Ep. LX: 'Christmas with Tammy' - Tammy Wynette

 It's time to kick some Yuletide ass, America. . .

Album Title:  Christmas with Tammy

Album Artist:  Tammy Wynette

Any of you guys remember the Transformers?  You probably do, it was a pretty big kid's show back in the early/mid-'80s:  a Saturday morning cartoon about robots from space that 'transform' into various human vehicles, like semi-trucks, fighter jets, and even cassette playing boom-boxes.  Along with G.I. Joe, Thundercats, and He-Man, it defined a generation of young boys, who collected it's action figures like they were holy relics.

I, personally, never got into Transformers as much as some of my friends did growing up - I never got into the whole 'robot/vehicle' thing, as I was more of a sword-wielding hero type, myself - but I could very much acknowledge their level of sheer awesomeness.  So could many television executives, for that matter, since in the wake of Tranformers' success in the TV, toy, and other merchandising industries, a horde of cheap, knock-offs began to invade the TV airwaves and toy aisles.

Laaaaaaaaaame.

Most notorious of these much, much lamer imposters was Hannah Barbara's Go-Bots.  The animation was shittier, the toys were lamer, and the whole thing came across as a poorly-concealed marketing ploy to sell cheap, Asian-made toys.

Kids who played with Go-Bots instead of Transformers were frowned upon in Elementary School society:  one didn't want to associate with one of those kids.

She looks like a math teacher who enjoys giving out detentions.

So why am I bringing all of this up, you may ask?  Well folks, Tammy Wynette - the country singer that's today's artist on the turntable, is the Go-Bot to Loretta Lynn's much more badass Transformer.

She basically plagiarized Loretta's country singing playbook:  she sings the same, the album sounds the same, the song choices are very similar, etc.  Only, in Tammy, you get an older, sleepier, more ho-hum Loretta.  This album is like chloroform - there's none of the former's spunk and sass to balance out all the more retrospective or quieter numbers on this album, and, as such, the whole album sounds like a woman pushing forty, falling asleep on the couch while drinking wine and watching Netflix.

You know, like my wife does.

This albums is boring, and Tammy needs to just stick with standing by her man and leave the Holiday music business to the Transformers.

Not only is Tammy a horrible Christmas album artist, she's also a bad parent:  who has new kids into their forties?  That's how you make people with Downs Syndrome , Tammy.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (A much sleepier, older, and more boring version of Loretta Lynn wants to sing you a few Christmas songs.  NEVER pick the Go-Bots over the Transformers, folks.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. LIX: 'An Americana Christmas' - Various Artists

 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen - time for some bad news . . .

Album Title:  An Americana Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

This one disappointed me a bit, I'm not going to lie.

I had high hopes for this one.  When you see a line-up that includes The Band, Emmylou Harris, and the legendary Neil Young, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, how can you not start salivating?  This line-up is a who's who of country-folk-rock awesomeness from the early '70s, so one would be crazy not go out of their way to pick this up.  This one I was able to snatch up off Amazon for an insane $9 - a nearly unheard of price for a brand new, remastered LP - so one can hardly blame me for thinking this was a win-win all across the board.

When you drop the needle on this one, though, reality comes crashing down real frickin' quick.  There are quite a few sub-par performances on here, with some God-awful song selections, courtesy of a handful of nobodies who somehow managed to get their songs onto this otherwise star-studded compilation (don't ask me how.)  I mean, seriously - who the f*** is Luther Dickinson, or Valerie June, or Corb Lund?  Do you even know?  Do you care?

Didn't think so.

What the hell, Bob. . .

One of the worst tracks on this entire album is from none other than Bob Dylan himself, arguably the greatest songwriter that's ever lived.  God knows he's getting up there in age these days - he's pushing 80 - so I'm going out on a limb here and attributing this train wreck of a song, 'Must Be Santa,' to age.  The song is arranged as a polka number - yes, a polka number - and Dylan sounds like a 95-year-old man rasping for a nurse to come change his bedpan.  Given his off-the-charts level of talent, the very fact that he recorded something so horrendous as this causes one to doubt the existence of God.

This album suffers for a multitude of reasons, one of which is a lack of consistency.  There's no quality control to this album, and on a compilation with this much talent you kinda expect that.  Given the big names on this release, I bought it with the expectation of a certain sound - namely Bob Dylan and the Band's Lost Basement Tapes- but, alas, that wasn't meant to be.  While there's quite a few decent songs on here, and even a couple good ones, it leans towards country/folk a little bit, there's enough shit-shows (Dylan, etc.) that if you were, say, in the mood a Young/Cash/Dylan-ish sound for Christmas, you'd be sorely disappointed.

And that's basically this album in a nutshell, folks:  disappointment.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent (White Christmas be damned, this is by far the biggest letdown of the Holiday Season.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. LVIII: 'Christmas Jollies' - The Salsoul Orchestra

 Alright, party people - but on your dancin' shoes. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Jollies

Album Artist:  The Salsoul Orchestra

So I stumbled across this one on Amazon one day while I was browsing Christmas vinyl.  It was only $12 - not too bad for a brand new record - and even came on translucent red vinyl.  I had never heard  of this release, or artists, or before, but the reviews were all really good, so I said 'what the hell, at the very worst it may make for an entertaining blog entry.'  I pulled the trigger.

Upon letting this one start off on the turntable, the first thing that comes to mind are the overly-produced 'studio disco' releases of the late '70s.  Think of the Hooked on the Classics, or Hooked on Swing series - where they combine a ridiculous amount of songs into one never-stopping medley, tied together by the same driving disco drum beat.  The beat never falters, and the melodies come in and out of the medley like an ever-changing line-up of coked-up dancers.

Meco's Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk is also in the same vein, and is a damn fine record if I do say so myself.

Anyway, back to this one.  The first side of this album is pretty straight-forward:  they took a selection of Christmas music and gave it a disco-y spin.  No surprises there.  I was a little bummed at first to find that this release wasn't an instrumental, as I had initially hoped, but the vocals aren't jarring, and they definitely aren't meant to be the focal point on any of these songs:  the main actors on this stage are the drums and bass.


Had this been an instrumental release, and they had given the entirety of the album the Hooked On... treatment, I would've rated this an 8.  Alas, there's some pretty questionable song selections on here, most notably on the B-Side, where we find a 'New Years Medley.'  Songs like 'I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover' stick out like a sore thumb on a Holiday album, and come across as corny.  In fact, you'd be just fine just stopping the record on the B-Side once you're done with the Christmas medley - just skip the second half of the album all together, as it's complete bullshit.

So, all in all, would I recommend this one?  Yeah, if you're a fan of Meco or enjoy the occasional kitsch of a quirky Holiday release in your collection.  I wouldn't pay more than $15 for it, though.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (A cocaine-fueled, Meco-inspired Holiday dance party, dragged down a couple points by some God-awful song selections.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

Ep. LVII: 'Christmas with Slim Whitman'

Time for another round of festive turntablin', America . . .

Album Title:  Christmas with

Album Artist:  Slim Whitman

Typical Christmas selection, here.

So, not going to lie, I have no idea who this guy is.  Before I go into this, I just wanna ask, who the hell names their baby 'Slim?'  And, if it's a self-imposed monicker, why 'Slim'?  Was he rail-thin growing up, and people made fun of him for it, or was it the polar opposite - was he a fat kid and people called him 'Slim' as a way of making fun of him?

Or, most likely, did he just move to Nashville, have difficulty booking gigs as a mediocre country musician who sounded just like hundreds of others trying to break into the business, and changed his name from 'Ottis' to 'Slim' in order to book the occasional dive-bar gig?

I'm going with the last one.

Anyway, as we've seen before time and time again in this here Record Odyssey of mine, I got suckered into picking this up by the cover art alone.  There's such a sleazy vibe to this Christmas album I couldn't not drop $1 on this one (which, if memory serves correct, was picked up at Radio Wasteland about a month ago.)  One glance at Slim on the front of this cover and you know what's about to go down.

You're about to be drugged and raped.

Just look at this guy and his decor and tell me I'm wrong, folks.

I might not know who this guy was when I read his name on the album cover, but I knew who he was when I saw this picture.  Slim lives in a gawdy ranch house, filled with shag carpet and gold-colored everything, somewhere down in Florida like Sarasota, or maybe out in Texas.  He drives a pastel-colored cadillac and all his attendants where bolo ties and alligator skin boots.

Slim acts like a mix between a cowboy and a princess, and walks about his mini-mansion (probably not a legit mansion, because I've never heard of this guy before) in slippers and a silk smoking jacket (like the one you see in the pics.)  Across his walls are his records and awards - hell, maybe he has a gold record for a random single up there somewhere, you never know - and pictures of him with more famous people who are more household names.  He has animal heads on his walls, too, but he didn't shoot them - he just thought they added to the decor that proves his country music-ness.

You CAN'T resist the Slim. . .

Now, let's say your a young woman and get invited back to Slim's ranch house after some award show or variety TV special or whatever.  Let us further say that it's around the Holiday season.  Slim is just the sort of guy that would put this very album - his own album - on the Hi-Fi, as he cha-chas across his living room shag carpeting to make you a Christmas cocktail.

Little do you know, he's about to give you the Bill Cosby treatment:  there's some serious shit he's just dropped into your drink.

As you start to sip on your cocktail, and Slim flashes you the same, dirty-as-f*** car salesman smile that he's flashing you on this album cover, you start to feel drowsy and a little out of sorts.  At first, you assume it's the Vaseline-slathered sound production of this snooze-fest of an album that's putting you to sleep:  God knows this record sounds just like every other country singer's lame attempt at the classic Holiday Crooner approach to making a Christmas album.  Like when Glenn Campbell tries to be Frank Sinatra. . . except when Slim does it, it just sounds creepy, as if he's about to put something in your drink.

And that's when it hits you, Young Missy:  you're about to be date-raped by Slim Whitman.

Happy Holidays!

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Bad things will happen to you if you fall asleep to this album. . . and you will fall asleep while listening to this album.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. LVI: 'A Christmas Sound Spectacular' - John Klein

 Happy Holidays, Internet.  Time to throw another platter on the turntable and feel the Yule. . .

Album Title:  A Christmas Sound Spectacular

Album Artist:  John Klein

So I couldn't resist picking this one up from Radio Wasteland:  the Santa on the cover totally sold it for me.  I mean, look at him.  Maybe it's the sultry red decor, maybe its the beaded curtain, or perhaps it's Santa's deer-in-headlights, 'it's not what you think' look on his face.  To me, this picture screams 'Santa at the Strip Club.'

Santa's about to get his chestnuts rubbed.

I feel like this cover picture is zoomed in and cropped:  if you were to zoom out, you'd see a topless stripper off to the left, waiting to give Santa a lap dance.  Santa's kicked back in chair, all ready for his holly, jolly lap dance, when all of a sudden the viewer walks in and catches him completely by surprise.

If this isn't what you take away from this cover, there must be something seriously wrong with you.  I can't believe the art department got away from this.

Anyway, pervy cover art aside, this album is a hot mess, from start to finish.  Not so much the song selection and their arrangements, but rather the execution of them.  Have you ever heard the phrase, 'too much of a good thing?'  That's a legit phrase, guys, and one that I feel the need to emphasize here in today's post:  what we have here, folks, is a too much bells and chimes.  Like, a shitload of bells and chimes.

No surprises here.

Now, everybody likes chimes and bells in their Christmas carols.  Jingle bells, church bells, whatever.  It's part of the season, we all get it.  What we have here, from John Klein and company, is an over-abundance of bells.  Like, instead of the bells serving as a subtle accent, they're front and center stage, playing out the lead melodies themselves.  It's too much for the ear to handle.

You wanna know what this sounds like?  It sounds like when you go to a middle school band concert and they have some fat kid in the back, in the percussion section, and he gets to hit the chimes with a mallet during a song.  Since it's not used very often, he's all excited to play the hell out of them, and pounds on those frickin' chimes like a blacksmith working over an anvil.  The crashing bells then reverberate through the gymnasium's shitty acoustics and leaving a permanent ringing in parents' and grandparents' ears that last for weeks.

Christ.

That's exactly what this album sounds like.  If Klein had only dialed it back a bit with the f***ing bells on this one, I feel like this album could be a solid '5' or '6,' but instead I'm leaving this one a '3.'


Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to drive out the ringing in my head with a Goddamn bullet.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (S-so. . . m-many. . . BELLS.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. LV: 'A Partridge Family Christmas Carol' - The Partridge Family

I can't believe I'm about to do this. . .

Album Title:  A Partridge Family Christmas Carol

Album Artist:  The Partridge Family

Many times in the course of our lives, we willingly put ourselves in harm's way in order to brave the unknown.  Something calls to us, pulls us, forcing us to ignore the risks.  Call it curiosity, foolhardiness, or simple stupidity, whatever - most of us have met with dire consequences upon muttering the phrase, "screw it, let's see what happens."  

So goes this record offering I have for you today.

I regret spending a $1 on this piece of shit.  It looked hokey, and I knew what I was getting into upon purchasing it, but I thought to myself, "Well, maybe it'll be so bad that it'll be kinda funny. . ."  God knows that's happened a time or two-dozen on this here blog of ours before.

Nope.  Not this time.

This album is so overly-produced and stripped of all things remotely human that it feels plastic.  There's nothing funny about it, it's just awful.  The Partridge Family did to credible music what Rian Johnson did to Star Wars:  they polished it to a lifeless gloss, removed all of its edge and controversy, and presented the world with a smiley-faced, pastel-colored turd that was as fake as the president's hair.

This Holiday release is in the same vein as most of their other music (though, to be honest, I've never been brave enough to listen to any of their other bullshit 'music.')  The Partridge Family is in the same studio-spawned crowd as the Monkees, and sound similar (I'd also throw in Three Dog Night, even though they weren't created by a studio, they sound about the same.)  '60s/'70s Bubblegum Rock.  So happy and safe it might as well be a manufactured by f***ing Fisher Price.

So that's who the Partridge Family is.  They're not even a real family, they're an assortment of actors who had enough boxes checked off on some random's studio exec's checklist to make the cut.  Visual appeal?  Check.  Can carry a tune?  Check.  Eating disorder?  Check.

Only two members of this 'family' even bothered showing up for this snooze-fest of a Christmas album:  Shirley Jones and David Cassidy.  A few of the random siblings/future child-star-turned-coke-heads managed to show up for a cover photo-op, but they don't get to do any singing or instrument-playing this time around.

Lucky them.

The fact that this album was even made is a crime against music.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (A cheesy, G-rated offering from TV's shittiest musical family.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. LIV: 'A Very Cool Christmas' - Various Artists

 Thanksgiving is over.  All systems go for the official HOLIDAY SEASON. . .

Album Title:  A Very Cool Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

It may be just a gimmick, but I do love myself some colored vinyl. . .

I pre-ordered this double-LP when I first came across it on Amazon about a month ago, and it came in the mail earlier this week.  This release includes two discs:  the first is presented on green, translucent vinyl, and is the 'Rockin'' disc (all the songs are rock and blues versions of Christmas standards and originals), while the second is on translucent, red vinyl, and is the 'Groovin'' disc (these are all soul, classic R & B, funk, etc.)

Most of the songs on this album are badass - it's a fun compilation of Holiday jams, and I like how it's divided up by genre in case you feel like one type of sound instead of the other.  The Darkness' opening track is probably my favorite on this release, but there are a lot of great offerings from The Kinks, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, B.B. King, Booker T & the MGs, Otis Redding, Leon Russell, and more:

There are some weaker ones on here, though.  Tom Waits, who I'm usually a fan of, groans tiredly on "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" with Gavin Bryars (whoever that hell that is.)  It sounds like a sound engineer pressed 'record' on the mixer, then got up and left the studio to go get some Thai take-out or whatever, leaving two old men napping behind in the mic-room.  Once and awhile these two old guys will talk or grumble in their sleep.  Feeling the yule yet?

Didn't think so.

I wanna punch these two in the f***ing face. . .

The third track on Side A of Disc 1, a song called 'Christmas Tree' by The Lovers, is probably the shittiest song on this entire album.  Unlike the rest of Disc 1, which is filled with rock and blues versions of Holiday favorites, this one sounds like some French cha-cha nonsense you'd hear in an art gallery or a really lame Euro-trash party where everyone's wearing black turtlenecks and drinking white wine.  I Wikipedia'd this band in order to uncover the origins of their shittiness, and discovered they're a premiere French band in the Neo-Burlesque music scene.  Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.  And so it shouldn't be a surprise when the female singer whisper-coos the entire song, the chief lyric being the not-at-all-subtle "Can you show me your Christmas Tee?" It's beyond obvious by her highly suggestive, French voice that 'Christmas Tree' in this sense is a holly, jolly dick.

She wants to see your dick.  For Christmas.

The song is really jarring, both lyrically and musically (the style so out of place on a rock album), and consequently these Frogs torpedo this album by a solid two points all by themselves.  Goddamn it, France.  I'm highly considering taking a flathead screwdriver and just creating a giant scratch across this track of the record so no one has to ever hear it again.

"It's the biggest, most nicest Christmas Tree I've ever seen."  Shut up, you French whore.

VERDICT:  8/10 - Awesome (A bad-ass collection of rock, blues, soul, and classic R & B, presented on two, limited, colored LPs. . . and pulled down two points by some slutty, French cha-cha'er who wants to see your dick.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -