Merry Christmas from Trump Country . .
Album Title: Our Family Favorites
Album Artist: Various Artists
This is, by far, the shittiest thing that has happened to me all Holiday Season.
I picked this up from Radio Wasteland for a buck, and I did so based solely on the corny album cover. Just look at this nonsense:
Hell no.
To me this looks like a bunch of people waiting for a missing member to come home so they can spring an intervention on him. If you look carefully at the faces of these people, only a few look happy - the rest are looking off camera, as if expecting someone at any minute. And the way they're all seated around in a circle, clearly uncomfortable? All signs point to bad news coming. Just look at the woman in the blue dress - she's definitely impatient and wanting this whole damn thing to be over and done with.
And that's how I feel about this entire album, folks. It's a lie.
I picked this up from the Christmas dollar bin assuming it was a Holiday album, but if there's anything here at all that's 'Christmas,' it's that Goddamn tree on the cover. That's it. Upon looking at the back track list - something I was too stupid to do then, but will definitely be doing from this point forward - I was horrified to find NOT ONE single Christmas song.
Not. One.
This is a collection of CHURCH songs. And no, dear readers, not churchy Christmas songs (like 'Silent Night,' 'Hard the Herald Angels Sing,' etc.) No. This is straight-up church songs, prefaced by - way for it - Billy F***ing Graham. They pulled the ol' bait-and-switch on us all, slapping a Christmas tree on the front cover, and even including a Holiday scene with people DECORATING CHRISTMAS TREES on the back (which, by the way, was 100% photographed on a movie lot, those aren't even real frickin' buildings):
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| Everything about this album is a LIE. |
But hey, let's play Devil's Advocate here and rate the songs for what they are. Let's pretend this isn't a Christmas Record Odyssey at all, and that for the past 87 episodes I've been reviewing Church Records instead. Even then, I would butcher this horrible, dumpster-fire of an album - guys, it's really that bad. This is one of the worst albums I've ever heard, and I've reviewed some really, really bad albums over the years.
The song arrangements here vary between congregation gospel and cheesy 70s easy-listening, and in no way, shape or form is there one, single MOTHERF***ING song that is worth listening to (maybe the Cash one, but even this isn't all that good.) About half of the songs on this album feature some of the worst singing I've ever heard in my entire life, making Kate Smith sound like Aretha Franklin. There's ZERO commonality in the tone of the music, either - the only unifying element to this whole collection of bullshit are the mega-Christian lyrics. It's like a mix tape slapped together by a neglected, dementia-ravaged grandmother hopped on goof pills and rotting away in her piss-soaked Depends. 
What's crazy about all of this is that Johnny Cash bothered to make an appearance. I'm assuming this was after his TV variety show was cancelled in the 70s and he figured, 'Hell, a paycheck is a paycheck.' An outing of such notoriety is truly below him and the fact he signed on to this at all boggles the mind to no end. Almost as much as the fact that there are a few non-white artists on this album, because - as the Billy Graham intro, cavalcade of Evangelical artists, and Bible-thumping content suggest - this is clearly Republican territory, and they ain't necessarily known for tolerance.
God, I'm so pissed I spent money on this f***ing thing. . .
VERDICT: 1/10 - Ohio (If the Evangelical branch of Q-Anon made a Holiday album, it might sound like this. Minus the conspiracy theories and references to blood-drinking Democrats, of course. . . but having some of that might've actually improved this album.)
- SHELVED -
- Brian
