The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXXI

Amidst the rapidly chilling weather, let us warm our hearts and souls with some Holiday blandness from yet another thrift store compilation. . . 

Album Title:  The Sound of Christmas, Vol. 2

Album Artist:  Various Artists

This acquisition was made last year when I bought a stack of used vinyl from my local Bethesda thrift store.  I actually haven't gotten around to purchasing any used Christmas vinyl this year, as I'm sitting on about a two-dozen that I still need to work through.  I paid 50 cents for this, and, as you're about to find out, I probably paid too much.

The album cover alone is a clear indicator that what you're about to put on your turntable is bonafide garbage.  The concept, I'm sure, was supposed to be two children experiencing the magic of Christmas by gazing upon a Christmas tree.  I can't decide if it's the lighting here, or the kids' clothes, or maybe the kids themselves, but something causes this concept to fall flat.  

The Unloveables

For me, when I look at this, I see a couple of young urchins in an orphanage gazing longingly at something they can never have for themselves - a genuine, family Christmas.  Perhaps all the cuter, more desirable orphans were already adopted into loving families, and now, in the bleak pit of their mutual despair, these two are drawn to a lonely, horribly-decorated Christmas tree set out in the orphanage common room.

No lights, just uglier-than-sin glass ornaments that look like they were hand-crafted by depressed and feeble-minded orphans who grew up in the system before being kicked out at the age of eighteen.

Maybe that's a stretch, and maybe I'm reading too much into a shitty album cover, but one thing's for damn sure:  this recording is just as depressing as the scenario as I just described.  This is yet another lackluster addition in a long line of releases from our Usual Suspects:  The Lettermen, Nancy Wilson, Glen Campbell, Peggy Lee, a couple different orchestras, and the infamous and terrifying Tennessee Ernie Ford.  

I'm not going to go too in depth with this analysis, because I feel like I've reviewed this album a dozen times before in one form or another After awhile a lot of these comps begin to sound the same:  overly-dramatic orchestral arrangements for songs that don't need it, boring medleys, spoken 'from our house to yours' messages, terrible song selections, tone-deaf singers, and, in this particular case, the terrifying bellowing of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing about - no joke here - Virgin breasts, guaranteed to shaken the resolve of even the hardiest of yuletide revelers.  

This is, once again, background music for the elderly, perhaps shopping in a department store in the late 60s/early 70s.  One of those stores that's closed on Sunday because having a store open on Sunday hurts Jesus' feelings, and where retail salesmen still get a commission on how many new vacuum cleaner models they can sell.  

Throughout this bleak, Holiday hellscape, the warbling of shitty Christmas music wafts across the stained tiled floors and carpeted walls and into the hearing aids of its patrons, who hum (out-of-tune) along with the Balrog-like crooning of Tennessee Ernie Ford.  

God does not live in this place.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Another turd from the Usual Suspects.  Not the worst compilation from these assholes I've heard in my years of rating Christmas Records - Nat King Cole's delivery on a track earns this compilation a point - but it's still not good enough to be called 'Boring.'  This is just terrible enough so that it can't manage to fade into the background.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XXI

Time for another go-'round with some Holiday jammitude, kiddies.  Let's do this.

Album Title:  The Christmas Sound of Music

Album Artist:  Glenn Campbell, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobbie Gentry, The Lettermen, Sandler and Young.

I want to say, right from the get-go, that I have no f***ing idea where this record came from.  I really don't.

This had to have been in a bundle with other albums, either from a garage sale or else lifted from a grandparent in a giant cardboard box at some point.

These pictures really say it all, folks.

It's not like I went out to a hipster-ish record store, thumbed through some stacks of vinyl amidst stinky, bearded guys in their 30s wearing flannel and horn-rimmed glasses, only to stumble across this particular record and exclaim, "Glen, Ella, Bobbie, Sandler and Young- AND the Lettermen?  TAKE MY MONEY, HIPSTER RECORD STORE!!"

Yeah.  That definitely didn't happen (but can you imagine how disgusted those hipsters would have been if I had freaked out over this?)

Anyway, this record is. . . well, just terrible.  I mean it, it's terrible.  I don't even know where to start.  The background music itself is fine, I guess; I mean, if Bobby Darin or Andy Williams really revs your engine, you'll probably really love this compilation.  It's the easiest of listening I think in human existence:  quiet, no change in volume (all piano, no forte - this crap makes elevator music sound like death metal.)  In fact, this is arguably the least offensive thing I've heard in my entire life:  there's no possible controversy here.

Even the instruments feel as if they're constantly afraid that they'll be singled out and noticed, so they all play along in the background like sheepish children afraid to look their drunken, abusive stepfather in the eye.

There are some big names on here, I suppose, but none of them deliver anything worthy of note.  I mean, technically these are recognizable Christmas songs, but they're so dull and so sluggish that really this whole album comes across as forced.  As if the artists themselves recorded this in order to settle some lawsuit out of court.  Like, as if Glen Campbell accidentally hit the album producer's kid with his car when he chased a ball across the road, and instead of having to pay some exuberant settlement, the producer told Glenn Campbell he'd waive the suit if Glenn sang a few songs on a Christmas compilation he was putting together.

Then the producer threw his kid out in front of Ella Fitzgerald's car, then in front of Bobbie Gentry's, and so on and so forth.

If that kid's luck wasn't shitty enough after being hit with so many cars, he probably ended up getting a promotional copy of this album for his trouble, as he lay paralyzed in a hospital room unable to puncture his own eardrums.

I feel for this kid.

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV  (The least offensive Christmas album ever recorded.  And that's not a good thing.)

- SHELVED -