The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXLVII

Two days left, America - think we got time for one more Holiday album review for this season. . . 

Album Title:  Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Album Artist:  The Caroleers

Ah, another children's album. This one caught my eye 'cause the damn thing was still sealed in shrink when I picked it up (which happens from time to time - apparently the $2.98 hype sticker wasn't enough to sell it back in the day.)

The Caroleers have appeared on a couple different albums that I've reviewed in the past, and from what I can gather they were some kinda vocalist group that was created by a studio for the sole purpose of recording in-house records. They're usually garbage, but they seem more at home on a kids' album, for sure. This album plays out like a variety show, it's by no means a straight up collection of children's songs. There's like little skits and spoken word scattered throughout the album, which, for a normal listen, would be jarring as all hell, but we have to remember that this is a children's album and, uh. . . . I guess little kids like that sorta thing? Who knows, kids are dumb.

The song selection on this album is super weird, though. Most of these songs are not familiar ones at all - aside from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town,' these are all originals. It's like some studio executive balked at the suggestion that they just record an album of the Big Kids' Songs ('Up on the Rooftop,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' etc.) and said, "F*** that, fellas - I got this. Hold my beer." Then proceeded to hire in-house songwriters to craft their own, brand new children's Christmas songs. 

You know, like a crazy person would do.

This, as you know, is a cardinal sin - probably the most egregious of sins one can make on a Christmas album, and one that I've only seen circumvented on a handful of occasions with decent, original Christmas songs. But let's put that on the back-burner for the time being and play devil's advocate for a second: maybe this album's sound is strong enough to defend it's bizarre track list?

Well, readers, this album sounds like it was produced by Hanna Barbara or something back in the day, the music is straight-up 1960s Children's TV music - not the '40s orchestral insanity of, say, the Loony Tunes or whatever, but that cashing-in-on-the-swing-of-the-60s thing. It's soooo campy that you can imagine if this thing was the soundtrack to an animated special, the characters would all have bobs and go-go dresses. Aside from cartoons, you also heard similar background music in family programming like The Brady Bunch or Partridge Family - that vanilla, safe-for-all-audiences, period-accurate backing music. The production itself isn't half-bad, this sounds like it was recorded with some semblance of a budget, so the idea that they had the opportunity to record classics that kids would easily recognize (and reside in the public domain) is mind-boggling.

I mean, there's a song on here called '10,000 Santa Clauses' on this frickin' album. Not just the one. Not two or three. Ten thousand of 'em. You can't make this shit up.

Again, these songs are kids' songs, so they're all upbeat and jovial, and the singing is far too animated and expressive for adult listening. Every syllable isn't just sung, it's acted: you see this a lot in life-action children's television, like when people sing on Sesame Street or Barney or whatever. With all the ridiculous facial expressions and over-exaggerating of body movement. Pair that with previously discussed campy, 60s music, and you have an album that plays out like a fever dream that one can only escape from with a bullet to the skull.

So fine, I get it, I'm not the target audience for an album like this, but still - I've ranked some stellar, children's Holiday albums in the past (the soundtrack to classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, offerings from heavyweights like The Muppets, Disney's main characters, etc.), so it's not like I'm going to just torpedo this post's installment merely because it's not 'my cup of tea.' Give me some credit here, folks. No, this album isn't bad because it's a children's album, it's bad because it suffers from a crappy track selection and poor execution in the delivery.

'Who's That Up on the Roof,' for example, sounds like a child contemplating snatching his dad's shotgun from the garage when he hears some stranger walking around on his roof. There's a level of indignation in this singer's voice that makes one's skin crawl,  even more so 'cause it's a little-ass kid singing. Why is this kid so pissed there's a dude up on his roof? You'd think with it being Christmas Eve and everything this kid would put two-and-two together and realize it's Santa Claus before he murders him (via Stand Your Ground laws.)

This album would have been a solid '5' or even '6' if they had chosen more familiar songs, because the production isn't god-awful (The Caroleers, who I've reviewed before, seem to find their footing within the context of overly-animated, children's music.) The backing music is pretty campy, sure, but this was recorded in the 60s and, well, that's just what was popular back then. I can even excuse the spoken word bits and skits because, as we've said multiple times before, this is a children's album and they wanted to weave some storytelling in there. That's all fine and good. I guess.

What's not fine and good is the hubris of the producers who decided to forego all decency and insist on penning some of the most cringe-inducing, lyrically asinine Christmas songs I've heard all season.  We as adults have a right to protect children in this society, and this album is the sort of thing that warrants a phone call to CPS.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously?  (Not the worst children's Holiday album I've heard - by a long shot - but I just can't wrap my head around the decision to include soooo many original songs on a children's album. Kids like singing along to songs they know by heart, WHY wouldn't they include some familiar hits on this album?)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXLII

Bring forth your children, America. Bring forth your children and let them partake in this Holiday musical offering . . 

Album Title:  All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth & Festive Favorites for Children

Album Artist:  Santa's Helpers

This kid on this album cover scares the living shit out of me.

Why would the label execs pull the trigger on having some cross-eyed kid with messed up teeth grace the cover of their Christmas album? Were they trying to be whimsical or something? Don't they know how weird this kid looks? There is nothing whimsical about a child who can only see his nose and can't afford braces, folks. This time of year is for festivity and merriment, not revulsion and horror; this child needs to be put back into his cage in the basement and washed down with a garden hose.

Anyway, this was another Dollar Bin score from Radio Wasteland, and one look at that little urchin on the album cover should tell you why I picked this up in the first place. Children's albums are almost always disasters, unless a.) they have a larger budget and a solid production team, b.) the track list is age-appropriate, fitting for the Holidays, and arranged halfway decent, and c.) the 'talent' on the album is used appropriately. Seeing the album cover in the record store a few years ago, I had little expectations that Santa's Helpers (the artists who put out this album, probably not affiliated with Santa at all - frickin' posers) were up to the task.

Side A opens with the title song, and it's got more accordion than a Goddamn polka festival, cranked up to '11', with only a walking stand-up bass for company. The ridiculous instrumentation is actually the best thing about this one, though, because the singing is f***ing terrifying. It sounds like an adult recorded this album in a broom closet while doing their very best to impersonate a small child singing. The trademark fake lisp associated with this song isn't cute or funny in this version, because you know it's an ADULT and not a child singing.

A rip-off of Dave Seville's Chipmunks follows, with much of Side A compromising a slew of Holiday songs sung in that obnoxious, high-pitched Chipmunk singing. However it is beyond obvious that these aren't the real Chipmunks, folks - these are cheesy knock-offs. The creepy dude who was acting like a child with a speech impediment in the last track stumbled from his hiding spot in the broom closet and has his vocals sped up to 45 rpm (or 78 rpm, whichever one they use for that 'Chipmunk' singing.) He's accompanied by some random dude who sounds like he's been drinking since 9am, because, you know, he's going through some serious shit at home and doesn't want to talk about it.

The first installment in this Go-Bots Chipmunk nonsense is 'Jingle Bells,' which is meh - these two weirdos don't make good Chipmunks at all - followed by 'Deck the Halls.' Between every song on this album, a mysterious entity with a booming, low voice starts to talk to the 'Chipmunks,' but the mix is so bad on this frickin' album that you can barely understand what he's saying. This malevolent force sounds like Durin's Bane crawling out of the depths under Khazad-dum, and is by no means anything you'd remotely want on a children's Christmas album. Jesus H. Christ.

 

As bad as that sounds, it gets worse. At least the previous two songs are secular Holiday selections. The next two numbers introduced (I'm guessing introduced, I can't understand the black speech of whatever the hell this thing is that speaks between tracks), are - and I kid you not - 'Joy to the World' and 'Silent Night.' Folks, I'm going to break this down for you real quick: Chipmunks should not exist in the same universe as Christianity. They exist in kids' movies and TV shows, sure, but nowhere in any of these mediums is religion referenced at all. . . and I assume this is because by having Chipmunks and a higher power in the same plane of existence would mean that some kind of deity exists that sanctioned the creation of these f***ing Chipmunks.

