Ep. LXXXVII: 'A Music Box Christmas'

Strap on your Holiday pants and get ready for an ole timey Christmas jam session. . . 

Album Title:  A Music Box Christmas

Album Artist:  None (yes, seriously)

I never thought I'd actually review an album that no one performs on.

This album is free of human beings entirely.  Not one human being on the entire frickin' record.  No one sings, no one plays instruments, no one does anything (unless you count the guy that winds up each music box and lets it play.)

As the album artwork suggests, this is a recording of various music boxes, each that plays a Christmas carol, borrowed from the collection of Rita Ford (no, not Lita Ford.)  I'm assuming they borrowed a couple totes of music boxes from this Rita chick, drove them down to the recording studio, set them up one at a time time in the sound booth, cranked 'em up and let 'em fly.  

Honestly, a pretty easy way to make yourself a Christmas record, folks - the only work required is to wind up a frickin' box.

So I'm honestly not sure how to go about reviewing this album.  There's nothing particularly wrong with it, I guess - it's 100% a bunch of music boxes playing different Christmas favorites - but it's far from what I'd consider enjoyable music.  If you've never  before in your life heard a music box playing a melody, it sounds like various lengths of tiny, metal tubes being struck in different patterns in order to create high-pitched, tinny, almost bell-like sounds.  Very mechanical, and very painful on your ears.

Some people love these mechanisms, and while they used to be all the rage back in, oh, the late 1800s, they went the way of the dinosaur once the phonograph arrived on the scene (click on the pic below if you're interested in the history of music boxes.)  You can still find these wind-up little melody contraptions inside little girls' jewelry boxes and things like that (you know, where you open the lid and there's like a little ballerina spinning around or some shit, I don't know.)  Hell, we have one ourselves that's part of our regular Halloween decor - it's from Disney's Haunted Mansion and plays the ride's signature theme song, 'Grim Grinning Ghosts.'  Pretty awesome.

All things considered, music boxes are fine for what they are - something you wind up once in awhile in order to hear a simple melody - but I, personally, am of the opinion that one should not record a whole frickin' Christmas album with them.  It's just too much.  Even a 7" recording would be a stretch, let alone a full-length LP.  So it's taking this into consideration that I have to rate this particular album pretty low:  while the craftsmanship that went into these hundreds-year-old contraptions is certainly nothing to scoff at - they still sound flawless after all this time - this record is painful (literally) to listen to, and not something you'd ever be in the mood to listen to.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (I'm giving this album a few mercy points because, to be fair, the music boxes themselves are clearly works of art. . . but that doesn't mean any of us should have to listen to them for longer than, oh, thirty seconds.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian