Ep. XCVIII: 'Winter Wonderland' - The Brass Band

It's been a loooong time comin', folks, but I do believe we finally have ourselves a winner here with this one. . .

Album Title:  Winter Wonderland

Album Artist:  The Brass Band

Good God.  I almost didn't think we'd ever find ourselves back in the realm of 'decent' music again, as we've been trudging through the muck and mire of the usual 3 - 5 range for over a year now.  This one, for sure, came as a shocker - didn't think this would be the one to get us back on track.

I mean, I picked this up from Radio Wasteland earlier in the year with zero expectations.  Campy '60s album cover art, generic title and track listing, no back information on the band or production to speak of, the subtle mention of 'brass,' etc. I assumed this was going to be just another offering of louder-than-needed brass, playing traditional Christmas songs.  Maybe I'd write up something witty about the fact that the lady on the album cover looks like she dipped her hand in wet cement and the cheap album art people tried to pass it off as 'snow.'  You know, that old trope. 

Now, when it comes to '60s instrumental albums (such as this one), I've found that 'brass' can mean one of four things:  traditional marches, Dixieland jazz, Tijuana jazz, or polka.

This one, believe it or not, is all four combined.  

Not only that, dear readers, but most of the time these musicians are switching back and forth between styles multiples times within the same song.  Sometimes a part of song comes across like Tijuana/Herb Alpert-ish Latin brass, but then other times it ditches everything South of the Border and instead makes a beeline straight for the whorehouses of 'Nawlins for some good ol' fashioned Dixieland jazz.  Then, next thing you know, there's a marimba trill, the tempo slows, and suddenly the Latin vibe kicks right back up again.  All within the same song.

It shouldn't work - from a musical standpoint, this is suicide - but holy shit, guys.  This one has restored my faith in humanity.

So, taking a closer look at the sound of this release, this album is definitely your stereotypical, full-band, '60s instrumental, featuring accents of the usual marimbas, surf guitar, bongos, etc.  But first and foremost, of course is the big, ballsy brass band, which takes front and center stage as it ducks-and-weaves through marches, polkas, sambas, tangos, cha-cha, you name it.  

What's crazy is that this album is so good I tried to find out who exactly did the recording of this album so I could add the album to one of my Amazon 'Holiday' playlists.  Sadly, there's no information on the back of the album to speak of - just a listing of other Holiday offerings from some obscure, likely-out-of-business record company.  Wikipedia had nothing on them (Gene Riley'd once again, folks), but neither did Google: all I found was a random Youtube video playing the album with the cover art as the video image, with the caption 'Forgotten LPs.'

Not a good sign.

Sadly, there are only ten short tracks on this offering, and each of the songs is somewhat short, which means this is a fast listen.  In other bad news, I'm going to have to get another copy of this pressing off of Discogs, because there's a pop on Track 1 of Side B of my copy that lasts about five or six seconds, juuuust enough to piss me off.  And something as unique as this LP requires a silent pressing, guys - something Near Mint, for sure.  Fortunately I was able to find a suitable copy easily enough (for $2.99 plus $6 shipping, if that tells you anything), so that problem will be remedied soon.

VERDICT:  8/10 - Awesome (The long-awaited Sleeper Hit of the season, coming out of left-field armed with an unknown 'Brass Band' that doesn't care in the slightest what kind of music you wanted to listen to before, you're gonna listen to what they're gonna play now and you're gonna like it.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

- Brian

Ep. XCVII: 'Motown Christmas 1's' - Various Artists

Well, we always end up having to endure one of these per season - might as well get it over and done with. . .

Album Title:  Motown Christmas 1's

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So I spent about $10 on this album back in, oh, July I think.  Sometime in the middle of summer at any rate.  Target had a bunch of their exclusive, colored LPs on sale so I bought several double-LPs - mostly 'Best of...'s and Holiday albums - at a mere $10 a pop.  A pretty damn good deal, if I don't say so myself.

Well, turns out I got hosed on this one, folks.  $10 was way too much.

At first glance, I go super excited about this one - I mean, what's not to love?  Legendary Motown groups, colored vinyl, ten frickin' dollars for a double-LP?  That's nearly a perfect storm of Holiday vinyl awesomeness, right? 

It should be.  But it's not.

Upon the dropping the needle down onto Side A of Disc 1 (the red one, folks), I immediately realized I could be in trouble.  The tempo of the first song (by the Four Topps) and the guy's lower-than-needed voice actually prompted me to switch the record speed over from 33 to 45.  I wish I was joking, guys, but I'm not. 

And seriously now.  French horns?  Get the f*** out of here.

Sadly, the entire album continues in more or less the same fashion:  you go into a song expecting something halfway-decent, based on the title of the Track and the name of the Artist covering it, only to be horribly disappointed in the end.  When one hears the name 'Motown' they think of the upbeat, snappy numbers from the early/mid'60's (at least I do.)  What we have most of the time here, dear readers, is the more glitzy, smoooooooth, oily 'soul' of the 70s.  This is blue jean caps, sequin jumpsuits, and cocaine addictions, not so much the beehive haircuts, short skirts, and sock-it-to-me-baby, Detroit pop that one usually associates with 'Motown.'

What in the Luther H. Vandross is this bullshit?  Get the hell out of here with that overly-sexualized, put-the-woman-in-the-bed crap.  It borders on sacrilege, honestly - such a tone does not belong on a Christmas album.  

Regardless of the vibe (if not most) of the songs on this release give off, there's just lack-luster performances all around.  I mean, seriously - three Smokey Robinson & the Miracles numbers and, while none of those ones are terrible, I guess, nothing comes even remotely close to 'I Second That Emotion' or 'Tears of a Clown.'  Five - yes, five - Temptations numbers on here and most of them are God-awful (which kills me to type out, because the Temptations are legends.)  These two groups right here - along with The Supremes (another group who can usually be counted on for knocking songs out of the park) - can count themselves now in the same company as one of my all-time favorites, Johnny Cash:

They usually make incredible music, but they have no business recording Holiday music.  Because everything I've heard thus far has been complete garbage.

You know it's bad when you have to call in the frickin' Jackson 5 - featuring a pre- child-molesting Michael Jackson - to do your heavy lifting on an album like this.  As much as I hate to admit it (because I hate Michael Jackson), the strongest song on the entirety of this double-LP release is the Jackson 5's cover of 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town.'  And that's saying something, because since he was like 7 when he recorded this song (I assume), it sounds like a children's song.

By far, the worst song on this release is Boyz II Men's 'Let It Snow.'  I didn't even know this washed-up boy band from the mid-90s was even Motown to begin with (as you can imagine, I don't listen to Motown passed '67 or '68, so who the hell cares when they stopped producing music.)  It's so overly-sung and dramatic (for no reason) that I feel like I need to be slow-dancing at a middle school dance or else wearing a white silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down my chest while feeding my wife chocolate-covered strawberries.

And I don't wanna do either of those things.  I just want to listen to a real Motown Christmas album.  Certainly not this bullshit.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Most of the songs on this release fall in the '3' to '5' range, but there's at least a few '6's on here to squeak out a halfway respectable score when averaged together.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XCVI: 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' - Tex Johnson and His Six-Shooters

So uh, here we go again, folks.  Time for some G-Rated Holiday fun from a B-Rated 'Country' singer. . . I guess.  Let's do this.

Album Title:  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Other Christmas Songs

Album Artist:  Tex Johnson and His Six-Shooters

Another Radio Wasteland Dollar Bin find this year, I had a pretty good idea I was in for some bottom-shelf Children's music, capitalizing on the '50s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer craze.

I had never heard of 'Tex Johnson' before, but when I picked this up I assumed he was some old Country singer who had a few hits back in the 1940s and 1950s, and now he was being thrown a few bucks in order to cut an album of Children's Christmas songs.  That isn't out of the ordinary, of course - popular singers have been cashing in on the well-accepted practice of recording their own Christmas album for decades.  I mean, it is pretty fool-proof when you think about it:  you already have an established career, so you record and album where you're covering songs that are already well-known favorites that everyone already knows and loves.  It's a win-win, you're bound to make some money off it.

Turning to Wikipedia to learn more about this dude, I was once again Gene Riley'd (a term I'm going to try and use from now on when coming up with nothing on the Internet's signature Encyclopedic site) - the only 'Tex Johnson' page I came across was this guy, who was a baseball pitcher during, oh, World War I.  

Going out on a limb here and concluding that they aren't the same guy.

The history of Rudolph and. . .um. . . Johhny Marks.

The back of the album wasn't much help, either.  The entire backside of the sleeve was the backstory of the popularity of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his creator, Johhny Marks.  No mention of the guys that actually perform on this album.  Never a good sign.

The signature song on this album is 'meh' at best.  It's not in the same ballpark as Burl Ives (who did the song better than anyone), but instead comes across as a Dollar Store, cheap Chinese knock-off of the Gene Autry rendition (Autry being the original artist, recording it back in 1949.)  Tex here tries his damnedest to imitate Autry with his performance, drawling and twanging through the number with a safe and non-offensive approach.  It comes across as a performance you'd expect to find on a Saturday morning, Children's variety show.  On the radio (because this was probably recorded before TVs were commonplace in American living rooms - I'm trying to be historically accurate here, folks.)

Had this song been the standard for the remainder of the track list, we'd have ourselves a solid '5' here, but the album goes downhill in a hurry.  Tex can carry a tune, in that hokey, 'lonesome cowboy' sorta way that appealed to millions of Americans back in the day, and the album is clearly aimed at kids - something to keep in mind, for sure - but Children's albums are dangerous things, and they're easier to screw up than you would think.  Allow me to point out some mis-steps from Tex and the gang on this one. . .  

I'm gonna say this once and I want to be very clear about this, ladies and gentlemen:  we do not need accordions in Christmas music.  This isn't a pirate shanty, it's a Christmas album.  I can't think of ever listening to a Christmas song and ever once thinking, 'Damn, you know what this song needs?  Some motherf***ing accordion accompaniment.'  And there is soooo much accordion on this Goddamn album.

There's some weird barber shop-ish a cappella stuff in here as well that also, obviously, has no business being on a kids' album. If you want to have a choir doing vocalizing sans music accompaniment, that's fine and all, but you better be performing a religious Christmas song.  Like something solemn in tone and message, something churchy in nature.  Kids certainly don't wanna hear that shit, Tex.

The upbeat country numbers on this album - 'Wait for the Wagon (on Christmas Day)' and 'Pride of the Prairie Mary', for example - are the easiest to listen to.  The target audience for songs like this are those cowboy-obsessed kids of the 1950s, like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.  Still, songs like 'Cheyenne,' which is definitely a country/western song, are overly done to the point where nowhere in the lyrics - at any given point in time - is anything remotely related to Christmas ever mentioned.  Not once. 

Santa apparently flipping off Tex for not being included.

Don't get me wrong, folks. I like old timey Country/Western music as the next guy, but c'mon, Tex - this is supposed to be a Christmas album.  Ain't nobody got time for songs about the Lonesome Trail.  How hard would it be to change up the lyrics a bit here and there.  Maybe instead of meeting a fair-eyed girl on the praire, you find - oh, I don't know - Santa Claus.  Maybe instead of leading your horse through a gully on a starlit night, you're leading a reindeer.

It practically writes itself, Tex.

The saving grace here is that this may be the shortest Holiday album I've ever reviewed - each song is, like, a minute long.  The whole offering is probably 15-20 minutes, tops.  As unbearable as it can be in spots, at least it's over fast.  Like ripping off a band-aid.

On the Lonesome Trail, of course.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (A nobody from the 1950s cuts a Children's Christmas album, but overdoes the Country/Western thing, and inexplicably decides to double-down with an accordion and an obnoxious backing vocal group.  I decided to grace it with a few pity points for it's super-short running time, the title song, and a couple upbeat Country songs, but this sort of music has been done far better by other folks who, you know, you can actually find on the Internet.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XCV: 'The Spirit of Christmas' - Gene Riley

Good Baby Jesus, guys.  I got a bizarre one for us this evening, make no mistake about that. . .

Album Title:  The Spirit of Christmas

Album Artist:  Gene Riley

This is another installment from my recently-acquired stack of Dollar Bin treasure from Radio Wasteland a couple weeks ago.  Couldn't resist this one, folks.  Just look at this guy.

At first glance, I assumed Gene Riley was some kind of Southern Evangelist Preacher from the '70s/'80s.  You know, the kind that owns a mega-church somewhere down in Alabama or Florida, where he probably ranted and raved against 'the gays' and the AIDS virus, and people commonly spoke in tongues.  He would probably have lived in some opulent mansion, purchased through the ill-gotten contributions of his ignorant but well-meaning parishioners, and inside everything would have been gold-trimmed and pastel-colored, with leopard-print pillows covering plastic-wrapped couches and a large-ass painting of him and his blonde, heavily make-up'd wife hanging in the foyer.  And of course said wife would have to have had major substance abuse problems - pills, booze, both - and he would have to have been a closet homosexual with a laundry list of sordid kinks.  Then there would have been several criminal charges against him and his wife that led to their ultimate downfall - embezzlement, bribing a senator or two, human trafficking maybe. . . 

Honestly, you could create a whole, depressing backstory based on this guy's album cover and sell the rights to Netflix.  They'd easily make a show about this.

Anyway.

Back when '517' covered the Tri-City area, too. . .

I had to know more, so I attempted to Wikipedia this Gene Riley dude and figure out who the hell he was, but ultimately came up with nothing.  I then turned to Google, and finally came across THIS - the guy was a local preacher from nearby Saginaw, MI.  Holy crap.  This Holiday album was recorded in Oklahoma City (at Christian World, Inc, in case you were curious - I found their Facebook Page), but this release was party of his local 'Music Ministries.'  Talk about random.

So what's this guy sound like, you ask? 

Well, have you ever heard your grandfather sing at church?  How about in the family station wagon as you ride down an interstate highway?  What about while he's sitting on your aunt's couch after too many egg nogs during an Extended Family Christmas?  Maybe your grandfather had a booming, baritone voice, slightly slurry and full of spittle, and maybe he didn't really care about carrying a tune all that much.  Maybe he was totally content with just remembering all the lyrics to the song, and not passing out from exhaustion before he reached the end of said song.

That's Gene Riley, guys.

Want more?  Sure, you got it.  This album sounds like it was recorded in a swinger's lounge.  It almost sounds like Christian World had a stack of pre-recorded Holiday backing tracks all ready to go - very late-70s/early-80s, I'd guess, based on the chintzy Casio keyboard/synthesizer vibe  - and Gene just drove the RV down to Oklahoma one summer with the Mrs. and knocked out an entire Holiday album over the course of an afternoon.  Maybe two afternoons, depending on how his meds were working - you don't wanna push yourself too much, you know.

Lots of love for Jesus here. . .

Frankly, I'm surprised a recording studio that goes by the moniker Christian World green-lit the recording of some of these non-religious numbers - 'White Christmas,' 'The Christmas Song,' and 'Jingle Bells' - for this album.  I'm not a Christmas Musicologist or anything (though I'm closer to one than most, after all these years), but I don't think there's any secret, religious meaning to any of these secular songs.  Pretty sure 'White Christmas' is about snow.

There's not a whole hell of a lot to say about this album, honestly. The backing tracks are all pre-recorded, and vary between cheesy upbeat tracks and overly-dramatic slow ones - usually they do a mediocre job at pairing with his voice, but sometimes they're so out of sync with his vocals that it's just, well, downright hilarious.  I think the best tracks on this album are the ones those secular ones where he can unbutton his cardigan sweater a button or two and really cut loose, as you know he's gonna take the religious ones super seriously.  With the upbeat numbers like 'Jingle Bells,' you can almost picture him doing that awkward, fat, old white guy shuffle in the sound booth while he sings it.  Which is just. . . awesome to picture in your head while listening to this.

Ultimately, I gotta sa, good ol' Gene trying to hit some of the high notes in these songs is definitely one of my favorite things about this album.  You think he'd shy away from them when they pop up throughout the album, seeing how he has NO chance of even coming close to them, but NOPE - he goes all in with his singing.  Caution has been completely thrown to the wind here.  I mean, sometimes he kicks up his voice an entire octave or two without the need to, just so he can attempt to hit those high notes.  And of course he doesn't.  What's funny - and, admittedly, somewhat respectable - is that he could've taken the safe route on these numbers, but he's not having any of that.  Like Custer at Little Big Horn, folks.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (This is the Christmas album your church-going grandfather would have recorded if given the chance.  It's horrible, for sure, but in that old-guy-not-giving-any-f***s sorta way. . . which definitely gives him a couple pity points.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XCIV: 'Best of the Great Songs of Christmas' - Various Artists

Welcome back, Internet.  Let us kick back and throw another tablet of dusty, vintage wax on the ol' turntable, shall we. . .

Album Title:  Best of the Great Songs of Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Now, I've reviewed my fair share of these 'Great Songs of Christmas' compilations over the years (as you will recall.)  Not that that should be all that surprising - this series may be the most popular Holiday series of the 1950s/60s, based solely on the amount of second-hand copies that exist to this day.  From the discarded piles in moldy thrift stores, to the dollar bins of local record stores, they're like the Christmas equivalents of Mantovani, The Lettermen, and Herb Alpert.

. . . who, consequently, have also recorded Holiday albums (which we'll get around to here sooner or later.)

Anyway, I knew what I was getting into when I picked this compilation up a couple years ago.  God knows we've already been exposed to the overly-dramatic crooning and overly-religious arrangements in years past, but it's actually the title of this particular album that made me pick it up.  

I mean, The Best of. . . ?  When so many of these albums feature 90% of the same artists, and most of the backing music all sounds the same, how is one to supposed to accurately ascertain which, in fact, are the Best of the Best?  

Are we led to believe that it's the good folks over at Goodyear Tires, who sold this album?  Did the Goodyear henchmen barge into a music executive's office one afternoon and slap the shit out of him with an oily shop rag until he agreed to put together the all-encompassing, Holy Grail of Christmas Compilations?  Because if so, that'd be pretty rad.

As the needle dropped on Side A, I had my doubts.  John Davidson's rendition of 'First Noel' may have been all the rage back in the day when your grandmother was being felt up in the back seat of a Buick by Gary Cooper before he got famous, but it's a royal snooze fest now.  'Born is the King of Israel?'  More like 'BORED is the King of Israel.'  

Get it?

Leonard Berstein's take on 'Carol of the Bells' is a well-known instrumental, and it's okay, but it's short-lived.  It isn't long before Anna Moffo stumbles into the sound booth like a drunken aunt in bedazzled jeans and a Walmart cowboy hat, thinking she sings way better that she actually does.  This performance is truly Kate Smith territory, folks - too loud and too warbly - like, this is how I try and sing opera around my house when I'm trying to annoy my wife.  I've never before been so disgusted listening to 'Joy to the World.'

As bad as that was, Richard Tucker's 'The Lord's Prayer' is way worse, as he, too, attempts to pull of that opera singing thing.  He's not actually worse in terms of singing, it's almost the urgency in his voice that is worse: with Moffo she's singing because she thinks she sounds good, but with this guy it's like he knows he doesn't sing good but he just really needs that paycheck.  So he kicks into overdrive in order to seal the deal.  

