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.
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.
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. . . |
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 -
