The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXIX

Good God, here we go again. . . 

Album Title:  The Brightest Stars of Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Guys, I'm really conflicted about this one.  Head's all over the place.

Merry Christmas from the Donner Family

So, starting off with the album cover, we have some obvious 1960s watercolor painting of what, I assume, are seven shacks on the side of a wintry mountain, all buried in snow.  If this were a photograph of a real place, the inhabitants would slowly succumb to hypothermia and people wouldn't find their frozen corpses until Spring.  Who thought that this artwork would make a great album cover for a Holiday compilation? 

The good folks at J.C. Penney, that's who.  

(Remember J.C. Penney?  It was like Kohls, but shittier.)

Anyway, artwork aside, this is your usual roster of snooze-fest go-to's that we've seen pop up time and time again in this Christmas Record Odyssey of ours:  Ed Ames, Perry Como, Arthur Fiedler, Henry Mancini,, Robert Shaw Chorale, etc. etc.  Even before I dropped the needle on this one, I had a hunch that we'd be somewhere in the '3' or '4' neck of the woods.  The opening song on Side 1 wasn't anything to raise my hopes, either - an orchestral show-opener that's loud, overly-celebratory, and everything you'd come to expect from Eugene Ormandy.

Not like any of us know who the hell that guy even is.

Things slowly start to improve, however.  Elvis - the white-washed King of Rock and Roll - shows up with his famous 'Here Comes Santa Claus.'  If you like Elvis, you'll like this.  If you don't like him, you won't.  There's nothing surprising here with this song, it seriously sounds like every other upbeat Elvis song you've ever heard.  Ever.

Track 3 on Side 1, "Wonder Winterland" features a hillbilly banjo out of left field (by way of Tijuana.)  Steel guitars and a hard ride cymbal drive this Dixieland, brass-heavy rager into something that seriously had me come back into the Study from the kitchen and say out loud, "Are you frickin' kiddin' me?"  This track is awesome.

Following this, it segues right into Perry Como's "Home for the Holidays."  While I've never once said out loud "I love Perry Como" - because then I'd be a Comosexual - this is a Holiday staple, and one that currently sits on more than one of my Holiday playlists.

Sadly, this short run of 'not bad' patters out, and we're left with Christmas songs as lifeless as the frozen bodies left trapped on the side of the mountain in the picture above (thanks again, J.C. Penney.)  Harpsichords and a church choir - everyone's favorite combination - close out Side 1 in a yawnfest medley.  The same bizarre, overly-orchestral version of 'Jingle Bells' that Julie Andrews was forced to work with on our previous episode is featured as the opener of Side 2.  Ed Ames gets your grandmother's juices going, but certainly doesn't do it for anyone else.  Charley Pride's country number is as out of place on this compilation as a black singer would have been in 1970s country music.

. . . . hey, wait a sec.

Arthur Fiedler - the Fiedster - then makes a valiant attempt to bring Side Two back to life with his famous rendition of 'Sleigh Ride,' accompanied by the Boston Pops (like Perry Como's song on this release, a Holiday standard that's featured on one or two of my playlists), but it's just. . .  not enough.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Rising from the ashes of J.C. Penney's grandma slacks and tacky bed comforters comes this random compilation of Holiday usual-ness.  A hidden gem, a couple tried-and-trues, and a whole lotta boring.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXVII

Here we go again. . .

Album Title:  A Christmas Festival of Songs & Carols

Album Artist:  Various Artists

A group so white this could be a GOP photo op.

I bought a stack of shitty Christmas vinyl from the Bethesda Thrift Store, across the street from my school, during a lull on one of my Parent/Teacher Conference Days at work last week.  I grabbed the absolute crappiest-looking albums I could find, 'cause - at 59 cents apiece - it was a no-brainer for reviewing purposes.  

This particular release - courtesy of the once culturally-relevant JC Penney - with it's assembled Aryan herd of children adorning the cover, promised to be hokey as all hell.  I couldn't resist.  Yet, when dropping the needle on the Side A, Track 1, we find a Christmas medley from none other than Arthur Fiedler that and the Boston Pops Orchestra.  It's not the greatest holiday medley I've ever heard, sure enough, but it's pretty good; perhaps this album was going to be another surprise find for the Holiday Season?

Then the second track started.  And I realized this album was exactly what I thought it was going to be.

A whole lot of nonsense.

