The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XCI

Happy Holidays, music lovers.  Try to stay awake through this one. . . 

Album Title:  The Sound of Christmas

Album Artist:  Living Strings

We're met today with yet another Dollar Bin offering, though I'm not sure from where or when I got this one - could've been Radio Wasteland, Bethesda, Salvation Army, whatever.  It certainly wasn't from Dottie herself - I don't know any Dottie's - but I feel like this isn't the first time I've come across her obvious old lady scrawl across an album cover.  I'm pretty sure I've reviewed a few of her donations in the past.

Anyway.

Guys, this album is from our good friends the Living Strings, a company orchestra that releases orchestral versions of popular songs, something that was all the rage back in the 50s and 60s.  This sort of record can be easily found at your local thrift store, because everyone over the age of 60 has crates of this shit lying around because they couldn't buy enough of these records back in the day.  

So you take a melody you like, remove the vocals, and replace the original backing music with a soft string section, and - voila - you have yourself an album tailored for background music.  This practice is still done today with artists like Piano Guys, Two Cellos, Vitamin String Quartet, etc. - people like the tune of a popular song but want it scaled down for background music.  It makes sense, and I actually own a lot of it (or have it in several of my Amazon Music playlists) - it's good for reading, digital graphic design, etc.

Well, while the intentions here are certainly laudable, the execution of the Living Strings is not.  While this is indeed background music, this particular album succeeds so well at accomplishing 'background' that it practically disappears entirely.  The whole point of background music is that you don't have to actively listen to it, that you can focus on something else and have it going in the background to hold back the silence.  With this album, you have to consciously listen to it because, if you don't, you'll forget it's even on.

It's nearly impossible to determine when one song ends and another begins, because every track on this album plays at the same tempo, pitch, and volume - there's zero dynamics on this album, and no variation in song arrangement.  One has to mentally check in from time to time in order to figure out what song they're listening to, and that, for me, defeats the whole purpose of background music.

This album isn't terrible, because the arrangements themselves aren't bad and it's obvious the musicians themselves are talented, but because of the lack of variety in the instrumental songs it is incredibly boring.  And I mean really boring.  Watching paint dry boring, folks.

They should have a warning on the cover of this one kinda like they do with Benadryl, because it will make you drowsy.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (This snooze-fest succeeds so much at 'background music' that it fades from existence entirely.  Don't use while operating heavy machinery.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian