The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXXI

Don thee now our gay apparel. . . just kidding, don't do that. This is a church album, and the church frowns on the gays.

Album Title:  Kiddies Christmas

Album Artist:  Unknown

So, yet again, we have a gem pulled from the darkest, dankest, recesses of Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin. As usual, we find ourselves with another yuletide turd that is far worse than I had expected, which is saying a lot considering the dumpster fire that is the cover artwork. A group of kids, freezing out in the cold, gaze longingly through a window at an assortment of presents (featuring a small-ass dog who's just escaped from a box, apparently.)

Here's my concern: is this in a store's display window? Because, if so, that's the shittiest store window I've ever seen. Maybe it's one of those hipster-ish boutiques that specializes in artisan soaps where the store owners are a husband and wife adorned in knit caps and crappy cuneiform tattoos. And the shitty store window is an intentional move to showcase their store's authenticity.

That's actually the better scenario, because if this isn't a store's display window, then these special needs kids (because I'd bet the lives of my own children on the fact that the boy in the back is - there's no way on God's green Earth that kid's playing with a full deck) are staring into someone's house. Like a bunch of retarded, Peeping Toms.

Now, believe it or not, this poorly-executed cover design is actually the best thing about this album.  I wish I was kidding.

First of all, it should be obvious by the kids on the cover and the graphically-challenged Title art (sweet machine gun you sneaked in there, Graphic Designer) that this album is targeting the little kid demographic. I had initially assumed that the songs on this album would be sung by a children's choir, or, at the very least, a group of male and female vocalists who sound as if they're smiling while they're singing (know what I'm talking about? Like when you call someone on the phone and can hear in their voice that they're smiling.) And the track listing would be compromised of children's Holiday favorites ('Frosty the Snowman,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Up on the Rooftop,' 'Santa Claus is Comin' to Town,' etc. - there's, like, a bajillion to choose from.)

But nope. That's not what we have here.

Just look at this f***ing track list, guys. Why the hell did the producers of this release decide to feature a bunch of slow, boring, religious carols on a children's Christmas album? What frickin' genius made that call? Are solemn, religious carols a necessary component for the Holiday season? Sure, for most folks (you know, that 'reason for the season' and so on and so forth), but on a children's album?  

Guys, I speak from experience: kids do not like going to church. I fought that battle with my parents for years, and now my kids fight that battle with me. Church is boring (unless you're my wife), and I don't blame kids in the slightest for squirming miserably in the pews. So, considering this, what made the producers think that kids would want to hear church music on a Holiday album clearly marketed towards them?

It isn't until Track 3 that we get around to upbeat, more light-hearted Christmas carols with 'Deck the Halls,' which isn't really 'children's' in nature, but 'Dickens.'  If you actually pay attention to the lyrics of this one, this song is clearly a couple hundred years old, but damn - after those few boring church songs that open up this album, I'll take it.

Unfortunately, it's right back to the religious crap after our brief interlude, with some dude singing bass that could easily give Tennessee Ernie Ford and Jim Nabors a run for their money. It's hard to sell this album as a Holiday album targeting children when one of your prolific vocalists sounds like Paul Frees welcoming you to the Haunted Mansion. Even 'Jingle Bells,' one of the most upbeat songs in Christmasdom, is unnerving with these vocals.

Frank doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

This sounds like an album meant to scare kids into obedience during the Holiday season. There's no revelry or whimsy to be found anywhere on this atrocity. I would imagine the only people who owned this album back in the '50s were people that were adamant about home-schooling their children, lest they fall into the many, many traps of Satan in the Public Education System.

'Nancy' had a traumatic childhood. No f***ing doubt about it.

Being a veteran teacher of almost 20 years, I'll concede that we have plenty of said traps in our schools, but. . . c'mon. How can sending one's precious little angels into a public middle school be any less hellish than what they've amassed here?

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This is the musical equivalent of getting your kids' hopes up for flashy new toys from Santa and then handing them personalized, devotional bibles on Christmas Morning.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian