The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXLIII

Hey, gang - we got any Slovaks (Slovish?) in the house tonight? 

Album Title:  Cas Radosti

Album Artist:  The Slovak Heritage Society Festival Choir and Ensemble

This one couldn't have been passed up. A Slovak Christmas album? I'm pretty sure that's the one that's the John Oates to Czech Republic's Daryl Hall, right? Central/Eastern Europe-ish? Somewhere in there?

Well, for a buck who cares, I was gonna give it a go.

The album cover is pretty lame. Someone hired a 10th grade art student to grab their finest assortment of Crayola markers (the skinny ones, not the fat ones) and draw a picture of a bunch of Slovaks trying to set the inside of a barn on fire. There's some wet laundry hanging on a line, multiple discarded buckets and pots, and inexplicably some special needs boy with a ca. 2011 Justin Bieber haircut, balancing on a wooden beam.

Not entirely sure what's going on here, but I think whoever drew this needs to pursue other avenues of employment.

The back side of the album jacket is much better, however - we actually get some information about this cryptic recording. As it turns out, 'Cas Radosti' translates to 'A Time of Joy.' Makes sense, it's Christmas. Further, this album was recorded in 1983 in Barre, Pennsylvania by The Slovak Heritage Society Festival Choir and Ensemble. . . which, if I'm reading this correctly, is like some kind of parish choir that performs in this predominantly Slovak community in. . . Pennsylvania. 

The Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union (yes, they must have enough Slovaks, Catholics, and Catholic Slovaks in Pennsylvania to necessitate the creation of a Slovak Catholic Union) were nice enough to produce this recording for everyone in their diocese. . . or parish, or whatever you call that, how the Catholics divide up their church territory. It kinda sounds like Pennsylvania has a kind of Dearborn, Michigan thing going on, except down in Dearborn they're mostly Chaldean, not Slovak-ish.

Anyway, Side A opens up with bellowing, Communist fanfare - lots of brass and Slovaks (and Slovakettes) singing with gusto. You can practically see the olive drab-sporting civilians saluting the Slovak soldiers as they goose-step by on their way to lighting the People's Republic Tree of Christmas. This opening track isn't long, and up next the mood does a complete 180: the next number is more or less a handful of guys standing up at the front of a church, reading some kinda congregational Call to Worship (they speak in Slovaki first, then switch to English so us normies can understand what's going on.) Then the congregation responds, and soon the whole place breaks out in song (to be continued for several tracks, which, honestly, all basically sound the same - God knows what they're singing about, I didn't read the entirety of the liner notes.)

I think this might be a live recording, actually: quality here is decent for a cathedral recording, because based on the depth of the vocal audio (the echo, the reverb) you can tell they had the mics set up far back from the choir, and the acoustics of the cathedral amplify the choir's volume. At first I thought the congregation itself might be singing the songs, but they stop just proficiently enough to allow soloists or an instrument take center stage, and there's no way in hell hundreds of people would be able to do that.

The accompanying musicians vary considerably, and for the most part they fade into the background and let the singers take center stage (which is the right move for an album like this which is clearly attempting to showcase Slovak singers doing Christmas shit their native tongues.) They even have frickin' bagpipes on here, and that blows my mind because I didn't realize the Slovaks had bagpipes, I thought that was limited to the British Isles. Sadly, the bagpipes here don't have the clout and majesty of their Irish and Scottish cousins, and instead like a gaggle of half-starved cats being slowly skinned alive over a trash barrel fire by a couple of homeless Slovaks.

I could keep going with this album, but I don't think I need to: this is a live recording of a Slovak choir singing. . . Christmas songs?. . . in a large church of some kind. In Bumblef***, Pennsylvania. Can they sing? Yup. Are the arrangements good? Yup. How about the mix and recording quality? Good, sure.

So is this a decent record?

Not unless your Slovak. If you are, I bet this album hits HARD. For the rest of us, this is a competently done album with decent church music, but it's still a religious choir album. I appreciate cultural diversity as much as anybody, but I feel like this album would have been better had it worked some traditional Slovak tunes and instruments into the music (why do they have bagpipes?) As it stands, this sounds like a giant cathedral choir recording a church service.

. . . just, you know, in Slovakish.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (It's like going to church in Eastern Europe. It might look super cool inside the centuries-old cathedral, but, at the end of the day, you're still stuck in a boring church service.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXII

Prepare thyselves for an auditory journey back through time, back to festive Cold War Europe. . . .

Album Title:  Weihnachten mit Heintje

Album Artist:  Heintje

So obviously this was purchased because I figured it was going to be a total train wreck right out of the gate. I mean, just look at this thing:  a.) it's clearly a German album and will feature tons of comically awful German singing, b.) it features a boy with arguably the most punchable face in existence as its cover model, and c.) it cost a whopping $3 from Radio Wasteland. One could assume that what we'd find here is a lot of warbling (in German), some poorly-mixed church service type arrangements, and - boy, if we're lucky - some creepy childrens choirs doing background vocal work.

Kinda hard to pass up something this promising, folks.

Upon dropping the needle, one's met with a woman gently singing 'Silent Night' (though, in German, we spell that all weird in the track listing.) Song itself isn't horrible, it is what it is. . . a German woman singing 'Silent Night.' In German. She can carry a tune (in German), and the musical accompaniment itself is your run-of-the-mill arrangement, so this is just more of the usual Holiday background music.  Just, you know, in a foreign language.

But that's where the Christmas train stops, folks. The following songs on this album (aside from the old 'O Tannenbaum,' which I believe is Germanic in origin anyway) don't sound like any other Christmas song I've ever heard of before, and not only because they're sung in German. I don't even think these are church songs, I have no idea what they're doing on a Holiday album at all. These could be songs about hiking in the Alps, or driving a car down the Autobahn on a Sunday afternoon, or rounding up an entire race of people based on their religious views and carting them off into Poland in order to contribute to your ongoing war effort (before 'disappearing.')

You know, German stuff.

Then, for reasons unknown, we have 'Ba Ba Black Sheep.' Or 'Twinkle, Twinkle Litter Star,' or 'The Alphabet Song.' Take your pic, guys, it's all the same f***ing melody. Regardless of which of these three songs this lady is singing (because I'm too lazy to look any of this up in Google Translate), this song is just bad. They wheeled out a bunch of Aryan Nation youth to sing background vocals on this, and little children singing in German isn't something that ever needs to be recorded. These kids could very well be the most angelic little cherubs that God ever placed on this Earth, but when singing in German?  Hell no, it scares the shit out of me. Even worse when it's children's tunes like this.

Which begs the question, why was this included on this frickin' Christmas album in the first place?

Well, aside from the opening track on Side A - where someone on the volume slider goes a little goofy fading into a barrage of ringing Christmas bells, as if Quasimodo himself was all hopped up on coke and going ape-shit up in the rafters of some stuffy, church bell tower - the production value on this album is surprisingly decent.  The vocals and instruments are balanced, the songs fade in and out as they should, and the arrangements themselves (for the most part, excluding a couple I'll mention here in a bit) are satisfactory.

Folks, this album was definitely produced by someone with money, which got me curious and led me to look up this album on the ol' Internet.

Holy shit, folks.

Nice turtleneck shirt you got there, Franz.

Turns out what I had assumed was a German Woman singing is, in fact, a Belgian Boy.  The same boy (with the aforementioned punchable face) that graces the album cover. Not a woman at all, but a Cold War era teen idol of sorts. Apparently this poorly-named Heintje made a crap-load of pop-friendly albums back in the mid-60s to mid-70s, and was immensely popular in foreign markets. Like, all the rage in early '70s China, if you can believe that. I guess more power to him - he found himself a niche making shitty pop albums in German, Dutch, and Belgian languages.

But, like the atrocities carried out by The Fatherland during World War II, this 'Christmas' album is inexcusable.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (I was going to rate this higher - like, maybe a '5' - but there aren't nearly enough recognizable Christmas songs on here. While not terrible, per se, this ain't Cold War Germany, this is 'Merica - and in this country we like our Christmas albums Supersized with Holiday jams, Heintje.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CVIII

Welcome back to the Odyssey. Grab a drink, guys - you're gonna need it for this one. . .

