The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXIX

Hope you guys weren't looking forward to hearing instruments this evening . .

Album Title:  Christmas Hymns and Carols, Volume 1

Album Artist:  The Robert Shaw Chorale

So here's another prime example of Yours Truly picking up an album out of Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin solely due to the shitty album cover.

An assortment of orphans singing for table scraps, out in the cold, while the warmth of a festive Christmas party (one can only assume) can be seen shining through a nearby window. One of the kids is holding a battered, old book far too thick to be a Hymnal of Christmas carols, and even if it was he apparently doesn't need to read it while singing. Being an orphan, he probably can't read anyway. Two of these kids are so hungry they can't even keep their eyes open, they probably don't live through the night.

Great album cover, guys.

This is an old record. You can tell because the mixing on this album is pure dog shit. The audio levels are all far too quiet and the surface noise is atrocious, even after a thorough cleaning on my Spin Clean. 'High Fidelity' my ass.

The choir itself is fine for what it is. It sounds like a church choir, like what you'd see in a large, more upscale church. Like a Catholic Church. Where there's high vaulted ceilings and a crap-ton of candles standing about. Depressing statues posed in nearby wall niches, rich mahogany pews, giant stained-glass windows, a bunch of pervy, bald men having 'mischievous secrets' with unsuspecting children in hidden anterooms.

Not like one of those 1970s brick-and linoleum congregational churches with faded carpet and shitty coffee that looks like a doctor's office and smells of old people and dust.

There's not much to comment on this one, I apologize - this is gonna be a quick and easy review. Each of these tracks consists of a medley of standard, religious (and, if not religious, at least somber) carols that blend together well and, for the most part, are all familiar to the casual Christmas music listener. This helps because if they included 'original' Holiday songs, this album would be really, really weird. What kinda stuffy church would have the audacity to have their choir sing original numbers during the Christmas season?

No surprises here, all safe choices.

I can't think of a pressing need for an album such as this. If you're relaxing at home, listening to Christmas music, would you really want to be listening to a choir album? I mean, really? This is an a capella choir album, too - there's zero music in the background anywhere. Just a bunch of people, standing around a collection of microphones, singing church songs. If that's your idea of a good time, by all means, you do you - you might thoroughly enjoy this album.

But I sure as shit don't wanna hang out with you.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (As far as a capella Christmas choir albums go, I guess. . . . it's. . . okay?)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXVII

Welcome back, folks. Settle in and grab yourself a Holiday cocktail (and maybe a set of earplugs) for this one . . .

Album Title:  Christmas Hymns and Carols

Album Artist:  Mario Lanza

Another treasure snatched up from Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin, I picked this up early this year on account of the guy on the cover. Mario Lanza, whom I've never heard of before, looks like the sorta guy that either a.) sells used cars, b.) owns a restaurant in which a bunch of shady mobsters meet regularly in the back room, or c.) records super shitty Christmas albums in a way-too-loud, Italian opera sorta way. Or some combination of these, you never know.

You know those scenes in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation where Clark Griswold starts to sing, and he's so clearly caught up in the spirit of the Holidays that he belts out whatever he's singing in an operatic tone? And it's clearly meant to be funny (because who in their right mind would legitimately sing like that for real)? 

Well, that's how Mario sings. All the time.

Doesn't matter if it's during a soft, quiet song, doesn't matter if the subject matter doesn't require such a boisterous voice, Mario doesn't give a shit. This dude's dialed up to an '11' at all times and that's what he's going to give you on his Holiday album, Goddamn it. It's not that the guy can't sing - he's an opera singer, he can sing well - it's just that he stomps his foot down on the vocal gas pedal and doesn't let up throughout the entirety of both sides of this record. 

It's exhausting.

This album is mixed well, and the background music (if you can hear it behind Mario's insanely brash voice) is basic but suffices for what it is, I guess. This guy was clearly a star back in the day, and they gave his Holiday album the star treatment for sure - production value is decent enough. I can't just for the life of me can't imagine what the intended target audience was for something like this. 

Nearly all of the songs on here are religious in nature, but there's no way the old, church-going crowd is going to want to listen to this - it's too loud, too intense, and too Italian opera in nature. Church ladies won't find that blasphemous I'm sure. 

The young, hip crowd? No way in hell, they're not going to put up with this guy. Not when Rock and Roll is starting to hit the radio, with all that 'black music' that their parents can't stand. 

I can only assume it's marketed towards half-drunk, Italian housewives, shuffling about their New Jersey houses, decorating for the Holiday Season with a vodka tonic in hand, chain-smoking cigarettes and blasting this album at full volume.

Christ, you can practically smell the Aqua Net and cheap perfume.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (All Opera, All The Time does NOT work on a Holiday Album, Mr. Lanza. I need to go lie down for bit. . .)

- SHELVED-

- Brian