Just imagine the same god that signed off on the whole Jesus thing - the miracle of his birth, his teachings, his sacrifice and resurrection, the whole nine yards - just so happens to be the same, exact god that one day went, 2000 years later,"You know what this world of mine needs? Three, singing Chipmunks. Three - and later six - singing Chipmunks who will record multiple albums, launch multiple TV reboots and movies, and do so without having the decency of wearing pants. And they'll be able to speak English and will be roughly the same size as midgets."

So yeah, having Chipmunks singing songs praising aforementioned deity is a little creepy for laid-back, Holiday listening.

"The Night Before Christmas," which is basically some of these 'Santa's Helpers' sing-reciting the famous poem to some random music. It's not awesome by any measure, but it's the first time since dropping the needle on this album that I've heard a halfway respectable Children's Christmas song.

Half of Side B is taken up by a 'dramatic telling' of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (think of like the dramas people used to listen to on the radio back in the 1940's, with like voice actors and sound effects and whatever.) Again, this is done with some competency, at least compared to the opposite side of the record, with the Go-Bot Chipmunks shittiness, but its a very shortened version of the classic story, and is over in a matter of minutes.

Then it's time for a children's choir, who shuffle in fresh on the heels of Story Time, for 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,' 'Twelve Days of Christmas' and 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas.' They're accompanied by a sad, dying church organ, which sounds like the musical version of the sad, dying woman who's playing it. Like, I get it, this is a Children's Christmas Album, you've got little kids singing and everything, but for THE LOVE OF GOD - you're trying to get kids into the spirit of Christmas, you really wanna traumatize them with this agonizing church organ? Remind them of sitting bored in church with their parents and grandparents, when they could be running around their segregated, 1960s neighborhood, playing stick-and-hoop or kick-the-can or whatever the hell it was kids did back then? Nobody around here owns an electric guitar or a trumpet or something? 

F***, I'd even settle for that weird accordion we heard on the title track at this point.

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (A train wreck of a Children's Christmas Album, but a couple not-terrible tracks save it from being the worst Children's Christmas Album I've ever heard.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXXI

Don thee now our gay apparel. . . just kidding, don't do that. This is a church album, and the church frowns on the gays.

Album Title:  Kiddies Christmas

Album Artist:  Unknown

So, yet again, we have a gem pulled from the darkest, dankest, recesses of Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin. As usual, we find ourselves with another yuletide turd that is far worse than I had expected, which is saying a lot considering the dumpster fire that is the cover artwork. A group of kids, freezing out in the cold, gaze longingly through a window at an assortment of presents (featuring a small-ass dog who's just escaped from a box, apparently.)

Here's my concern: is this in a store's display window? Because, if so, that's the shittiest store window I've ever seen. Maybe it's one of those hipster-ish boutiques that specializes in artisan soaps where the store owners are a husband and wife adorned in knit caps and crappy cuneiform tattoos. And the shitty store window is an intentional move to showcase their store's authenticity.

That's actually the better scenario, because if this isn't a store's display window, then these special needs kids (because I'd bet the lives of my own children on the fact that the boy in the back is - there's no way on God's green Earth that kid's playing with a full deck) are staring into someone's house. Like a bunch of retarded, Peeping Toms.

Now, believe it or not, this poorly-executed cover design is actually the best thing about this album.  I wish I was kidding.

First of all, it should be obvious by the kids on the cover and the graphically-challenged Title art (sweet machine gun you sneaked in there, Graphic Designer) that this album is targeting the little kid demographic. I had initially assumed that the songs on this album would be sung by a children's choir, or, at the very least, a group of male and female vocalists who sound as if they're smiling while they're singing (know what I'm talking about? Like when you call someone on the phone and can hear in their voice that they're smiling.) And the track listing would be compromised of children's Holiday favorites ('Frosty the Snowman,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Up on the Rooftop,' 'Santa Claus is Comin' to Town,' etc. - there's, like, a bajillion to choose from.)

But nope. That's not what we have here.

Just look at this f***ing track list, guys. Why the hell did the producers of this release decide to feature a bunch of slow, boring, religious carols on a children's Christmas album? What frickin' genius made that call? Are solemn, religious carols a necessary component for the Holiday season? Sure, for most folks (you know, that 'reason for the season' and so on and so forth), but on a children's album?  

Guys, I speak from experience: kids do not like going to church. I fought that battle with my parents for years, and now my kids fight that battle with me. Church is boring (unless you're my wife), and I don't blame kids in the slightest for squirming miserably in the pews. So, considering this, what made the producers think that kids would want to hear church music on a Holiday album clearly marketed towards them?

It isn't until Track 3 that we get around to upbeat, more light-hearted Christmas carols with 'Deck the Halls,' which isn't really 'children's' in nature, but 'Dickens.'  If you actually pay attention to the lyrics of this one, this song is clearly a couple hundred years old, but damn - after those few boring church songs that open up this album, I'll take it.

Unfortunately, it's right back to the religious crap after our brief interlude, with some dude singing bass that could easily give Tennessee Ernie Ford and Jim Nabors a run for their money. It's hard to sell this album as a Holiday album targeting children when one of your prolific vocalists sounds like Paul Frees welcoming you to the Haunted Mansion. Even 'Jingle Bells,' one of the most upbeat songs in Christmasdom, is unnerving with these vocals.

Frank doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

This sounds like an album meant to scare kids into obedience during the Holiday season. There's no revelry or whimsy to be found anywhere on this atrocity. I would imagine the only people who owned this album back in the '50s were people that were adamant about home-schooling their children, lest they fall into the many, many traps of Satan in the Public Education System.

'Nancy' had a traumatic childhood. No f***ing doubt about it.

Being a veteran teacher of almost 20 years, I'll concede that we have plenty of said traps in our schools, but. . . c'mon. How can sending one's precious little angels into a public middle school be any less hellish than what they've amassed here?

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This is the musical equivalent of getting your kids' hopes up for flashy new toys from Santa and then handing them personalized, devotional bibles on Christmas Morning.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXV

Hey, who's ready to touch [consensually] their inner, Holiday child. . .

Album Title:  Here Comes Santa Claus!

Album Artist:  Unknown

Here we got with yet another dollar bin find from Radio Wasteland; if you couldn't tell, this has been my go-to method for scrounging up cheap, shitty albums to review the last four or five Holiday Seasons. It's getting to the point where I have to make sure I don't pick any up that I've already reviewed in previous posts.  

This one, however, couldn't be passed up. Jesus H. Christ, just look at this frickin' guy. That's the most red-faced Santa Claus I've ever seen.

"Uh Oh, children - Santa's made a HUGE mistaaaake."

If he's sober in this picture, I'm an Ohioan.

He's got that 'oh shit' look in his eyes too - a look filled with shock and regret. To me, that either indicates he just did something sudden and gross in his pants and was unable to do anything about it in the heat of the moment. . . . or else that rabid, baby panda he's got cradled in his chubby mitts just bit him.

This baby panda is the thing of nightmares. It will eat your soul.

(That's the scariest baby panda I've ever seen, folks.)

Whoever previously owned this album played the holy hell out of it, I'll tell you what. Even after a run through the ol' Spin Clean record cleaning system, it's still scuffed all to hell. It'd be more believable to learn that the previous owner had used this record as a frickin' shovel than as something to be played on their turntable. The surface noise on this album is so bad I almost threw the record in the trash without reviewing it at all.

But that would have been a waste of a dollar, kids.