And I mean, come on - like 'The Lord's Prayer' can compete with f***ing 'Jingle Bells' in terms of Holiday yule.  Puh-leez.

Mahalia Jackson's 'Away in a Manger,' thankfully, isn't comically bad like the previous two tracks - one definitely needs a break after all of that. 'Ave Maria' is, thankfully, an instrumental as well - and while not overly awesome, it's at least a breather.  Barbara Streisand rounds out Side A, and while I'm not a fan of her music by any means, she at least has a decent voice and knows how to use it (take notes, Moffo.)

Side B starts off with a hilariously over-zealous Petula Clark, who couldn't be more dramatic in singing 'Happiest Christmas' if she wanted to.  It's like Angela Lambert is being impersonated by a trying-too-hard High School Drama Club student. But then, fortunately, Tony Bennett steps up next with his rendition of 'The Christmas Song' and brings some much-needed gravitas to this otherwise total clown show.  Riding in like reinforcements in a hopeless battle's darkest hour, come Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Doris Day, and Andy Williams - who roll up in succession with their somewhat respectful versions of Holiday favorites in order to beat back the absolute absurdity of Side A.

It seriously sounds as if Side A went off the rails during the song-selection process, with worked-over music execs throwing together a track list all willy-nilly, before the Goodyear tire folks took matters into their own hands with Side B.  I hesitate to consider Doris Day, Andy Williams, and Percy Faith 'Best of' material, but compared to some of the other shit-bags we've had to listen to over the years on these Great Songs of Christmas albums, they're about as good as one's gonna get.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (I almost gave this a 5, as it does have a few songs that are decent, but there are just too many Holiday duds on this compilation to warrant a quasi-respectable rating.  I'd give it a 4.5 if this was a '.5' sorta blog, but it's not - and even if it was we round down with shit like this.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XCIII: 'Enchanted Carols: A Feast of Christmas Music' - Various Artists

Season's Greetings, folks (or should I say, Pre-Season's Greetings - we haven't had Thanksgiving yet, I guess that's still a holiday for some people.)

Album Title:  Enchanted Carols: A Feast of Christmas Music

Album Artist:  Various Artists (and more than a few Music Boxes)

Right out of the gate, I knew this one was gonna be weird.

The opening track of Side A features a loooooong intro of church bells clamoring in a swelling crescendo, announcing your entrance into the Realm of Insanity.  This sounds like all the bad parts of any Pink Floyd song you've ever heard (which, to be fair, is most of their music - I despise Pink Floyd.)  A 'street piano' (I'm assuming it's gangster) starts up out of nowhere, plinking along drunkenly, vaguely playing 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing,' then is abruptly cut off for no reason whatsoever.  Like, mid-measure cut off - musically it makes zero sense at all. It's as if the piano player (who clearly had downed a fifth of gin in mere minutes) finally succumbed to alcohol poisoning and fell off the piano bench.

Lucky bastard.

More bells follow, making no attempt at all at even attempting to form a comprehensible song - it's like the producers handed out the hand bells, music boxes, and other circa 1890 toy instruments to a special needs class and had the little bastards play to their hearts content.  Someone winds up a 'Regina Music Box' (of course), and that actually sounds like 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' because, you know, it's a pre-constructed thing and there's no human element involved. A pirate-y 'roller organ' sounds out of nowhere and pays about sixteen bars of the same song, before being cut off at the sound board (in the middle of playing) and replaced by what I can only assume is a harpsichord.

So ends 'Track One.'

Folks, this is a really, really weird album.  Most of it sounds like a mad sprint through a Haunted Children's Museum (filled with dirty, porcelain dolls, creepy toys, and metallic, novelty 'instruments' from a bygone era) in the middle of the night.  Take that first track, for example:  I've heard a lot of renditions of 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' in my day, but that is - by far - the creepiest.  

