Ep. XXIX: 'Christmas Album' - Herb Alpert

 Welcome back, fans.  For today's installment, we're headed south of the border for some Tijuana-fashioned yuletide jammage. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Album

Album Artist:  Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

I picked up this gem during last February's great Record haul with Dad.  It was a buck, it's a Tijuana Christmas album, it's a no-brainer.

It should go without saying that anyone sitting down and putting this record on their turntable knows exactly what they're getting themselves into.  Herb's trumpet is prominent on most tracks, with his band's '60s laid-back swing backing him up on familiar Holiday standards.  It's unoffensive, familiar, and doesn't take any chances with the well-known material - which, for a pigeon-holed genre artist like this band, is probably a safe gamble.  Still, it leaves you wanting a little bit more in terms of arrangement.

When I picked this up, I was honestly expecting a more upbeat Tijuana-styled album from Herb and Co.  Not so much with this record.  This LP is straight-up, '60s, holiday cocktail music, with a Latin-infused twist.  Like several holiday albums I've reviewed previously, this is turtleneck sweater-wearing, cigarette-smoking, holiday-themed martini-sipping music one would place on their living room Hi-Fi while they entertain their neighborhood guests.  Only, in Tijuana.

(Why someone would wear a turtleneck sweater in Mexico is beyond me - it's hot as shit down there.)

"Hey amigos, anybody down for a nap?"

Anyway, the music, despite it's obvious Latin sound, is very '60s - just that slooooow, chill '60s swing.  It's much more chill than I would have expected.  I guess if you're a huge Herb Alpert fan - and you're probably not, as most Herb Alpert fans must be dead (that's all you can find in the record section at thrift stores anymore) - you can probably already guess what these slow jams of his sound like.  As if his band started falling asleep halfway through the recording process and Mr. Alpert just said 'screw it' and kept the tapes rolling.

I love me some Holiday, well-wishing, 'from our house to yours' messages on the back of Christmas albums. . .

All in all, it's an okay background LP, but not something I'd put on very often.  I rarely feel the need to wear a sweater and chill out with a martini in Mexico.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent  (As expected, and definitely not too bad. . . just a little too chill for my liking.)

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Ep. XXVIII: 'Joyous Music for Christmas Time' - Various Artists

 What's up, fan base.

We're officially in the Holiday Season now, so it should go without saying that Yours Truly is already hilt-deep in his record collection, scrounging up Christmas treasures won from various record stores, thrift shops, and. . . well, Amazon.

For the last two years, I've shared with you one of my all-time favorite - and borderline obsessive compulsive - Holiday pastimes:  the audio scrutinization and analysis of every last Holiday record in my ever-expanding record collection.  This year is no different, folks - I've got a horde of new albums to review, some fake logs on my gas fireplace, and some yuletide 'nog all set and ready to rock and roll this evening.

So throw on your Santa hats, fetch yourself a holiday cocktail, and let us do this. . .

Album Title:  Joyous Music for Christmas Time

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Okay, but before I start off with this, I should point out that I have no idea where this came from.  I've had it for a couple years now, and just haven't gotten to it in my previous year's Holiday record rating.  There's no price tags to be found, but the inner paper sleeves - while still in pretty good shape - aren't in the Near Mint condition that would give it away as being a former number from Granny's collection (which I inherited.)  These records also have some hissing surface noise to them (fortunately no pops or anything), which is odd - it tells me that this collection was well-loved and often-played.

And that, dear readers, is kinda sad, really.  For whomever previously owned this particular 4-LP box set must have had a really, really weird taste in music.

I had some high hopes going into this box set, folks, I really did.  Some of the songs are a straight-up full-choir tour-de-force, backed by roaring church organs and brass.  Kinda like if you were dragged to your Grandma's church one Sunday in December, but unlike the church your family usually goes to, your Grandma's church is one of those centuries-old, castle-like cathedrals downtown, with a shitload of stained-glass windows, a full orchestra, and a 200-person choir conducted by Basil Poledouris (see:  Conan the Barbarian.)

It's the sort of music that makes you want to celebrate the Lord's birth. . . then run to the nearest living thing and chop off it's head with a mighty broadsword.

But sadly, those few songs are about all this boxed set has to offer.

While these numbers - mostly from the first record - relish in their epic yule-ishness, the majority of this collection is more humble in arrangement and sound.  There's some quieter organ work, which sounds less like Conan and more like one of those warbly deals you can find in living rooms all over the 1970s.  We also have some '60s easy listening and some hymns.  Then some more hymns.  And also some hymns.

Then the boxed set attempts to 'kick it up a notch' with some futile attempts at operatic singing, as if you were dragged back in to your Grandma's church, where one of the old choir ladies in their congregation starts singing with delusions of grandeur.  And you have to sit there and listen to this random old lady pretend she's on some theater stage, belting out her rendition of Silent Night, all the while you're trying so hard not to laugh that you pee yourself a little.

Apart from the other three albums, one whole record in this boxed set is comprised of selections from Handel's Messiah.  If you like that classical piece, cool.  You might like this boxed set.  I personally don't have anything against it, per se, but neither am I one of those guys who drives around listening to frickin' Handel during the Holiday season.  Tchaikovsky, sure.  Handel?  Not so much.

I mean, I love Rossini and Mozart, but I don't want either of those dudes on my Christmas album, folks.

In conclusion, I'm seriously considering tossing out Records 2 and 4 from this boxed set and re-rating this collection a 6. . . but that would require getting up, walking across the Study and into the Kitchen in order to reach a trash can, and. . . well, I'm a lazy, lazy man.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (25% of this boxed set is pretty good background music, 25% is Handel's Messiah, and the other 50% is nothing but shitty music from your grandma's church.)

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