Anyway, shitty album art/record condition aside, the arrangements here could be best described as 'cartoon' music, gang. Accordions and xylophones  - and lots and lots of jingle bells - abound, everything's upbeat and cheerful, and it all sounds like circus music. Or the sort of thing you'd hear in a 1940's cartoon. Nothing here out of the ordinary, I guess, considering this is a children's album after all.  

Have I heard better? Sure, absolutely. Is it bad? Meh. . . 'bad' might be a stretch. 

It's not good, but, then again, I'm not one to rock out to children's music, I'm definitely not the target demographic here. That being said, I can easily think of, like, two-dozen Christmas albums that were geared towards children that had more 'child-appropriate' singers than this release. The male singer that takes the lead on most of the songs on this album sounds like a mix between Glenn Yardbrough and a stuffy, pompous banker type in an old Looney Tunes (like that Bugs Bunny would repeatedly mess with throughout the course of an old cartoon short.) Not the best vocal option for a children's album, in my opinion, but hell - what do I know?  This is a children's album, and I'm 25 years old.

There's no artist credits on this album to be found anywhere, so we'll probably never know who this sub-par vocalist is. But, taking into consideration the catalog of other record label titles advertised on the back of this album (instead of artist/band credits, 'from our house to yours' messages, etc.), I think it's safe to assume that this singer was most likely just company 'talent' that was brought into the studio for an afternoon of singing kids' Christmas songs. He probably makes appearances on the label's obligatory Country/Western albums, Polka albums, and a few of those 'Cherished Favorites' compilations of some kind, too.

. . . that, or he works in the mail room and just happened to be passing by a board room when a couple big-wigs asked him if he knew how to sing at all. Who's to know.

There's also a  female singer who takes lead vocal duty on a couple tracks (usually she just chimes in on some of the choruses here and there as a background singer.) She's a click above the male singer, as far as children's music from the 1950s goes. Gives off some strong Angela Lansbury vibes. So, you know. . . if that's your thing. . . .

Then, out of left field, just when you've been lulled into a false sense of childlike security by two, full sides of this kiddie circus album - BAM - the album producers drop a spoken word poem on your ass.

''Twas the Night Before Christmas.' Odds are you grew up reading it - or having it read to you - every Christmas Eve, it's a classic. But does it really need to be on a Holiday record? 

It certainly feels out of place, even on a bizarro Children's album like this one. To make matters worse, as the poem goes on, they start incorporating cartoon-y sound effects - window shutters opening, reindeer hooves on a roof, etc. - and background begins to swell. This, I assume, was included in order to inject some 'yuletide flare' into the famous Christmas poem. The result from the combination of this music and the guy's voice sounds like this would be far better suited for a 1950s educational film teaching children about how crayons are made in a factory. 

In conclusion, when in doubt, feel free to leave off adding poetry to one's Holiday albums.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (A really dated Children's Christmas album. Had I reviewed this baby about, oh, seventy years ago, I'd probably rate it pretty well. Unfortunately, seeing how I don't have a access to a time machine, I'm going to have to knock it down substantially instead. It's also gonna lose a point for the beyond-stupid inclusion of a poem at the end of Side B.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XCVI

So uh, here we go again, folks.  Time for some G-Rated Holiday fun from a B-Rated 'Country' singer. . . I guess.  Let's do this.

Album Title:  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Other Christmas Songs

Album Artist:  Tex Johnson and His Six-Shooters

Another Radio Wasteland Dollar Bin find this year, I had a pretty good idea I was in for some bottom-shelf Children's music, capitalizing on the '50s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer craze.

I had never heard of 'Tex Johnson' before, but when I picked this up I assumed he was some old Country singer who had a few hits back in the 1940s and 1950s, and now he was being thrown a few bucks in order to cut an album of Children's Christmas songs.  That isn't out of the ordinary, of course - popular singers have been cashing in on the well-accepted practice of recording their own Christmas album for decades.  I mean, it is pretty fool-proof when you think about it:  you already have an established career, so you record and album where you're covering songs that are already well-known favorites that everyone already knows and loves.  It's a win-win, you're bound to make some money off it.

Turning to Wikipedia to learn more about this dude, I was once again Gene Riley'd (a term I'm going to try and use from now on when coming up with nothing on the Internet's signature Encyclopedic site) - the only 'Tex Johnson' page I came across was this guy, who was a baseball pitcher during, oh, World War I.  

Going out on a limb here and concluding that they aren't the same guy.

The history of Rudolph and. . .um. . . Johhny Marks.

The back of the album wasn't much help, either.  The entire backside of the sleeve was the backstory of the popularity of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his creator, Johhny Marks.  No mention of the guys that actually perform on this album.  Never a good sign.

The signature song on this album is 'meh' at best.  It's not in the same ballpark as Burl Ives (who did the song better than anyone), but instead comes across as a Dollar Store, cheap Chinese knock-off of the Gene Autry rendition (Autry being the original artist, recording it back in 1949.)  Tex here tries his damnedest to imitate Autry with his performance, drawling and twanging through the number with a safe and non-offensive approach.  It comes across as a performance you'd expect to find on a Saturday morning, Children's variety show.  On the radio (because this was probably recorded before TVs were commonplace in American living rooms - I'm trying to be historically accurate here, folks.)

Had this song been the standard for the remainder of the track list, we'd have ourselves a solid '5' here, but the album goes downhill in a hurry.  Tex can carry a tune, in that hokey, 'lonesome cowboy' sorta way that appealed to millions of Americans back in the day, and the album is clearly aimed at kids - something to keep in mind, for sure - but Children's albums are dangerous things, and they're easier to screw up than you would think.  Allow me to point out some mis-steps from Tex and the gang on this one. . .  

I'm gonna say this once and I want to be very clear about this, ladies and gentlemen:  we do not need accordions in Christmas music.  This isn't a pirate shanty, it's a Christmas album.  I can't think of ever listening to a Christmas song and ever once thinking, 'Damn, you know what this song needs?  Some motherf***ing accordion accompaniment.'  And there is soooo much accordion on this Goddamn album.

There's some weird barber shop-ish a cappella stuff in here as well that also, obviously, has no business being on a kids' album. If you want to have a choir doing vocalizing sans music accompaniment, that's fine and all, but you better be performing a religious Christmas song.  Like something solemn in tone and message, something churchy in nature.  Kids certainly don't wanna hear that shit, Tex.

The upbeat country numbers on this album - 'Wait for the Wagon (on Christmas Day)' and 'Pride of the Prairie Mary', for example - are the easiest to listen to.  The target audience for songs like this are those cowboy-obsessed kids of the 1950s, like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.  Still, songs like 'Cheyenne,' which is definitely a country/western song, are overly done to the point where nowhere in the lyrics - at any given point in time - is anything remotely related to Christmas ever mentioned.  Not once. 

Santa apparently flipping off Tex for not being included.

Don't get me wrong, folks. I like old timey Country/Western music as the next guy, but c'mon, Tex - this is supposed to be a Christmas album.  Ain't nobody got time for songs about the Lonesome Trail.  How hard would it be to change up the lyrics a bit here and there.  Maybe instead of meeting a fair-eyed girl on the praire, you find - oh, I don't know - Santa Claus.  Maybe instead of leading your horse through a gully on a starlit night, you're leading a reindeer.

It practically writes itself, Tex.

The saving grace here is that this may be the shortest Holiday album I've ever reviewed - each song is, like, a minute long.  The whole offering is probably 15-20 minutes, tops.  As unbearable as it can be in spots, at least it's over fast.  Like ripping off a band-aid.

On the Lonesome Trail, of course.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (A nobody from the 1950s cuts a Children's Christmas album, but overdoes the Country/Western thing, and inexplicably decides to double-down with an accordion and an obnoxious backing vocal group.  I decided to grace it with a few pity points for it's super-short running time, the title song, and a couple upbeat Country songs, but this sort of music has been done far better by other folks who, you know, you can actually find on the Internet.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXXIV

You're all about to think a lot less of me. . .  

Album Title:  The Care Bears Christmas

Album Artist:  The Care Bears

We're really reaching into the far corners of Christmasdom here, America.  Down deep into the black recesses of the Holiday Season, where sinister things lie dormant, awaiting their chance to rise up and unleash pure evil upon unsuspecting revelers.

I give you The Care Bears.

I saw this album at Radio Wasteland a year or two ago and just knew it was going to be a frickin' shit-show, but that would make it fun to review at the very least.

I was wrong.

You'd expect this to be the voices of the Care Bears from the TV series and movies, singing familiar Christmas songs - God knows that's what we've seen before in this Record Odyssey of mine, what with Disney's main cast of characters, with The Muppets, and even with Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Those albums, while definitely children's albums at heart, are executed with precision (arrangements, sound levels, voices, etc.)  Each of these childrens' albums (the Muppets might transcend the 'childrens' label, but they've always straddled the line between 'children' and 'adult') one can listen to without cringe-shuddering with disgust.

This album brings forth the worst feelings one can experience while listening to a Holiday album.

For starters, it's like they couldn't secure the rights to any famous Christmas songs except 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas,' as if these hundreds-year-old Christmas songs aren't public domain.  Did the producers of this album think there's a copyright on 'Jingle Bells'?  What in the actual f***?  Why wouldn't you throw some famous Christmas carols on an album like this, stuff little kids would instantly recognize and be able to sing along with?

That's just the tip of the iceberg, though - it gets waaaaay worse.

The voice-acting here may be some of the absolute shittiest vocals I've ever come across.  Firstly, these are not the original voice actors from the 1980s series, nor the higher-budget movies (which, if you'll recall, I reviewed before on this blog, back when my kids were obsessed with both direct-to-video movies and watched them multiple times a day.)  How do I know the voice actors are different?  I researched it.  I'm not necessarily proud of it, but I did it.  They try and make the bears sound the same, and they sound somewhat similar, but are still noticeably different.  Could they not even secure the original voice actors for this nonsense?

No, they grabbed random-ass people to voice the Big Ten bears (the main characters from the show/movies), and this was the second big mistake the producers of this album made:  these motherf***ckers can't sing at all.  Not even in squeaky cartoon voices.  For Christ's sake, even the dude that voiced Goofy was able to stay in character and 'sing' in Goofy's voice on the Disney Christmas album - here we have voices cracking, people clearly turning away from the microphone when they can't hit their notes. . . it's a disaster.

As unstoppable as this franchise was in the 1980s, it boggles the mind coming to grips with how little care (pun intended) was given while making this album.  The arrangements and production of the songs is garbage, the sound levels are all over the place - it's like it was mixed by a high school A/V club - and performed on a simple Casio keyboard (drums and all.)  The 'skits' that are featured in between and lead in to each song sound like they were recorded during an elementary school Christmas pageant.  Obviously, little kids growing up in the 80s would've loved this album, but I guarantee you that this Christmas album right here, while played repeatedly by stupid children, caused dozens - if not hundreds - of divorces.  

It's that bad.

If there is any proof at all that there is a God out there, it is that a.) the Care Bear Cousins do not make an appearance on this album, and b.) none of the songs chosen for this shit-show of a Christmas album reflect the religious aspect of the season.  There are no 'Silent Night,' or 'Little Town of Bethlehem,' or 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' to be found, and that is truly a God-send.

If I had to hear Grumpy Bear or Lionheart sing 'Away in a Manger,' I would 100% kill myself.  No doubt about it.

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This is one of the worst Christmas albums I have ever heard, and the ONLY reason it ranks as high as it does is because it could've been so much worse.  One pity point is given because the producers had just enough lucidity to realize that the Care Bears shouldn't be singing about Baby Jesus.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XLVIII

Seasons Greetings, y'all.  Let's get some jams goin' here. . .

Album Title:  I Love Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Okay, you know what, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it:  this music is so f***ing cartoon-y it ought to have some kind of label across the front cover that says "Recorded in Glorious Technicolor."

God help me.

I don't think very many 'artists' on this album had waded into the waters of puberty at the date of recording (they're probably all in their 50s now.)  This is a Lord of the Flies Christmas - children's choirs, children soloists, and only a handful of post-pubescent singers (Skeeter Davis, Roy Rogers, Florence Henderson, Spike Jones doing that Dr. Demento's Christmas favorite, 'All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,' etc.) bother making an appearance.

This really isn't the sort of record one puts on while trying to seduce a sweater-wearing, egg nog-sipping, young lady in front of some crackling yule logs.  This is the sort of record you intentionally put on to calm down a preggosaurus rex while she's in the deep throws of a 'get this f***ing thing out of me already' meltdown.  'Cause won't having kids someday be nice?? Or maybe when you're trying to calm down a roost-full of candy cane-fueled toddlers tearing around your living room.

Either way.

So is offering downright terrible?  No, no it's not.  This is a children's album, so you know what you're getting, more or less.  Not a lot of surprises, here.  The adult singers are delivering in the most monotone, calm voices they can muster ('cause, you never know, it could be nap time), and the children's choirs are singing with as much cherubic charm they can muster.  If you want Children's Christmas music, you might be okay with this.

Florence Henderson and Roy Rogers are kinda creepy, but. . . whatever.  I guess they're not nearly as creepy as the sinister-looking little girl on the album cover, employing a vice grip on a dead koala.

I love Christmas.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (It's a children's Christmas album.  While not necessarily horrible, I have far better ones in my collection.)

- SHELVED -

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XXV

Happy Snow Day, Internet.

Album Title:  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Other Christmas Favorites

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Harmless children's album, right?  Yeah, that's what I thought too.  When I picked it up at a local thrift store, I thought to myself, "Well hey, here we go:  a holiday album for the kiddos."  I mean, it's got two famous Christmas characters on the cover.  In cartoon-form, no less.

Well, as the saying goes, Don't judge an LP by its cover.

This album is f***ing scary.

"Hey Rudolph, wanna see a dead body?"

I'm serious.  I've heard a lot of crappy children's songs in my day, but the first track of Side B on this crap-fest may be the scariest thing I've listened to in some time.  Some random guy (I'm assuming a drifter) sings an occasional verse here or there, and I guess he's supposed to sound like Santa, but instead he sounds like a Balrog from Middle Earth, singing through a distortion pedal from the darkest bowels of the Black Cauldron.  It's horrifying.

And the singing children?  They're horrifying, too.  Creepy, sing-song shit that you'd expect to hear coming from the attic of some abandoned, run-down cottage deep in the woods.  Built on an Indian graveyard.

This album feels every bit like when Netflix releases a B-Movie that's title is so similar to a Hollywood blockbuster that it tricks people into watching it.  So, say you want to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, starring Johnny Depp, and when you search Netflix you find Pirates in the Caribbean, starring a handful of washed-up actors from early '90s shows like Melrose Place.  And as you start watching it - under the false pretense that it is the legit, Johnny Depp-version - you start thinking to yourself, "Wait a minute, this doesn't look right - I thought Disney made this film?  These special effects are garbage -this looks like a high schooler made this movie.  In China."

Then you realize you've been bamboozled, and that you've wasted twenty-six minutes of your life that you'll never get back.

That's what we have here, guys:  a collection of children's Christmas songs that are executed so terribly that you kick yourself for having wasted the time listening to it in the first place.  The instrumental arrangements aren't uniform (the volume rises and falls without reason, as if some chimps were in the control room turning knobs while their handler was off taking a piss), the song selection is considerably dated (I've never heard half of these songs before, and I fancy myself somewhat of a Christmas music aficionado), and the vocals are so scary that I want to hold my kids close and never let them go.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (A dark look into humanity's Holiday basement of horrors.  It gets a bonus point for featuring a clearly-belligerent Jimmy Durante trying to pick a fight with Santa Claus on 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' )

- SHELVED -