The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. LXIV

 Who's ready for the biggest f***ing disappointment of the 2020 Holiday Season? 

(. . .to date, obviously - 2020 ain't over yet.)

Album Title:  Scrooged (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album Artist:  Various Artists

I'm soooo pissed at this one.

Scrooged is a 1988 modern take on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starring a top-of-his-game Bill Murray in what could be considered the greatest role of his career (right up there with Ghostbusters and Groundhogs Day.)  This classic is so damn awesome that it's always been, like, my third favorite Holiday film (behind National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Muppet Family Christmas.)  Kris and I make it a point to watch it a couple times every year during the season, and it never disappoints.  The music in the film, too, is great - plenty of classics, oldies, etc. - that are quintessential Holiday standards.

So, while watching the movie last year, I decided to pick up my phone and see if the soundtrack was released on vinyl.  Sure enough, there was a recent pressing (a Record Store Day release from a few years ago, I believe), and, coincidentally, shortly after finding it online, I just so happened to stop into Radio Wasteland and found a copy of it for a mere $17.  To the victor go the spoils, am I right folks?

Nope.

There's only one song on this whole Goddamn album that is even remotely worth listening to, and that's the opening track on Side A - the Annie Lennox/Al Green jam that plays as Bill Murray breaks the Fourth Wall at the end of the movie and starts talking to the audience as the credits begin to roll.  You know, after he stops acting like a douchebag and starts loving Christmas.  And the little black kid finally learns how to talk again and Bill starts making out with Indiana Jones' girlfriend.  'Put a Little Love in Your Heart.'  Know what I'm talking about?

But even with that song, something sounds off.  It's not exactly the version from the film.

As the rest of the soundtrack unfurled like a shit-stained bed sheet, I realized in horror that this soundtrack can barely pass as a Christmas record.  There's, like, three Goddamn Christmas songs on here, and they're all horrendous.  'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),' which you'd think would be slam-dunked by Nat King Cole, is instead passed off to his daughter Natalie Cole. . . and the results are, well, ridiculously boring.  She can carry a tune, I suppose, but she's phoning this one in and sings like she doesn't need the money (I'm sure she's got plenty of her dad's left over.)

I almost breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that Miles Davis had a track on this - where he teams up with David Sanborn, Paul Shaffer, and some other dudes - but his jazzed up version of 'We Three Kings of Orient Are' is so mathematical and filled with unnecessary time changes and signature shifts that it doesn't even sound like a f***ing song, let alone a Christmas song.

Every other waste of pressed frickin' vinyl on this album is a waste.  This is all late-80's R & B bullshit, and every bit of it sounds like it belongs in a middle school dance from my 5th grade year.  I was so abashed by the sheer betrayal of this album that I had to go back through and actually look for the parts of the movie where these songs were featured.  A Kool Moe Dee track that is listed on this album was in the movie for all of, like, six seconds (when the barely-clad back-up dancers in Bill Murray's TV production were practicing their dance moves.)  Another song that was playing in a rundown house belonging to an African American family, but so quiet in the background you almost miss it.  Yet another one was playing somewhere while two characters walk down a sidewalk.  It may have been on screen for about four seconds, tops.

But all those classic, nostalgic Holiday songs?  The other classic oldies that I mentioned before?

Nope.  They're not on here.  Not a one.

I can't believe I spent $17 on this.  I'm never playing this record again, but I am holding on to it for the time being so that it can increase in value on Discogs before I take it back into Radio Wasteland to sell back for store credit.

Son of a bitch. . .

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This has to be one of the worst Christmas movie soundtracks I've ever heard.  I'm so pissed that I actually spent money on this train wreck. . .)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. XXXIII

What's up, people.  Time to get festive. . .

Album Title:  Elf  Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So this movie has been a family staple for a few years now.  Not one of my personal favorite Christmas movies (I fancy myself a National Lampoon, Muppets, Scrooged sorta guy), but it's good.  The soundtrack is one that flows well, so I figured it might be good to pick it up on vinyl sometime.  Lo and behold, over the summer (of course) it dropped nearly 50% in price on Amazon, so I pounced on it.

Overall, this is a really solid Christmas album.  It has several powerhouse yuletide jams that are well worth the investment, such as The Brian Setzer Orchestra's 'Nutcracker Suite' (arguably the best seven-minute take on Tchaikovsky's famous piece in existence), Jim Reeves' 'Jingle Bells,' etc.,  As such it'll Remain in Circulation throughout the rest of the Holiday Season.

So why give it a '7'?

Well, for starters, there are a couple songs on this LP that just don't fit well on a Christmas album.  Louis Prima's 'Pennies from Heaven' and Billy Preston's 'Nothing From Nothing' are both great songs, and work very well in Elf. . . . but do they blend in as Christmas music?  Nope.  Nope they do not.  While they are prolific songs on the soundtrack, they're at odds with the garland on my mantlepiece and the nog-and-rum in my hand.

But, more notably, the real reason this album is brought down low to a mere is 7 can be summed up in two words, America:

Leon Redbone.

If you don't know who this guy is, folks, he's an old tin-pan alley singer from back in the day who sings in a weird baritone voice. . . and he's on, like, three or four different tracks on this LP.  His main claim to fame is that he's the dude that sang the theme song to the classic '80s TV sitcom, Mr. Belvedere.  See for yourself:

Why the music director in charge of Elf felt it necessary to resurrect this dude's career from the pits of who-gives-a-f***, I'll never know.  It'd be jarring enough if he were on there just once, but the geniuses in charge of this record put him on there multiple times.  The worst occurrence, of course, is for a duet with Zooey Deschanel (an actress from the film, who's also an indie singer in bands like She & Him) on the Holiday staple, 'Baby It's Cold Outside.'

Oh.  My.  God.

If you're already familiar with this song, you know it's a song meant for couples, and it's. . . well. . . . kinda rape-y in context.

A creepy guy won't let his girlfriend head home, even though her parents already worried sick about her, under the context that it's 'cold outside.'  The girl then notices something's in her drink, and all he can say is response are predator lines like, 'your lips look delicious.'

Maybe this whole scenario was acceptable back in the '50s or '60s, when this song was originally written and men got away with this crap all the time.  But this is 2017 - the year women called out such abhorred behavior, and brought down limelight heavyweights like Matt Laurer, Louis C.K., and - hopefully - Roy Moore.

This no longer flies, fellas.

What's worse about this already-disgusting song is the fact that Zooey and Leon singing the different parts of the duet make the song sound like an exhausted teenage girl trying to get out of a creepy, old man's living room.  And he just won't let her leave.  And he's giving her totally-uncalled-for advances that aren't being reciprocated.

No means no, Leon.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad  (A pretty solid Christmas soundtrack. . . . with a few jarring moments that make me want to take a scalding hot shower.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -