The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXIII

Who's got two thumbs and is ready to rate some mediocre, Holiday corporate rock? *points both thumbs at self*  This guy is. . .

Album Title:  Christmas in Tahoe

Album Artist:  Train

For $11, I picked this up on Amazon back in June of 2022. I'm not a fan of Train, but figured since they're a somewhat recognizable band and this thing is pressed on limited-edition, translucent green vinyl, I'd eventually be able to resell it at a later date for probably two or three times that price if I ever needed to.

And guys, it looks like I'm going to need to.

What exactly is the purpose of a boat like this - is it a fishing boat? 

For those of you unfamiliar with this particular band, Train kinda broke out in the late '90s and fell into that 'return-to-rock' niche that emerged during the peak days of nu-metal, alongside bands like, say, Fuel (trying to take the 'real rock' torch from The Black Crowes of the early 90s.) A year or two later, the garage rock revival landed - with bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, and The Hives - mercifully saving mankind from nu-metal once and for all. . . and consequently side-lining bands like Train that were prancing around in leather bands and unbuttoned shirts, trying to be The Stones.

Re-branding themselves in order to stay in the limelight, bands like Train softened their sound and became more approachable. Songs about cocaine were switched to songs about getting lost in some chick's eyes. Instead of being the CD a true rock fan would reach for while driving around in his car, this is the sort of CD he could find in his girlfriend's car. (That girl, by the way, is a preppy, sorority type, but she saw the video of their one song on MTV and liked the chorus hook. . . and she is dating a rock guy, after all. Just to get back at her dad.)

Anyway, the band itself is good for what it does. . . I just don't care for it.  Can the vocalist sing well?  100%, he's got a good voice.  Is the band tight?  You bet, they've been around for, like, 25 years.  For fans of friendly, clean radio rock fine-tuned by music executives - One Republic, Imagine Dragons, etc. - this Holiday album is probably a no-brainer.  

And that's exactly whom I'm hoping will buy this album from me. 

So, let's play Devil's Advocate here for a sec and imagine that Yours Truly used to like Train back in the day and picked this up for nostalgic purposes.  Would this Holiday album work?  Maybe. While the singer has impressive range, and the band is clearly talented on their respective instruments, they fail to make any of these songs theirs. They come across like some hired Wedding Band, being handed a list of Christmas songs the Bride wants performed at her wedding (why she wants to have Christmas music performed at her wedding is beyond any of us at this point.) This album has the energy of sober karaoke performed by people who were dragged up onto the stage by their drunken friends, and are clearly keeping an eye on the exit.

There are some original songs on here, but none of them deliver - it all sounds like radio rock (soft and inoffensive) performed by a band that last had a hit, like, over a decade ago. There's no identity in this music, no soul, no fire inside the musicians - the entire two records sound like its been done by a cover band. These songs will be forgotten immediately, never receive widespread radio play (if any), and will never once be covered by amateur or professional alike.  

The moral of this story, kids, is that if you're going to make a cover album, you need to bring something to the table that makes the songs your own. We're to the point where Holiday albums are a blank canvas where artists can pick and choose the public domain titles they want to cover. So one is free to craft and shape the Holiday album of their choice, there's no excuse for something like this particular album. You need to put your heart and soul into it, because true music fans can tell in a heartbeat when you're just calling it in in order to pick up a paycheck.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent (A washed up band from the early 2000s bring their corporate rock sound to the stage in order to deliver cover band -quality renditions of Holiday favorites. . . and a few uninspired originals. It gets a couple points because the band is clearly talented, and at no point at all is this album terrible, but its overall soullessness speaks volumes and prohibits me from every listening to this ever again.)

- SHELVED- 

- Brian