Mario Lanza, who tries his damnedest to deliver on 'O Little Town of Bethlehem,' sounds like a drunken uncle at a family get-together, trying to impress people by singing along to the radio.  Maybe he can sorta carry a tune (maybe he front his own band back in high school) but, because he's six or seven silver bullets into the afternoon, he's letting loose with a gusto that is by no means warranted.  What should be a quiet, peaceful delivery - 'cause, let's face it, that's kinda the whole 'Bethlehem' vibe - instead sounds more like, "Bro, you wan'me t'tell yoush about this fuggin place called Beffenhem?"

Following up this diddy, we have a children's chorus deliver 'The Little Drummer Boy,' in typical fashion. Not horrible, but considering the previous tracks that have appeared on this release, it's definitely out of place.  There's a time and place for children's choirs, folks, and it's on frickin children's albums.  These 60's music producers were out of their Goddamn minds putting this nonsense in a Holiday compilation album.

Gotta love the back-of-cover inspirational message. . .

The worst song on this record, by far, is delivered by Marian Anderson, who warbles with unbridled fury on 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas.'  I'm assuming this was a somewhat well-known artist back in the day ('cause, I mean, JC Penney doesn't throw just anybody on their Holiday compilations, right?) but this seriously sounds like a guy pretending to sing opera in his best 'womens' voice.  I haven't heard singing this bad since Kate Smith graced us with her presence five years ago.  It seriously sounds like someone pretending to sing, it doesn't sound real - it's that comically bad.  So bad, in fact, that I was more amused than disgusted.

The Robert Shaw Chorale's appearance on this album definitely pissed me off, because their rendition of 'The Little Drummer Boy' is mankind's greatest version, and the fact they brought in child labor for that track on the previous side is kind of infuriating.  'The Twelve Days of Christmas' - which nine times out of ten is a skip-able song on any Christmas playlist, regardless of the artist performing it - is performed by a choir of vocalists so bad that they sound like they've been rejected from a church talent show, and this is their last shot at greatness.

. . .I could honestly keep going, but I think you get the idea.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (A valiant attempt from Arthur Fiedler can't help drag this boring - and sometimes comically-bad offering - out of the muck and mire.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XLVII

Hi again, music lovers.

We can't get ourselves any frickin' snow it seems, but we can sure as hell nab ourselves some audio nerdery. . .

Album Title:  An Evening with Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops:  Great Songs for ALL SEASONS

Album Artist:  Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops

They went out of their way to convince you, right out of the gate, that this album could be played year-round.  Check out the All Caps work in the title.  I definitely overlooked this fact when purchasing it at Radio Wasteland last month (for $2, mind you), and assumed, since it was in their Christmas section, it was a Holiday album.

And it sort of is.

Upon placing this on my turntable, however, I soon realized why this was advertised as music for ALL SEASONS:  the entirety of Side A is NOT Christmas music.

What.  The.  Hell.

Instead, we have your usual pickings of '70s Easy Listening fan favorites.  "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," "What the World Needs Now is Love," etc. - Arthur Fiedler, like EVERYONE ELSE in the '70s, apparently can't get enough of Burt f***ing Bacharach.

Those two songs alone appear on probably 90% of every thrift store album one comes across, which leads me to believe that Mr. Bacharach was commonly believed back then to be the second coming of Christ.

His songs creep into every nook and cranny of mainstream music, forcing their way onto compilation LPs and demanding to be heard, like some drunk guy who shows up at a party uninvited.


I don't care for Burt Bacharach, and his presence here is not a welcome one.

So Side A, long story short, is a wash.  It sucks.  If you're a fan of listening to instrumental versions of 'classic' '70s Easy Listening, then you'll probably dig it, but that's not a genre I'm a fan of.

Side B, however, is Christmas music, and is done in Fiedler's typical 'pops' orchestral arrangements (listen to any orchestral offering that ends with '. . .Goes Pop' and you'll know what I'm talking about.)  It's not bad, but it sounds like department store background music.  Imagine you're walking through a J.C. Penney (remember those?) back in the '80s, during December, and you're picking out tacky gold jewelry for your mom.  This is the music that is playing over the sound system.  His take on Tchaikovsky is nice, as is his arrangements of other Holiday classical scores, but I have better versions on other LPs, and, ultimately, it's nowhere near enough to save this half-ass attempted offering from damnation.

I'm pissed I spent $2 on this.  While not horrible, per se - Fiedler is a talented artist in the 'Goes Pop' field, and if both sides were comprised of legit Christmas music we might be looking at a higher score, maybe a '6' or so  - I feel cheated that this is only half a Christmas album, and that an entire side of this LP is dedicated to Bacharach-ish shittiness.  

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Burt Bacarach and Co's boring sleaze drags this album down considerably, and not even Fiedler's not-bad take on Christmas Classical music is enough to save it from being shelved. . . if not donated.)

- SHELVED -