The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XXXV

Hi, Internet.  Let us dust off another Holiday train wreck, shall we?

Album Title:  Favorite Christmas Carols

Album Artist:  The Caroleers

This was a Radio Wasteland score that I picked up for a buck about a month ago, for the sole reason that it looked like it had potential for being comically terrible.  I definitely have some issues with this LP and its ridiculousness, but I think this is the first time I've been let down by a record not sucking more.  I was hoping for a shit sandwich, and instead I got soggy cereal.

Stare into the Face of Evil, America. . .

The artwork on this album definitely says it all:  there's no liner notes on the back, no legal information, no 'From Our Home to Yours,' campy well-wishing message that one so often finds on the back of 1960's Christmas records.  Nothing.  Just the same image that's plastered haphazardly across the front:  some wicker/glitter/dollar store monstrosity that some half-blind grandmother threw together for her church's Bazaar.  I think it's supposed to be a sleigh, actually. . . but I highly doubt this is the work of some skilled craftsman.

And why would the people who produced this album choose that image as the cover art in the first place?  Who the hell made this call?

You know what?  Nevermind, I know who it was.  It was the same creative director who designed the cover art for this shiny turd.

Anyway, drunken art direction aside, the music on this LP is pretty bizarre, but not outright terrible.  The first song, 'Hail Christmas' sounds like something from Christmas with Hitler (okay, I just made that up, but I'm sure even that asshole celebrated Christmas.)  German march-singing, beer hall accordions, and the repeated shouting of the word 'hail' - it doesn't take an overactive imagination to picture tens of thousands of Nazis in Santa hats shouting this song while saluting the Fuhrer.

The beer hall accordion plays pretty prominently throughout this album, too.  So does the church choir singing every written verse on each of these carols.  You know how popular recordings of Christmas Carols feature the two or three famous verses in the song, and if you go to church they sometimes spring an additional two verses on you that you didn't know existed before?  And you're all like, "Jesus, this song seems long - has it always been this long?  I don't remember this verse in 'Away in a Manger. . ."

That's exactly what we have here.  On every song.

And we even have a few moments of pure, Tennessee Ernie Ford-inspired terror on this LP, too.  Half way through 'Go Tell It on the Mountain,' the '60s kitschy folk-singing suddenly stops, and a deep, demonic baritone voice begins chanting ominously.  One can only expect this is the It on the Mountain - some horrible beast that lives on top of the Mountain that everyone is going and trying to tell things.  The whole thing makes for a real weird Christmas song, but hey - I'm assuming the It is more like the Abominable Snowman from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and you just gotta give homeboy a chance.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyl  (Germanic drinking music, scary baritone voices, and a never-ending hoo-hah of '60s folk singing unabridged versions of Holiday carols. . . all wrapped up in what could be considered the most depressing arts-and-crafts piece ever created.)

- SHELVED -