The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LVIII

Alright, party people - but on your dancin' shoes. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Jollies

Album Artist:  The Salsoul Orchestra

So I stumbled across this one on Amazon one day while I was browsing Christmas vinyl.  It was only $12 - not too bad for a brand new record - and even came on translucent red vinyl.  I had never heard  of this release, or artists, or before, but the reviews were all really good, so I said 'what the hell, at the very worst it may make for an entertaining blog entry.'  I pulled the trigger.

Upon letting this one start off on the turntable, the first thing that comes to mind are the overly-produced 'studio disco' releases of the late '70s.  Think of the Hooked on the Classics, or Hooked on Swing series - where they combine a ridiculous amount of songs into one never-stopping medley, tied together by the same driving disco drum beat.  The beat never falters, and the melodies come in and out of the medley like an ever-changing line-up of coked-up dancers.

Meco's Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is also in the same vein, and is a damn fine record if I do say so myself.

Anyway, back to this one.  The first side of this album is pretty straight-forward:  they took a selection of Christmas music and gave it a disco-y spin.  No surprises there.  I was a little bummed at first to find that this release wasn't an instrumental, as I had initially hoped, but the vocals aren't jarring, and they definitely aren't meant to be the focal point on any of these songs:  the main actors on this stage are the drums and bass.


Had this been an instrumental release, and they had given the entirety of the album the Hooked On... treatment, I would've rated this an 8.  Alas, there's some pretty questionable song selections on here, most notably on the B-Side, where we find a 'New Years Medley.'  Songs like 'I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover' stick out like a sore thumb on a Holiday album, and come across as corny.  In fact, you'd be just fine just stopping the record on the B-Side once you're done with the Christmas medley - just skip the second half of the album all together, as it's complete bullshit.

So, all in all, would I recommend this one?  Yeah, if you're a fan of Meco or enjoy the occasional kitsch of a quirky Holiday release in your collection.  I wouldn't pay more than $15 for it, though.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (A cocaine-fueled, Meco-inspired Holiday dance party, dragged down a couple points by some God-awful song selections.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -