The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XCVII

Well, we always end up having to endure one of these per season - might as well get it over and done with. . .

Album Title:  Motown Christmas 1's

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So I spent about $10 on this album back in, oh, July I think.  Sometime in the middle of summer at any rate.  Target had a bunch of their exclusive, colored LPs on sale so I bought several double-LPs - mostly 'Best of...'s and Holiday albums - at a mere $10 a pop.  A pretty damn good deal, if I don't say so myself.

Well, turns out I got hosed on this one, folks.  $10 was way too much.

At first glance, I go super excited about this one - I mean, what's not to love?  Legendary Motown groups, colored vinyl, ten frickin' dollars for a double-LP?  That's nearly a perfect storm of Holiday vinyl awesomeness, right? 

It should be.  But it's not.

Upon the dropping the needle down onto Side A of Disc 1 (the red one, folks), I immediately realized I could be in trouble.  The tempo of the first song (by the Four Topps) and the guy's lower-than-needed voice actually prompted me to switch the record speed over from 33 to 45.  I wish I was joking, guys, but I'm not. 

And seriously now.  French horns?  Get the f*** out of here.

Sadly, the entire album continues in more or less the same fashion:  you go into a song expecting something halfway-decent, based on the title of the Track and the name of the Artist covering it, only to be horribly disappointed in the end.  When one hears the name 'Motown' they think of the upbeat, snappy numbers from the early/mid'60's (at least I do.)  What we have most of the time here, dear readers, is the more glitzy, smoooooooth, oily 'soul' of the 70s.  This is blue jean caps, sequin jumpsuits, and cocaine addictions, not so much the beehive haircuts, short skirts, and sock-it-to-me-baby, Detroit pop that one usually associates with 'Motown.'

What in the Luther H. Vandross is this bullshit?  Get the hell out of here with that overly-sexualized, put-the-woman-in-the-bed crap.  It borders on sacrilege, honestly - such a tone does not belong on a Christmas album.  

Regardless of the vibe (if not most) of the songs on this release give off, there's just lack-luster performances all around.  I mean, seriously - three Smokey Robinson & the Miracles numbers and, while none of those ones are terrible, I guess, nothing comes even remotely close to 'I Second That Emotion' or 'Tears of a Clown.'  Five - yes, five - Temptations numbers on here and most of them are God-awful (which kills me to type out, because the Temptations are legends.)  These two groups right here - along with The Supremes (another group who can usually be counted on for knocking songs out of the park) - can count themselves now in the same company as one of my all-time favorites, Johnny Cash:

They usually make incredible music, but they have no business recording Holiday music.  Because everything I've heard thus far has been complete garbage.

You know it's bad when you have to call in the frickin' Jackson 5 - featuring a pre- child-molesting Michael Jackson - to do your heavy lifting on an album like this.  As much as I hate to admit it (because I hate Michael Jackson), the strongest song on the entirety of this double-LP release is the Jackson 5's cover of 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town.'  And that's saying something, because since he was like 7 when he recorded this song (I assume), it sounds like a children's song.

By far, the worst song on this release is Boyz II Men's 'Let It Snow.'  I didn't even know this washed-up boy band from the mid-90s was even Motown to begin with (as you can imagine, I don't listen to Motown passed '67 or '68, so who the hell cares when they stopped producing music.)  It's so overly-sung and dramatic (for no reason) that I feel like I need to be slow-dancing at a middle school dance or else wearing a white silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down my chest while feeding my wife chocolate-covered strawberries.

And I don't wanna do either of those things.  I just want to listen to a real Motown Christmas album.  Certainly not this bullshit.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Most of the songs on this release fall in the '3' to '5' range, but there's at least a few '6's on here to squeak out a halfway respectable score when averaged together.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXXX

Hey Internet, who's feeling randy this evening? 

Album Title:  Christmas in Velvet

Album Artist:  Derric Johnson and Re'Generation

Just. . . just take a look at this album cover and tell me what your first thoughts are:

Now, maybe I'm way out in left field with this, but, to me, when I read something like Christmas in Velvet, my mind goes to horrible, horrible places.  Like, watching Showtime or Cinemax at 3am places.  The very word 'velvet' anymore only conjurs up one of two different images:  a.) 'luxury,' at least according to elderly people, or b.) tacky pornography.

Christmas in Velvet takes it one step further and decks out the album art in red - the same hue of red as a hooker's boots, or the stained-up carpeting in the back room of a peep show.  I guess 'blue' or 'green' velvet wouldn't have reached the level of 'Yule' the good folks at Impact Records, so they relied on the good ol' 'sex sells' angle.

(This was made in 7th Grade Woodshop.)

Nevermind that there's a Nativity scene on the front of the album, though.  A Nativity that looks like it was carved from a single chunk of wood by either a 3rd Century A.D. Celtic priest or a special-needs, alternative ed student.

Album artwork aside, this album is. . . well, just f***ing awful.

This offering is from Derric Johnson's vocal orchestra, cleverly (pfft) named - get this - Re'Generation.  What the hell does that hyphen in there every mean?  I teach History, not English, so my grammar is admittedly rusty, but I'm pretty sure this is just grammatical foolishness on display, here.