Album Title:  Swingle Bells

Album Artist:  Various Artists

A quick glance at this one, one is immediately struck by the 'clever' play on words, Swingle Bells. You know, 'Jingle Bells'. . . buuuuuut with some kind of a 'swing' element thrown in. So when I saw this one at Radio Wasteland last weekend (this one I snatched up recently), I figured this was too good to pass up. 

I mean, 'swing' could mean several, different things. Perhaps it's the sort of swing from the 1940s, the Glenn Miller variety. Or it could also mean 'swing' in the 1960s, pop way (a la Ray Conniff, etc.) Maybe some kinda Hooked on Swing sorta thing, who knows.

But then one's eyes are drawn to the rainbow coloring of the text, and 'swingle' suddenly takes on a whole, different meaning all together. Perhaps, dear readers, 'swing' in this sense is a Saturday night party, in some South Florida gated community, where a bunch of older guys get together, drink a lot of bad things, and do lots of gross stuff to one another. Underneath the mistletoe, of course - this is a Christmas album. 

I mean honestly, this could go in a lot of different directions, folks.

Yet, now that I'm listening to it, I still don't know what to make of this album.

First things first, these aren't legit artists - if they were, they'd have their name on the front cover (or, at the very least, credited next to the songs on the track listing on the back.) No, this is like an eight-person a cappella group (too shitty to even have a frickin' name) but backed by a stripped down band of - I assume - local studio musicians. The production value of this album, while certainly not setting anyone back in terms of 'paying for talent,' is at least mixed well.

And that, dear readers, is about the only thing that this weird, weird album has going for it.

What I've learned this evening is that there is, indeed, such as thing as too much 'swing.'

The singers on this album can definitely carry a tune, so there's nothing to complain about in terms of their actual voices, per se, but rather it's the manner in which they're wielding these voices of theirs that's the issue.  There's a lot of scat-singing (I'd say 'scatting' here, but I think that has to do with animal poop or something), which actually outranks yodeling on the Most Annoying Singing Styles Scale. 

Like, why use words when you can just sing 'bum-bum-ba-dum dum, biddy-biddy-dabba-babba' and crap like that to the tune of Christmas carols?

What the f***.

Technically, there's only like eleven tracks on this particular album, but most of these are medleys, which means the overly-jazzy, full-swinging scat-singing usually stops after the first leg of the medley and then abruptly transitions into a church choir singing softly and quietly the unintelligible lyrics to some European peasant carol. You literally go from go-go dancing to German monks singing in crumbling cathedrals in only a handful of measures. Call it a medley if you want, but I think it's more accurately referred to as a shitshow.

"Thank you coming to this evening's performance.  Have a safe drive home."

Want a feeling for what this album sounds like? Pretend you and your date are going out to your local Community College for a Thursday evening (yes, Thursday evening) musical program, back in the mid-'60s. Neither of you attend said Community College, nor do you know anyone who goes there, but admission is only $2 and what the hell, right?  Well, it's the Holiday season, so you're expecting to hear some Christmas songs (that's a no-brainer) so after you guys pick up some complimentary hot chocolates and take your seats (first come first serve, folks), the 'show' starts. 

The theater and music clubs that put this on then take the stage, all dressed in black turtlenecks. There's interpretive dance, there's a small collection of beatnik musicians at the rear of the stage (all clearly high as kites), and there's a lot of spoken word deliverance between the music numbers, delivered by angry-looking women who seem to hate the Holidays just as much as they hate the Patriarchy. 

At the end of the evening, on the drive home, your date doesn't say a f***ing word to you. And you never hear from them again.

Sound like fun?  Of course it doesn't.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Turns out 'scat' does mean shit.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXVII

Well folks, it looks like we're about to get some multi-cultural Christmas spirit up in here this evening.  Hold on to your butts. . . 

Album Title:  Christmas Around the World

Album Artist:  Svend Saaby Choir

Okay, first things first:  you can't really call an album Christmas Around the World when the only nations you're pulling jams from is White People Countries.  If you're gonna call it anything, call it Christmas Around Europe (feat. USA.)  And don't give me that bullshit about "wElL tHoSe ArE tHe OnLy CoUnTrIeS tHaT cElEBrAtE cHrIsTmAs."  Most Latin American countries do, too.  So do Eastern European countries, for that matter.  And a shit-load of Asia.

For f***'s sake, people.

Secondofly, let's not give any false impression here concerning the 'Christmas' songs that are being pulled from around the world.  The album promises, one would think, songs that culturally summarize the nation they hail from.  For example, this 'Good King Wenceslas,' from England - that one makes sense, 100%.  It sounds rather English, I should think.

But what about the American song?  When you think 'America,' dear readers, what Christmas selections come to mind?  Are you thinking it might be something classic and rock n' roll at heart, like 'Run Rudolph Run,' by Chuck motherf***ing Berry?  Or some other fun Holiday jam that highlights everything that is America ("I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas," perhaps?)

Just look at these. . . . classics.

Nope.  The good ol' U.S. of A. instead brought to the table two lackluster pieces - 'O, Little Town of Bethlehem' and 'Rise Up, Shepherd.'  For Christ's sake, I haven't even heard of that latter one.

I neglected to put two and two together when purchasing this album (I think from Radio Wasteland, but who knows), but all it is a collection of boring church carols.  Some you've heard of, others you haven't.  Now, technically these are Christmas songs, fine. . . but there's nothing fun to be had, here.  I don't care what language the choir is singing in, it's still a boring church service, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  There's a fun little Spanish song on Side 2, I guess, but it's like 45 seconds long. . . then you're right back to where you started.  Trying not to doze off in church.

What kinda irritates me with this compilation is that it's a cool concept that had lot of promise at one point, but instead ended up getting slathered in blandness.  Instead of selecting songs that highlight the culture of every country, they select songs that all sound the same (boring church arrangements) and then just have the choir  - oh, yes, it's the same choir for all the songs on this release - sing the songs in different languages.  The Svend Saaby Choir, ladies and gentlemen.  They're not even professional singers - just folks who like singin'.

Good grief.

I mean, how cool would it be to have, say, 'Run Rudolph Run' for the U.S. of A, 'Good King Wenceslas' by England, 'Feliz Navidad' by Mexico (I assume), then a bunch of random-ass jams that represent the Holidays in other countries from Nigeria to Japan?  I'd spend money on that, for sure.  I'm sure some of those tracks would be straight-up garbage, but it'd be a hell of an entertaining listen at least.

Not like this empty shell of a once-intriguing idea, all crammed up with your grandparents' favorite church music.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Behold - The Blands Across the World.  I was gonna give this a '4' for just being boring, but I'm slightly irritated with this release 'cause it was a pretty cool concept that they just frickin' botched all to hell.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

For Hyrule

Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria

Hi gang.

Some time ago I mentioned that I was taking another EF group to France, Germany and the Alps in March.

Remember that?  Well, I'd been thinking about it more and more, and honestly - I wasn't as excited about the trip as I probably should've been.  I mean, yes, I really wanted to see Neuschwanstein Castle (however the hell you spell that), but that was about it.  Half the tour was in Paris, and I really, really despise the French.

EF Tours

So, after talking it over with the Mrs., I decided to hand over my Group Leader duties to one of the teachers that was going to be chaperoning on the tour and bow out of the tour.  This freed up a chaperone spot for another teacher - the same one that had gotten sick a year earlier and had given me Group Leader duties for the Italy trip.  It was my way of paying her back, I guess.  Plus, this way, I can now start planning for next year's epic 2015 trip. . . which I'm really looking forward to (more to come on that later.)

. . .so long as it's not France.  F*** the French.

Anyway, since I was no long going to Europe in March, I decided to treat myself to an irresponsible purchase.  The timing was perfect, too.  Recently, our Nintendo Wii had stopped playing certain games.  At first, it was just dual-layered discs like Super Mario Smash Bros Brawl. and The Last Story. . . but then nearly every other disc wouldn't play on the system:

The Screen of Death.

As it turns out, the lasers in Wii consoles that read the game discs burn out after five or six years.  This makes total sense, as we were one of the early Wii users, buying our system back in November of 2007.  So now, as it were, it was time to replace the system.

But how?

I had two choices:  I could either a.) buy a refurbished Wii system, at a tune of about $100, or b.) spend $300 and upgrade to the dismal-selling Wii U.

These guys always make me cringe.

I put weeks and weeks of research into this decision.  I spoke with relatives, friends and coworkers, I sought counsel from nerds in video games stores, and I stared at websites for hours and hours.  In the end, I realized that the overall consensus made sense:  it would be better to upgrade to a better system, that was backwards compatible (it would play all of our old games), had better graphics and gameplay, would allow us to play our games much longer than buying another old Wii system, and give us a ton of new features and games to utilize.

The problem was, however, tracking down the one I wanted.

Nintendo dropped the ball releasing this system.  It had nearly a two-year drop on the PS4 and X-Box1, but the chimps in its marketing department barely sold the damn thing, and it remains one of Nintendo's worst console releases to date.  This fortunately forced the unit drop in price to $250 for the Basic 8gb console and $300 for the Deluxe 32gb console.

Legend of Zelda Deluxe 32gb Wii U Bundle

In addition, there were two 'bundle' options for the 32gb release - a Super Mario Bros. bundle (that came with included a Super Mario Bros. game and a limited edition GamePad controller) and a Legend of Zelda bundle (that came with an HD re-release of LOZ Windwaker and a limited edition GamePad controller.)  You could find the Mario one practically everywhere, but the damn Zelda one - the one I was after - was ridiculously overpriced on Amazon  (my go-to shopping site) and unavailable in major retailers.

So I decided to play the Waiting Game.

Showing how WindWaker looks on either gaming console. . .

After a few weeks of prowling around online and poking my head into stores, I was finally able to reserve a Zelda Bundle Wii U at a local GameStop.  Yesterday on my way home from work I swung in and, for $300, upgraded my nerd gear:

BAM

Last night I spent a couple hours hooking the damn thing up, installing all the software, registering a user account, and updating all the data that was needed in order to operate the system.

Wii U GamePad

This console is much more complicated than the original, but as long as you're not completely technologically retarded you can manage it.  The system basically uses a tablet (called a GamePad, mentioned earlier) as the main controller.

The tablet's screen serves as a secondary screen while playing a game on one's TV (most commonly employed as a map screen, item screen, etc.)  However - and this was a selling point for me - if you're in the middle of playing a game and someone (say, your wife or children) want to watch something on the TV, at the press of a button you can transfer your game onto the GamePad wirelessly and continue playing as if you were on a handheld device.

The GamePad itself - and this feature especially - is practically worth the $300 in my opinion.

This process was a pain in the ass. . .

Anyway, after work tonight I decided I'd undertake the long, pain-in-the-ass process of trans-ferring all my old virtual games (old school NES and SNES games you can download to play on the Wii), save data, Miis (the animated characters you design on the Wii in order to play certain games), and other data from my original Wii system to my new Wii U system.  This process took hours, and you can tell the geniuses at Nintendo hadn't thought this through initially - this was definitely an "oh shit" afterthought on their part.

Basically the process involved installing software from the Wii U on an SD card, installing software on the old Wii, reinserting the SD card into the Wii, transferring all the old data onto the SD card, removing the SD card and inserting it into the Wii U, and offloading all the data into the new system.  If it sounds easy enough, it's because I'm omitting, like, a billion little steps that were written by jargon-freaks.

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD

Anyway, long story short, everything's up and running and the console was by far the best purchase I've made in a long, long time.  True, it doesn't have a lot of third party titles out yet, but, as an original Nintendo fan from way back, I'm not buying a Nintendo to play EA Sports games - I'm buying a Nintendo to play my favorite franchise, the Legend of Zelda, as well as other old favorites like Mario, Metroid, etc. etc. etc.

Alayna fell sick yesterday with whatever the hell Abby had last week (it was only a matter of time), so Kris took yesterday off and took her into the doctor, etc.  Today, I took the day off, and fortunately Alayna just wanted to sit around watching movies in our bedroom. . .

. . .which of course freed up Yours Truly to do the one thing he'd been looking forward to doing for a long, long time.

Saving Hyrule from the forces of evil.

- Brian