opinion of your entertainment choices

I can rock Christmas songs. I love Christmas songs. Mel Torme, Bing and Rosemary Clooney can tear a Christmas song the fuck on up. What I can't abide is the music of Trans Siberian Orchestra.

Peep dis'


Ok, how many things did you see wrong here?

• The announcer called it "non traditional". He was looking for the words "bombastic and unecessary"
• Guitarists and traditional ROCK band dudes are front and center so three guitarists can play barre chords.
• lame ass rocking out by band members playing rhythm
• The entire ensemble could have been cut down to a drum machine, a decent sequencer and one asshole with long hair strumming a guitar with no noticeable loss of song quality.
• the bassist is playing his bass low slung like Cliff Burton but is not, in fact, Cliff Burton
  

TSO takes Christmas carols, pares them down to their basic chords, has an orchestra backing them up, adds "metal" shred guitar.

To gain a better understanding of this, put together 20 of your closest friends to play 'Eleanor Rigby'. Play only the E minor seventh and the C chord on the one. Then add ridiculous guitar riffing to it including dramatic string bends at the end. Now convince millions of people that you are engaging in an artistic endeavor by schmaltzing it up by latching onto the political cause of the day.

As Totalfarker 433 noted:

"Classical shredding + orchestra works about the same way as
dinosaurs + office environent = funny.

Only, the latter equation is enjoyable sometimes."

But the members of TSO are no strangers to unnecessary displays of near-foolish levels of rock excess for excess sake.

From Savatage's website:

Q: Why did Steve use three bass drums? Did he actually play all three?
A: Steve worked on the philosophy that more is better, so if one bass drum is good, two are great, than three must be even better. During the POTN all three were used, the third one on the right used by a slave pedal. It proved to be overkill, so on all subsequent tours it was there for looks only. During the Gutter tour the inner head had a bull’s eye drawn on it, for the purpose of testing aiming abilities when he was spitting. Steve was allotted a certain amount of points based on his accuracy.