The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXXIII

Who's ready for some more yuletide, audio snobbery? Anyone?

Album Title:  The Joyful Season

Album Artist:  The Voices of Jo Stafford

This one might be a bit of a let-down, guys. So, like practically every other album reviewed this year, I snatched up yet another dollar bin treasure from Radio Wasteland based on the album artwork. Jo Stafford has one of those looks that, to me, screams 'boring church lady music.' The beehive haircut and disapproving look leads one to believe that this lady was probably used to wielding the 'N-Word' around like a battle ax back in the day. 

Because God forbid those people use the same sidewalk as her children.

Here's the shtick with this album: 'The Voices of Jo Stafford.' At first I wasn't sure what the hell this meant, like were they a group of singers who were forced to bear the name of only one, beehive-wearing bitch (who's most likely a racist)? Does she have multiple personalities and each of them get a chance to sing on this Holiday album (because, as terrifying as that would probably be for the studio engineers to record, I bet it'd be pretty awesome to listen to)?

Nothing nearly that cool, I'm afraid. They recorded multiple vocal tracks of the same, stupid lady and then layered them over the music. That's it.

Jo would like to speak to your manager, pronto.

Guys, that isn't anything special. That's called backing vocals, and they're present in nearly every song ever recorded, this isn't some groundbreaking thing you just invented. Folks do it all the time, except most people use other people for backing vocals. 

Jo must have insisted on - nay, demanded - only using her 'angelic voice' on this album. Probably while smoking a cigarette in the studio, hand on her hip, glaring at the black janitor that was taking out the trash in the sound booth.

Because 'they' shouldn't ever be allowed in her presence. Her grandfather probably rode with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Anyway, can this lady sing? Meh, I guess. She sounds like a middle-aged woman from the '60s singing. A click up from the 'pretty good singer at church' that we've reviewed a hundred times or so on this blog of ours, but nothing impressive enough to commit to memory. She must have been in her 40s when this was recorded, because her voice is relatively low for a female - only decades of being beaten down by life (and maybe a husband, considering it was the '60s), birthing kids, watching blacks get Civil Rights, etc. can do that to a woman's voice.

The saving grace here is that Jo isn't singing a church-y Christmas album at all, which was my initial impression upon adding this one to my stack of Holiday records a month or two ago. No, these are all secular Holiday favorites that everyone knows the lyrics to - just check out the track listing. This alone adds a point or two in Jo's favor, because had this been a set of overly-religious, Christmas music (WHY was that so popular sixty years ago?), or a collection of god-awful 'original' Christmas songs (there's thousands of Holiday favorites in the Public Domain, guys - go nuts), this would have been a shit-show.

From Our House to Yours. Racistly.

Jo can sing well enough, like I said, and the arrangements themselves are decent for the time period. It's a chill album, there's no upbeat music, no 'swing' to be found here (despite the fact I'm pretty sure this was released in the '60s.) No, Jo likes to keep it slow and low, as if she's singing to herself while slowly, stumbling up the stairs of her home late at night after she passed out drunk on a living room couch in front of her black-and-white, 14" television set.

So again, kinda disappointed because I was hoping to find something comically bad with this one, and instead I just got a half-way competent - but ultimately boring - Holiday album from some racist Karen from the '60s.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Was the 'beehive' haircut the 'I want to speak to the manager' haircut of the 1960's? 'Cause I'm assuming it was.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXXX

What do you get when you cross a Disney Princess with an unruly Karen from the '60s? I'll show you. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Is:

Album Artist:  Pamela Wilson

So, yet again, we have ourselves here another dollar bin find from the local record store, and, as usual, I was drawn to the album cover. Pamela Wilson isn't the sort of 'artist' I'm familiar with, but on account of the album cover - which features what might be the ugliest collection of Christmas ornaments ever assembled and photographed by man - this was an inevitable purchase.

She strangled seals with her bare hands to get that coat.

Ornaments aside, the center focal point on said cover is Pam herself, all wrapped up in furs that, based on the joyless, dead look in her eyes, were probably skinned off the animals while they were still alive, trying to protect their young. Pam kinda looks like the sort of Karen who would tear into a 16-year-old, minimum-wage supermarket employee on her way home from church (because of course she's a church-going 'Christian') because she can't find diced tomatoes in a 32 oz can. 

So, musically, the arrangements here - the instrumentation and backing vocals - sound like they should be played in a 1960s department store. The levels are decent, the arrangements - if not a bit too hokey for my liking - are produced well. This is classy, elevator music that one could shop to without being offended by, say, upbeat tempos, jazzy chord progressions, or any of that sorta thing. 

But what about Karen er, Pam herself? Can she sing?

Well, that depends. Do you think Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid can sing? How about Snow White?

Guys, if that's your jam, you're absolutely gonna love this one.

Pam's voice sounds like she should be either frolicking with animated forest animals, or else trying to steal bloody teeth from underneath kids' pillows while they're asleep and replacing it with small bills. It's so high pitched and filled with vibrato that it's hard not to envision her floating about the studio in a sparkling, pink tutu bedazzled in glitter, waving about a wand of some kind.

A pretty reliable track listing from Pamela and the rest of the Lollipop Guild.

Everybody likes a little sugar here and there, right? Scoop of ice cream, can of pop, a cookie, whatever your weakness is? Now imagine being forced to wolf down an entire bowl of straight sugar in a single sitting. With a spoon.

That's what listening to Pam is like.

From Our House to Yours. . .

Like the other day when I was complaining about an entire album's worth of baritone singing on a Christmas record - that's right, I'm talkin' about you, Jim Nabors, you ridiculous bastard - an entire album of soprano singing is equally abrasive. Even though the track listing on this release falls well within the 'safety zone' for a Holiday release, listening to the squeaky, peppiness of Pam f***ing Wilson for two whole sides makes one's teeth ache after awhile.

For Christ's sake, I feel like I've been reviewing cartoon records this last week, what the actual f***. . . 

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (The 'ying' to Jim Nabors' 'yang,' good ol' Pam Wilson shoves her high-pitched, cartoon-y vocals down the collective throats of the masses, whether they're asking for it or not. Nobody needs this in their lives, America.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian