The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXIV

 Who's ready for the biggest f***ing disappointment of the 2020 Holiday Season? 

(. . .to date, obviously - 2020 ain't over yet.)

Album Title:  Scrooged (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album Artist:  Various Artists

I'm soooo pissed at this one.

Scrooged is a 1988 modern take on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starring a top-of-his-game Bill Murray in what could be considered the greatest role of his career (right up there with Ghostbusters and Groundhogs Day.)  This classic is so damn awesome that it's always been, like, my third favorite Holiday film (behind National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Muppet Family Christmas.)  Kris and I make it a point to watch it a couple times every year during the season, and it never disappoints.  The music in the film, too, is great - plenty of classics, oldies, etc. - that are quintessential Holiday standards.

So, while watching the movie last year, I decided to pick up my phone and see if the soundtrack was released on vinyl.  Sure enough, there was a recent pressing (a Record Store Day release from a few years ago, I believe), and, coincidentally, shortly after finding it online, I just so happened to stop into Radio Wasteland and found a copy of it for a mere $17.  To the victor go the spoils, am I right folks?

Nope.

There's only one song on this whole Goddamn album that is even remotely worth listening to, and that's the opening track on Side A - the Annie Lennox/Al Green jam that plays as Bill Murray breaks the Fourth Wall at the end of the movie and starts talking to the audience as the credits begin to roll.  You know, after he stops acting like a douchebag and starts loving Christmas.  And the little black kid finally learns how to talk again and Bill starts making out with Indiana Jones' girlfriend.  'Put a Little Love in Your Heart.'  Know what I'm talking about?

But even with that song, something sounds off.  It's not exactly the version from the film.

As the rest of the soundtrack unfurled like a shit-stained bed sheet, I realized in horror that this soundtrack can barely pass as a Christmas record.  There's, like, three Goddamn Christmas songs on here, and they're all horrendous.  'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),' which you'd think would be slam-dunked by Nat King Cole, is instead passed off to his daughter Natalie Cole. . . and the results are, well, ridiculously boring.  She can carry a tune, I suppose, but she's phoning this one in and sings like she doesn't need the money (I'm sure she's got plenty of her dad's left over.)

I almost breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that Miles Davis had a track on this - where he teams up with David Sanborn, Paul Shaffer, and some other dudes - but his jazzed up version of 'We Three Kings of Orient Are' is so mathematical and filled with unnecessary time changes and signature shifts that it doesn't even sound like a f***ing song, let alone a Christmas song.

Every other waste of pressed frickin' vinyl on this album is a waste.  This is all late-80's R & B bullshit, and every bit of it sounds like it belongs in a middle school dance from my 5th grade year.  I was so abashed by the sheer betrayal of this album that I had to go back through and actually look for the parts of the movie where these songs were featured.  A Kool Moe Dee track that is listed on this album was in the movie for all of, like, six seconds (when the barely-clad back-up dancers in Bill Murray's TV production were practicing their dance moves.)  Another song that was playing in a rundown house belonging to an African American family, but so quiet in the background you almost miss it.  Yet another one was playing somewhere while two characters walk down a sidewalk.  It may have been on screen for about four seconds, tops.

But all those classic, nostalgic Holiday songs?  The other classic oldies that I mentioned before?

Nope.  They're not on here.  Not a one.

I can't believe I spent $17 on this.  I'm never playing this record again, but I am holding on to it for the time being so that it can increase in value on Discogs before I take it back into Radio Wasteland to sell back for store credit.

Son of a bitch. . .

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This has to be one of the worst Christmas movie soundtracks I've ever heard.  I'm so pissed that I actually spent money on this train wreck. . .)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XLVI

What's up, America.

We got ourselves another album to scrutinize this evening. . .

Album Title:  A Twisted Christmas

Album Artist:  Twisted Sister

So my Christmas record collection, unbeknownst to me up until this point, was severely lacking in the harder rock niche of the genre.  I've got plenty of classic crooner stuff in my Holiday Record Collectoin, and lots of children's music and movie soundtracks, classical pieces, gospel/religious music, jazz albums, country Christmas stuff, etc. Alas, nothing 'harder.'  Not that that's necessarily my fault, mind you:   honestly, there are very few Christmasy rock albums out there, aside, of course, from the early rock and roll classics - Holiday songs by Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, Elvis, even the Sonics.

Within the last ten years, however, several rock bands have come forward with their own collection of Holiday offerings:  bands like Weezer, Cheap Trick, Bad Religion, and this, Twisted Sister.

Now, in all fairness, I've never considered myself a fan of these guys.  They had that one song in the '80s, which, if I found it on the radio on a commute to work, I wouldn't change the station, but I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to listen to it.  I certainly don't own any Twisted Sister albums on vinyl.

Well, now I do.

I had this in my iTunes library for a couple years before ultimately pulling the trigger and buying it off Discogs last month.  This was a Record Store Day exclusive a few years back, and was released on festive green vinyl, and for $20, I said 'what the hell.'

This album delivers exactly what it promises:  it's an '80s 'metal' band playing Christmas music, and it sounds just as one would imagine.  They knock it out of the park with a few gems on this album, notably "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Silver Bells," "Deck the Halls," and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," and even the weaker songs on the album (like the opener on Side A) aren't all-together terrible.

Honestly, I went out of my way to purchase this on vinyl because I find myself listening to it regularly (not all the way through, but about two-thirds of this album has made it into several of my Holiday playlists.  These songs are a hell of a lot of fun, and if you fancy yourself a rock aficionado who doesn't mind a little cheese with their metal, you'd be downright stupid if you passed this one up.

As a life-long fan of rock music in general, and as someone who forgoes all his usual musical tendencies in favor of Christmas music during the Holiday season, I tend to start craving something 'harder' as we roll into December.  I suffer from rock and roll, punk and metal withdrawals, I guess you could say.  And since I'm a firm believer in the idea that one should only listen to Holiday music during the Holidays, this album right here helps take the edge off my cravings.

I really wish more bands out there would record Christmas albums (pay attention, Rancid.)

VERDICT:  8/10 - Awesome (A ridiculously fun album to keep in Holiday Rotation, and one that fills the need for more 'rock' in one's Holiday listening.  It loses a couple points for a few 'meh' tracks, as well as the fact that, honestly, it is Twisted Sister.)

- REMAINS IN ROTATION -