The back of the record references this Derric guy's family, and then there's a reference to his Re'Generation 'family.'  Soooo I'm not sure if all the folks that are singing on this album are members of his family (a la Partridge Family), or else they're just other singers and he affectionately refer to them as 'family.'  Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse:  having a family of human beings legitimately sound like this, or convincing others to willingly participate on an album that sounds like this.

This does not sound anything like a traditional choir.  For all the times over the years of analyzing Christmas vinyl where I've made fun of church-ish sounding choirs, or choirs of children singing, or whatever. . . I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.

Because this is so much worse.

Re'Generation sounds like they booked gigs at Sea World in the late '70s, and also provided the ooooohs and aaaaahs for low-budget, '70s Sci-Fi movies.  I'm one or two of these folks could be considered 'singers,' but the way these assholes are all thrown together is just random.  Who in the actual f*** arranged this album?  Was this Derric?  

Just look at all these treasured favorites. . . .

90% of the time, this album does not sounds Christmas-y in the slightest:  had this album been sung in a foreign language, so I couldn't ascertain the lyrics, most of the time I wouldn't guess this was a Christmas album.  It's part World Music, part Brady Bunch singing, part contemplating-old-Irishman-staring-across-the-moors-thinking-about-his-struggles, two parts battling banshee sopranos, three parts bass vocalists trying to out-boom each other, and four parts community theater musical.  

Folks, this is so bad I kinda wish this would have been the soundtrack to a Nativity-themed, softcore Cinemax movie instead.  At least then the f***ing title would make sense. . .

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (Not even the subliminal promises of hooker sex, and the family affair collaboration of Re'Generation can save this straight-up dumpster-fire of a choir.  It gets one, lousy pity point for the shitty album artwork that gave me a chuckle when I picked it up in the thrift store.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Going Out of Business

Offer good while supplies last.

Okay, ladies.

If anyone out there is interested in owning their very own Mini Brian, this may be your last chance.  Consider it a Clearance Sale (one that may or may not be approved by the Mrs. - I can see where she might get upset) - I'm getting rid of my inventory and after that won't be restocking my stores, so to speak.

I'm officially going out of business November 21st.

I'm getting snipped.

Yes, it's truly an end of an era - one that started in puberty and netted me two blonde, high-maintenance (and expensive) tax-deductions.  And two, dear readers, is where I draw the line.   I don't want any more Goddamn kids.  Don't get me wrong, here - I love my kids and everything (no need to call the CPS), but I really don't want to go through the whole process of raising a baby again.

They're cute to hold for a few minutes, but after that you're constantly washing out breast milk stench from over-priced bottles (that fill entire dishwashing loads, preventing you from actually doing any dishes), changing diapers, dealing with fevers and rashes, bleaching toys ('cause everything goes in the mouth), and - my personal favorite - never sleeping.

Thanks, but no thanks.  Went through it twice, not again.

No, Kris and I have spoken about this continuously over the course of the last two years or so, and we decided that while my current insurance is awesome with this, we might as well take care of it.  I guess I can't be surprised that the overall price tag for this surgery is insanely low - $35 - after all, by destroying my ability to make more human beings, I'm saving them a lot of headaches and dollar signs down the road.  It makes good business since to cut me a ridiculously huge discount.

The specialist's office is in Kissimmee, surrounded by jungle.

I know general practitioners are fully capable of performing vasectomies, but I wanted to go to a specialist.  Seriously - if you were in the middle of a storm at sea, who would you rather have at the helm - a casual yachter who owns a boat and has previous experience taking his boat out in bad weather, or a crusty, old sea rover who's actually bored steering his vessel through thirty-foot tall waves?

Give me Ol' Salty any day of the week.

I had an appointment this afternoon with the guy that's going to be slicing up my balls - really nice guy who's been doing it for over 30 years and hasn't had a serious issue in all the years he's been doing it.  I had to take a half-day, which I wasn't fond of doing so early in the school year, but they require anyone going in for the surgery to have a consultation with the specialist first.

My future throne (I didn't get to break in the stirrups today.)

And to further inconvenience all those wishing to eliminate their ability to procreate the species, they require the spouse to accompany the would-be patient.  So Kris had to take a half-day too.

Anyway, the consultation wasn't much more than a "are you both sure you really want to do this?" speech, followed by a walk-through of the procedure (which I'll tell you about later - maybe after my balls have gone under the knife.)  He did ask that I drop my pants so he could feel around down there.

No matter how many times a doctor's done the ol' grope-and-feel in the past, that shit never fails to creep me out.

Let's do this.

So there you have it.  In less than two months - kicking off my Thanksgiving vacation, in fact - I'll be sterile.  Am I nervous about it?  Nope.  Second thoughts or lingering fancies of maybe someday raising more offspring?  Hell nope.

I'm looking forward to this, if only 'cause I've now got a prescription for Vicodin and orders to remain on Bed Rest for three days.

Wii U, Netflix, beer, and pajamas, anyone?

- Brian