The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XCVII

Well, we always end up having to endure one of these per season - might as well get it over and done with. . .

Album Title:  Motown Christmas 1's

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So I spent about $10 on this album back in, oh, July I think.  Sometime in the middle of summer at any rate.  Target had a bunch of their exclusive, colored LPs on sale so I bought several double-LPs - mostly 'Best of...'s and Holiday albums - at a mere $10 a pop.  A pretty damn good deal, if I don't say so myself.

Well, turns out I got hosed on this one, folks.  $10 was way too much.

At first glance, I go super excited about this one - I mean, what's not to love?  Legendary Motown groups, colored vinyl, ten frickin' dollars for a double-LP?  That's nearly a perfect storm of Holiday vinyl awesomeness, right? 

It should be.  But it's not.

Upon the dropping the needle down onto Side A of Disc 1 (the red one, folks), I immediately realized I could be in trouble.  The tempo of the first song (by the Four Topps) and the guy's lower-than-needed voice actually prompted me to switch the record speed over from 33 to 45.  I wish I was joking, guys, but I'm not. 

And seriously now.  French horns?  Get the f*** out of here.

Sadly, the entire album continues in more or less the same fashion:  you go into a song expecting something halfway-decent, based on the title of the Track and the name of the Artist covering it, only to be horribly disappointed in the end.  When one hears the name 'Motown' they think of the upbeat, snappy numbers from the early/mid'60's (at least I do.)  What we have most of the time here, dear readers, is the more glitzy, smoooooooth, oily 'soul' of the 70s.  This is blue jean caps, sequin jumpsuits, and cocaine addictions, not so much the beehive haircuts, short skirts, and sock-it-to-me-baby, Detroit pop that one usually associates with 'Motown.'

What in the Luther H. Vandross is this bullshit?  Get the hell out of here with that overly-sexualized, put-the-woman-in-the-bed crap.  It borders on sacrilege, honestly - such a tone does not belong on a Christmas album.  

Regardless of the vibe (if not most) of the songs on this release give off, there's just lack-luster performances all around.  I mean, seriously - three Smokey Robinson & the Miracles numbers and, while none of those ones are terrible, I guess, nothing comes even remotely close to 'I Second That Emotion' or 'Tears of a Clown.'  Five - yes, five - Temptations numbers on here and most of them are God-awful (which kills me to type out, because the Temptations are legends.)  These two groups right here - along with The Supremes (another group who can usually be counted on for knocking songs out of the park) - can count themselves now in the same company as one of my all-time favorites, Johnny Cash:

They usually make incredible music, but they have no business recording Holiday music.  Because everything I've heard thus far has been complete garbage.

You know it's bad when you have to call in the frickin' Jackson 5 - featuring a pre- child-molesting Michael Jackson - to do your heavy lifting on an album like this.  As much as I hate to admit it (because I hate Michael Jackson), the strongest song on the entirety of this double-LP release is the Jackson 5's cover of 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town.'  And that's saying something, because since he was like 7 when he recorded this song (I assume), it sounds like a children's song.

By far, the worst song on this release is Boyz II Men's 'Let It Snow.'  I didn't even know this washed-up boy band from the mid-90s was even Motown to begin with (as you can imagine, I don't listen to Motown passed '67 or '68, so who the hell cares when they stopped producing music.)  It's so overly-sung and dramatic (for no reason) that I feel like I need to be slow-dancing at a middle school dance or else wearing a white silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down my chest while feeding my wife chocolate-covered strawberries.

And I don't wanna do either of those things.  I just want to listen to a real Motown Christmas album.  Certainly not this bullshit.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Most of the songs on this release fall in the '3' to '5' range, but there's at least a few '6's on here to squeak out a halfway respectable score when averaged together.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian