The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXIV

I'm gonna recommend each and every one of you go run to the cabinet real fast and grab yourself a couple of NoDoz real quick before we start this evening's installment, folks. . . 

Album Title:  For Christmas This Year

Album Artist:  The Lettermen

Another solid-gold gem from a Christmas run to Radio Wasteland, this album was a long, long time coming, folks. It was only a matter of time before The Lettermen finally graced my turntable on this Christmas Record Odyssey of mine, and to be honest I'm kinda surprised they haven't already.

If you've never frequented the used records section of your local thrift store (don't worry, its there), you probably can't understand what I'm getting at. You see, when a record collector goes hunting for vinyl, they're presented with some alternatives. First, they can shop online (via Amazon, Discogs, SoundofVinyl, Merchbar, etc.), which usually have the best prices, best availability, etc.  Second, they can head on over to their local record store, which provides the cool atmosphere and the camaraderie of being around other collectors, talking shop and learning more. . . the downside, alas, being prices and availability aren't usually as great as online shopping.

Then there's your third option - they can slum it up in their local shit holes. Flea/antique markets, garage sales, and thrift stores.

This is the Wild West of record collecting, because it's a total crap-shoot with regards to pricing and what you stumble across. Some antique stores think some dusty, scratched up Elvis record is worth $50 just because it's Elvis, all because they don't know shit about record collecting and haven't taken the time to look up the value of it on Discogs. Other times you can hit up a garage sale where some lady just got a divorce and she wants her husband's record collection liquidated. 

I once scored over one hundred albums once for $10 when I had only been collecting for a few years this way, I still remember it. 

Thrift stores are probably the worst place to look, though. This is almost always the absolute dregs of the physical media world, because it houses those albums that other folks have deemed crappy enough to get rid of, but not good enough for other people in society to purchase back from the thrift store. This is the fabled Land of Mantovani, of Mitch Miller, of Lawrence Welk, of The Ames Brothers, of Anne Murray, of Roger Whitaker, and of The Lettermen.

Like I said before, I'm surprised this is the first time I've gotten around to reviewing The Lettermen on here, because this is literally all I've ever seen at thrift stores - their dusty, old bullshit. I was curious to know what the hype (or lack thereof) was all about. So upon dropping the needle on this album, the first thing that hit me was, "Damn, I didn't realize any three vocalists out there could make Three Dog Night sound so f***ing hard. . ." 

This is, without a doubt, the most inoffensive easy listening music I've ever heard. You could play this in front of anyone, at any time: in the middle of church, to your grandparents while they're having sex, to a little kid in the middle of the night while wearing a werewolf mask in order to soothe them back to sleep, you name it. It works on so many levels. 

Now, I should point out real fast that the music itself on this album is straight-up '4' territory - it's boring, but it is competent. This is 'Great Songs of Christmas' music, the kind you''d expect backing Johnny Mathis, Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, etc. - which is also easy listening music, but a few clicks up from these douchebags in terms of 'star power,' I guess.  So I have zero issue with the arrangements on here. . . though I do with some of the song choices - which are so bad where they may be 'originals,' God forbid.) If going by music alone, in fact (like, if it was an instrumental release), I'd probably give this one a '4.' Maybe a '5.'

But Goddamn it all to Hell. . . these vocals.

From Our House to Yours, baby girl. . .

At no point, throughout the entirety of this album, do The Letterman push their voices out of the malaise of background vocals-ish harmonizing.  Not one of these creepy-looking assholes (see picture at right) attempt to 'belt out' any of their songs - not at a chorus, not at a reprise, nothing. There's no variation in the volume of their singing, ever - it's almost like they had to sign some kind of a clause with this record deal where they had to record everything so that it came across as the audio equivalent of mayonnaise. Consequently, all three voices blend together into some kind of nauseating,  Valium cocktail, lulling the listener into a state of near-comatose over the course of twelve songs.

After two sides of such sleepy singing, one almost wishes for the cheesy, over-the-top 'operatic' singing we've previously ridiculed on this blog over the years. If only to snap us out of our induced comas. 

Perhaps if they had drank a cup of coffee (or six) before recording albums like this one here, there wouldn't be so f***ing many of them cluttering up your local thrift store. . .

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Do NOT listen to this album while operating heavy machinery.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

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. XL

Okay, gang.  Time for another installment of Yuletide audio appreciation, this time in 'Newly Improved, Full Dimensional Stereo.'

(I smell trouble. . .)


Album Title:  The Spirit of Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

 

I probably don't need to waste my breath with this one, do I.  Look at the frickin' roster, here: Al Martino, The Lettermen, The Roger Wagner Chorale, etc.  It's a Who's Who of Shitty Christmas Singers.  Apparently Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Mathis, Kate Smith, Mitch Miller, and Roger Whitaker had previous engagements.  If not, this is the Christmas album they were born to be on.

Someone left a Christmas Tree knocked over in the snow.  Always a good sign.

That being said, this album is pretty much a pure crap-show, from start to finish.  The artist choices for this compilation offering from Capitol Records - who, I believe, had quite the stable of talent back in the day - is lackluster, with the exception of Bing Crosby, who was probably dead by the time they recorded this anyway, and they posthumously added his track at the last minute just to pad the track listing.  

(Bing would be ashamed of his involvement on this train wreck.)

Not only are the artists ones from the bottom of the Capitol talent barrel, but their song choices are questionable as well.  Yes, there's some recognizable songs on here, but there's a lot of lesser-known carols that hang on the fringes of cultural norms.  While perhaps not generally a huge deal, I suppose, it should go without saying that you should probably pick more mainstream songs if your roster pool is so abysmal.  I mean, come on - "Gesu Bambino?" "Silent Night," sang in German?  Give me a frickin' break.

I'm really trying to rack my brain with regards to what could possibly be the worst song on this album, and it's difficult to say.  Peggy Lee's bizarre, children's/anti-PETA/Put's-the-Lotion-on-its-Skin song, "Don't Forget to Feed the Reindeer" is up there.  Maybe The Letterman's opener, "The Christmas Waltz," which is so boring I contemplated grading papers while listening to it.  In fact, the only saving grace on these albums are those two tracks by the Hollyridge Strings, one per side, where's there's no singing at all.  And these aren't necessarily awesome, they're just not terrible.

So yeah.  Avoid this like you would a leper.  Or Ohio.

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (You can thank the Hollyridge Strings for the pity point, Spirit of Christmas.  This one's going right back to Salvation Army, where it came from.)

- DONATED -

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 -