Good God, here we go again. . .
Album Title: The Brightest Stars of Christmas
Album Artist: Various Artists
Guys, I'm really conflicted about this one. Head's all over the place.
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| Merry Christmas from the Donner Family |
So, starting off with the album cover, we have some obvious 1960s watercolor painting of what, I assume, are seven shacks on the side of a wintry mountain, all buried in snow. If this were a photograph of a real place, the inhabitants would slowly succumb to hypothermia and people wouldn't find their frozen corpses until Spring. Who thought that this artwork would make a great album cover for a Holiday compilation?
The good folks at J.C. Penney, that's who.
(Remember J.C. Penney? It was like Kohls, but shittier.)
Anyway, artwork aside, this is your usual roster of snooze-fest go-to's that we've seen pop up time and time again in this Christmas Record Odyssey of ours: Ed Ames, Perry Como, Arthur Fiedler, Henry Mancini,, Robert Shaw Chorale, etc. etc. Even before I dropped the needle on this one, I had a hunch that we'd be somewhere in the '3' or '4' neck of the woods. The opening song on Side 1 wasn't anything to raise my hopes, either - an orchestral show-opener that's loud, overly-celebratory, and everything you'd come to expect from Eugene Ormandy.Not like any of us know who the hell that guy even is.
Things slowly start to improve, however. Elvis - the white-washed King of Rock and Roll - shows up with his famous 'Here Comes Santa Claus.' If you like Elvis, you'll like this. If you don't like him, you won't. There's nothing surprising here with this song, it seriously sounds like every other upbeat Elvis song you've ever heard. Ever.
Track 3 on Side 1, "Wonder Winterland" features a hillbilly banjo out of left field (by way of Tijuana.) Steel guitars and a hard ride cymbal drive this Dixieland, brass-heavy rager into something that seriously had me come back into the Study from the kitchen and say out loud, "Are you frickin' kiddin' me?" This track is awesome.
Following this, it segues right into Perry Como's "Home for the Holidays." While I've never once said out loud "I love Perry Como" - because then I'd be a Comosexual - this is a Holiday staple, and one that currently sits on more than one of my Holiday playlists.Sadly, this short run of 'not bad' patters out, and we're left with Christmas songs as lifeless as the frozen bodies left trapped on the side of the mountain in the picture above (thanks again, J.C. Penney.) Harpsichords and a church choir - everyone's favorite combination - close out Side 1 in a yawnfest medley. The same bizarre, overly-orchestral version of 'Jingle Bells' that Julie Andrews was forced to work with on our previous episode is featured as the opener of Side 2. Ed Ames gets your grandmother's juices going, but certainly doesn't do it for anyone else. Charley Pride's country number is as out of place on this compilation as a black singer would have been in 1970s country music.
. . . . hey, wait a sec.
Arthur Fiedler - the Fiedster - then makes a valiant attempt to bring Side Two back to life with his famous rendition of 'Sleigh Ride,' accompanied by the Boston Pops (like Perry Como's song on this release, a Holiday standard that's featured on one or two of my playlists), but it's just. . . not enough.
VERDICT: 5/10 - Meh (Rising from the ashes of J.C. Penney's grandma slacks and tacky bed comforters comes this random compilation of Holiday usual-ness. A hidden gem, a couple tried-and-trues, and a whole lotta boring.)
- SHELVED -
- Brian