The second track  - 'A Virgin Most Pure' - is, fortunately, a step back towards the realm of normalcy:  there's a church choir singing in what I believe is Medieval English, accompanied by - of course - more f***ing hand bells.  It's not a recognizable Christmas song in the slightest, it just feels like archaic cathedral music. . . but at least it lacks the aforementioned terrors to which we were previously subjected.

'Jingle Bells' sounds like an ole timey, saloon bit, because that drunken piano player - who somehow did not die from alcohol poisoning earlier - roused himself and got back behind a 'penny piano.'  He still can't play for shit, and felt it necessary to haul this outdated instrument out of the Haunted Children's Museum and dust the sum'bitch off.  

This is the first entrance in a series that lasts the rest of Side A and most of Side B, and I'd go into more detail here but it's impossible to tell when one song ends and another begins, because they only play for about twelve measures or so before someone breaks out a different, tinny hand bell or winds up another metallic-sounding music box and plays whatever the hell they feel like.

I gotta say, this is one of the most jarring albums I've listened to in a long, long time.  I've reviewed other music box-centric Christmas albums in the past (I can't believe I just typed that sentence), but at least with those they played whole songs and there was some, small degree of continuity.  Here, the collection of 'instruments' (and calling them that is a definite stretch) are all thrown about the room with reckless abandon, to the point where you can't even call these tracks 'medleys' (though they do try to do so on the back of the album sleeve - nice try, guys.)

Behold - the Dead Christmas Baby.  

I've heard Middle School concert bands make better music than this.  You know what I think it is, this album almost sounds like it was recorded for insurance purposes.  Like the nefarious, old man who runs the Haunted Childrens Museum wanted to take out an insurance policy on his collection, and the insurance company that was filing his claim was like, "Okay, you say you have a working Orpheus Disc Piano and fully-functioning Regina Music Boxes and Roller Barrel Organs.  What we're gonna need you to do is record someone playing these things so we can validate your claim."

Unfortunately due to abysmal admission sales to his terrifying collection of horrors, the old man is practically broke, and so the only way to record these instruments was to hire out his mentally-challenged nephew, who inexplicably owns his only bottom-tier sound booth that he co-operates alongside his pet chimpanzee.  The whole recording booth smells like mothballs and monkey shit, but. . . you know. . . . you get what you pay for.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (This train wreck of an album gets a couple pity points because it's so disorganized and random that it's almost amusing.  Almost.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XCII: 'White Christmas' - Dennis Day Orchestra & Choir

Boys and girls of all ages, I present to you now the return of America's Greatest Yuletide Event:

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey.

By now, as we come into my eighth 'season' of documenting this is, you should all know how this works, but in case you need a refresher of this, one of my all-time favorite Holiday traditions, here's a run-down.

Since I first started collecting vinyl, back in 2005, I've gotten into the habit of hauling out all of my Christmas vinyl at the start of the Holiday Pre-Season (now-ish, mid-November) and stacking it up in 'staging' area.  Then, over the course of the next month and a half, I methodically listen to every, single album, scrutinizing the holy hell out of it.  The good ones stay in rotation, and are played repeatedly throughout the year.  The okay ones are put aside for future use, but lose their spot in the playlist for the rest of the season.  The bad ones are ridiculed to shreds and donated to the nearest thrift store at the earliest possible convenience.

And then I go through the entire process all over again the following year, armed with a new stack of Christmas vinyl to burn through.

Now, as this is the first installment in this year's season of vinyl reviewin', I'll once again direct your attention to the cherished rating scale we use around these parts:

10 - . . . And Out Come the Wolves (a symbol of perfection, and arguably one of the greatest albums made in the last thirty years)

9 - Cowabunga! (if it makes you want to shout like a Ninja Turtle, you know it's good.)

8 - Awesome (worthy of repeated spins during the Holidays)

7 - Pretty Rad (generally, in order for an album of mine to stay in Holiday Season Rotation, it needs to be rated '7' and up.)

6 - Decent (once and awhile a '6' makes it into constant rotation, but only if it satisfies a previously-vacant Holiday music niche.  These albums almost always get 'Shelved':  I hold on to them - for the time being - but they lose turntable time for the duration of the Season.)

5 - Meh  (anything below this point is almost always put into my annual 'Donate to Goodwill' pile)

4 - Borophyll (there may be some redeeming qualities here that might make albums at this score appeal to some people, but definitely not Yours Truly.)

3 - Seriously? (comically bad, if you will.)

2 - Reality TV (there's only one thing shittier than Reality TV in my opinion, and that is. . .)

1 - Ohio (the Ninth Circle of Hell)

Good.  Now that everyone's been refreshed with how shit works around here, let's just go ahead and get started, shall we. . .

Album Title:  White Christmas

Album Artist:  Dennis Day Orchestra & Choir

I recently went into Radio Wasteland after a hiatus of nearly 10 months.  That's a long period of time, but one that was forced upon me by the fact that I've almost run out of record shelving for new albums, and, more importantly, the cost of vinyl over the last year has gone up astronomically.  

I, for one, refuse to spend $30 on a brand new LP. . . but that's a tale for another time, let's focus on Christmas jams this evening.  

Anyway, the whole reason I finally returned to my favorite record store was to get my grubby mitts on their collection of God-awful, Dollar Bin Holiday albums before society started hunting for Christmas music.  Jim, the owner of the store, usually makes a social media post towards the beginning of November advertising all the store's new and vintage Christmas releases, and I wanted to beat the rush this year.

Mission accomplished.

I walked out of his store with about 24 albums - which you'll have to suffer through over the course of the next couple years, I'm afraid - and this gem right here was among them.  I had already reviewed a good chunk of the artists I came across while digging through the Dollar Bin - many have had their moment in the spotlight on this Great Christmas Record Odyssey of ours - but I've never heard of this guy before.

Dennis Day.

At first glance, he looks like a pleasant, Burl Ives-ish sorta guy.  Jolly enough, but you know just by looking at him that he enjoys a whiskey and an off-color joke about 'an Oriental.'  I think it's the eyes - he definitely gives off vibes like he honestly wants to wish you a Merry Christmas, but if you wanna run your mouth like an asshole he has no qualms with putting his fist in it.  Dude probably served in a war (based on the dated packaging, I'm guessing it was The Big One), chain-smoked whatever he could get his hairy-knuckled hands on, and has a history of spousal abuse.

Still, the guy went out of his way to grab himself a brace of orphans for this picture.  The boy clearly doesn't mind sitting on Dennis' lap, but the girl doesn't seem thrilled with it.

Where the f*** is Dennis' hands?

Anyway, hokey packaging aside, this is a pretty bland affair from start to finish.  I was honestly hoping for something more comically bad than what we ended up with here:  Dennis can sorta sing, and the arrangements aren't terrible, per se (definitely heavy on the church organs, but the sound levels are at least mixed well.)  There's a choir doing background vocals, and they're subtle enough that you can never really tell if it's kids or women singing.  All in all, the non-religious songs on this album come across like just about anything else you'd hear coming out of the 1940s/50s, and the pipe organ-heavy, religious carols sound like they were performed during a church service.  Bland as beige paint and just as forgettable.

If anything, the most eyebrow-raising thing on this entire album is Dennis' voice - it does not match his appearance at all.  You'd think a dude looking like this would have a more booming or gruff voice, but he has this higher-pitched, softer voice (in that nasally, 1940s style, of course.)  While he can carry a tune without drawing anyone's ire, it wasn't expected and I'm kinda let down that we missed out on an opportunity for some classic, good ol' fashioned ridiculing.

Oh well, maybe next time.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Nothing overly terrible here, and I'm sure this could appeal to some folks, but the entire affair is bland and lacks any kind of redeeming qualities for Yours Truly.  You hurt my feelings, Dennis.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian