The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXV

Alright folks, time to mix yourself up a Christmas cocktail and settle on in for another round of Yuletide jam analysis. . .

Album Title:  Boogie Woogie Christmas

Album Artist:  The Brian Setzer Orchestra

So I bought this one off Amazon about a month ago, as I've had this in my digital library for years and a number of Setzer's songs have repeatedly appeared on my customized Holiday playlists.  I was pleasantly surprised to find, upon opening the album up, that the record was pressed on limited-edition, green and white splattered vinyl.  And sure, while it doesn't necessarily improve the sound quality, per se, it does look pretty awesome on the turntable.  Colored vinyl is definitely a gimmick, but it's a gimmick that works, folks.

Anyway, by far my favorite track on this album - the the number one reason I pulled the trigger on this purchase - is Setzer's 'The Nutcracker Suite.'  This may be my all-time favorite homage to Tchaikovsky, since it covers such a wide array of source material and delivery.  All the highlight's of the great Russian masterpiece are touched on here - 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,' 'Russian Dance,' etc. - and the track sways back and forth between Setzer's trademark, rockabilly swing and more traditional classical music (granted, with muted guitars.)  He knows when to put the foot to the pedal for the louder and more up-tempo parts of this piece, but also knows when to pump the brakes (when the melodies are supposed to be quiet and/or slower.)  Setzer is smart enough to know that his ballsy horny section shouldn't be blaring full-tilt throughout the entirety of the suite - smart thinking that so many other acts would've botched, for sure.

All in all, this is a fun take on a Christmas classic, and as a result this song has been featured in countless movies, commercials, compilation releases, and, most importantly, Brian Hough playlists.

Highs and lows from Brian Setzer.

Now, as for the rest of the album, we're left with what could easily be expected from Setzer.  Nearly all of the songs on here feature either the full-horn section of the classic 'swing' sound, or else the walking bass and surf guitar that embodied the Stray Cats (Setzer's notable band.)  Some songs - 'Winter Wonderland,' 'Run Rudolph Run,' 'The Man with a Bag,' etc. - work well because they're well-known songs that have been done in the past with a certain 'rock' angle, so Setzer's sound translates well to them.  Others, however - most notably 'Baby It's Cold Outside' - are terrible songs to begin with, and Setzer doesn't really seem to know what to do with them.  

He's got an original on here, too, called 'Boogie Woogie Santa' which is pretty painful to listen to.  It suffers from my number one grip of Setzer, and that is it tries too hard to be cool.  

Seriously.  F*** these guys.

Do you remember how, during the summer of 1998, swing music was suddenly popular again?  There were all these stupid zoot suit bands popping up, and it was all over MTV, and I even saw a couple of those bands perform at Warped Tour down in Detroit when my friends and I went to see punk bands like Rancid, Bad Religion, and NOFX.  Then, the fall came, and all those bands disappeared and were never heard from again.

(Thank God.)

Well, those swing bands tried way too hard to be cool.  Their whole shtick was just a lame gimmick.  Their stupid outfits, their blatant attempt at resurrecting a music and dance style that was long-dead before Elvis and Chuck Berry stepped on to a stage, but most importantly their lyrics about their musical genre.  Folks, if you have to tell people how cool you are all the time, you're not very cool.  

And Setzer goes out of his way from time to time on this release to make sure everyone knows just how cool he is, and he doesn't really need to.  I wish he just stuck to arranging classic Christmas songs instead, like he did with Tchaikovsky, because if he had done that this album could've been great instead of good.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (A solid assortment of Christmas classic given the usual Brian Setzer treatment, that delivers from time to time but also suffers from the former Stray Cat trying too hard to be cool.) 

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XXXI

Hi again, Internet.  Time for a festive, Saturday morning jam analysis . . .

Album Title:  Tchaikovsky:  The Nutcracker

Album Artist:  The Philadelphia Orchestra

I'd be pretentious and say Tchaikovsky is my all-time, favorite Russian composer, buuut he's the only Russian composer I know by name.  I mean, are there other composers from Russia?  I mean, I'm sure there are, but hell if I know any of them.  So I'm not about to be one of those guys and pretend to be some shitty music snob about it.

Having said that, Tchaikovsky is my all-time, favorite Russian composer.

I guess you could call me a 'Best of' fan regarding his work, because I really only know his popular compositions, like the 1812 Overture, Sleeping Beauty, and this - his Nutcracker piece.  It's hard to have a solid Christmas without it.  It fills the instrumental void that only classical music can fill:  aside from religious music and instrumental versions of crap like 'Jingle Bells' and 'White Christmas,' there's not really a large amount of vocal-less music out there for the Holiday season.  The Nutcracker is, probably most notably, the most important instrumental addition to one's Holiday jam catalog.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Hard to pass this up for 59 cents. . .

The story itself is, well, pretty creepy.  A little kid comes downstairs, bears witness to a horrific battle unfolding in her living room between suddenly--and-inexplicably-alive toys and abnormally organized and disciplined Napoleonic rats (or mice, I forget.)  She helps save the life of a Nutcracker (I think) who, in return, takes her away to his home land.

. . . 'Cause there's nothing illegal about falling in love with a little girl, stealing her away from her home in the middle of the night, and taking her to a far-off land filled with all kinds of weird shit.

If only today's LPs had frickin' books on the back of 'em like they used to. . .

Anyway, pedophilia and child trafficking aside, The Nutcracker is a great piece of music, and one I don't think I need to analyze in detail.  I should point out that I have no intention of rating this composition itself, as I don't feel I'm qualified to do so (I have a lot of respect for Classical music, and it's far too complex and deep for some hipsterly record-lover pushing 40 to 'analyze.')  Instead, I think I'll base my rating for this LP on this particular recording itself and it's Christmas worth.

The Philadelphia Orchestra does a commendable job with this piece, and there's not really anything to fault.  I think it's an older recording, so more recent undertakings would probably be able to capture the highs and lows better, but there's nothing too distracting here.  It's a sound packaging that captures the music well, and it's serves as a quintessential addition to one's Holiday collection, to be sure.

Having said that, there's a lot of music here, and only some of it is more familiar to those Christmas music-lovers out there ('Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,' etc.)  Much of the music from The Nutcracker is less known to the masses, and as such it's hard to get the 'Christmas vibe' from it.  Rating it on that alone - the ability to invoke the Christmas Spirit from the music itself - and the somewhat dated recording, takes it down a few pegs in my book.

(I feel like I owe Tchaikovsky an apology. . . . but I don't speak Russian.)

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad  (A great piece of music, and a mandatory addition to your Holiday music collection. . . but there's a lot of non-yule you can probably skip over.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -