Ep. CXXXIX: 'Christmas Wishes' - Anne Murray

Today we crawl back down into the nether regions of all things vinyl, down to the moldy, bottom shelves of your local Goodwill, in order to dust off another cast-aside relic from yesteryear. . . . . .

Album Title:  Christmas Wishes

Album Artist:  Anne Murray

Anne Murray isn't someone I've ever listened to before, but I've been aware of her since childhood - she was one of those artists 'adults who don't really listen to music' listen to. Like people who shy away from amplifiers because they feel making guitars loud is 'too much.' You know those people? The weird people from your parents' church that you only interact with at uncomfortable potlucks in the church basement, where during forced conversation they breathe too loud out of their nose and their breath smells like cough drops and cats.

God those people are the absolute worst.

This chick sold a shit-load of albums back in the day, and so there's clearly a whole swath of horrible people out there who snatched up her music off a K-Mart shelf whenever she came out with another bright, shiny collection of turds. And while this music definitely isn't something that I would listen to, I can see the appeal; a non-offensive blend of easy listening with a country twang, personified by an older white woman with the 80's equivalent of a Karen haircut. There is certainly nothing controversial about Anne or her music, she's a very vanilla singer. Maybe that's the Canadian in her, who knows.

This genre of music was consumed and discarded at a rate I haven't seen with any other. The easy listening, quasi- faith-based music was gobbled up by the elderly back in the day, and as those folks died off and their estates were liquidated, all of their shitty music was donated to local thrift stores. Truly, we find Anne's offering here in the same vein as some of the other Goodwill-tier Holiday albums I've reviewed in the past (The Lettermen, Roger Whitaker, etc.) Listening to Anne Murray's music gives one the same feeling one gets when starting to nod off while behind the wheel. As she crone-croons you into a false sense of peaceful slumber, you're half-aware of the fact that disaster awaits you the second you close your eyes and let down your guard.

The biggest problem with records like these is consistency. Not a lack thereof, mind you, but the opposite: a firm dedication to keeping every, last song sounding the exact same, from start to finish. No variation in tempo, no variation in vocal range, no variation in musical instrumentation or arrangement, etc. I imagine the sound engineer and the album producer came into the studio one evening and put masking tape over half the sliders in the recording booth and wrote 'DO NOT TOUCH' on half the mixing board.

The metronome should have been listed in the back cover credits, for sure. It's doing all the heavy lifting here.

Anne mostly sticks to familiar standards on this album (thank the f***ing Lord), but she still managed to squeeze in one, God-awful original onto this track list, the title track 'Christmas Wishes.' This song sounds identical to everything else on this album, except that it adds in a quiet, electric guitar soloing in the background. Nothing impressive or even remotely cool, though; this guitarist sounds like he's the sort of guy who sports a ponytail and only one earring. Maybe a leather vest over a tucked-in shirt, too. The kind of guy who roller-blades and knows how to do four or five magic tricks.

Listening to Anne's voice is weird, because you can almost hear her scowl as she sings. She's no soprano, to be sure, and it's a little bit of that mixed with the restraint she exhibits while singing that gives this impression. Like she doesn't have a lot of range, she never raises her voice and gets those high notes, and maybe it's her acknowledgement of her own limitations that give off the vibe that she's angry at the microphone. Hell, maybe she knows she's not Canada's greatest singer (they only have something like six singers, so that's gotta sting a little), and is all salty about it.

In closing, I think her outfit choice for the album artwork is a brave move on her part. I wouldn't have wanted to draw the Star Wars comparison, but hell - what does she have to lose at this point?

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Another titan of Goodwill delivers another boring-as-watching-paint-dry Holiday album.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. LXIX: 'The Gifts of Christmas' - Various Artists

Alright, alright. . . we got another thrift store find to dust off and subject to some audio scrutiny.

Album Title:  The Gifts of Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So, full disclosure here, I did not just pop this out of the sleeve and throw it on my turntable, folks.  I'm not a savage, give me some credit.  I picked this one up at the Bethesda thrift store a week or so ago (when I picked up that stack featuring a few of my previously-evaluated selections), and I gave each one of these sons-of-bitches a thorough cleaning on the ol' Spin Clean before dropping a needle onto them.  They were pretty gross.

The Wicker Man heralds the beginning of the Apocalypse.

So, this collection is from the 'Guideposts' people of Carmel, New York.  I have no idea what in the hell that means, but apparently this was a big deal and all, because this is an exclusive recording.  I mean, you can't just slap that name on any old album, can you?  God knows they paid out the ass for this top-tier art layout on the front cover (see right).  Check out the Wicker Man angel, for Christ's sake.  They only needed one picture for the front of this damn record, and that's the one they went with.

Maybe the music speaks for itself, so they didn't need to fork out a lot of dough on art direction, I don't know.  Let's see who exactly we're dealing with here:

Holy f***ing shit.

This is a Christmas no one alive still remembers.

You read that right, guys.  Percy Faith, Jim Nabors, Mitch Mitchell, Kate Smith.  That's like the Four Horseman of the Goodwill Vinyl Apocalypse.  I swear to God, if you go into a thrift store trying to find a diamond LP in the rough that is their moldy-smelling vinyl offerings, you're going to find each and every one of these assholes highly represented.  Wedged right in there among the Mantovani records, polka collections, church recordings, Mills Brothers, Lawrence Welk. . . you see where I'm goin' with this.

Well, these guys straight-up carpet bomb this album with shittiness.  I honestly can't see which one of these assholes I hate the most, they all sound like people pretending to sing.  Like, karaoke singing, if you will.  The arrangements themselves are of the Great Songs of Christmas variety, but lacking the Frank Sinatra and Julie Andrews talent that makes those compilations, while boring in their own right, at least somewhat palatable.

No, 70% of this album is pure garbage.  Like, 2/10 on the ol' Odyssey Rating Scale of mine, that's what we're dealing with here.  

But, then we have a couple rare glimpses of hope pop up from time to time.  A choir/instrumental medley on the third track of Side A isn't half-bad - if anything, it's generic background Christmas music.  Alas, when compared to the rest of the crap on this album, it shines like a frickin' star.  

Then, you have Johnny Cash with a track on here ('I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day'), and while it's not necessarily great (because, as I've said before, his Christmas songs rarely are), it's still Johnny frickin' Cash, and the man's mere presence on this record is enough to drag this sludge-fest up a point on its own.  Aside from him, there's a pretty soulful track from Mahalia Jackson (not sure if she's any relation to the dead child molester), who belts out a Southern Gospel-styled rendition of 'Go Tell It on the Mountain' that is way better than it should be, and, as such, stands out on this album like a sore thumb.

So, needless to say, consistency is definitely not this album's strong suit.  Honestly, I don't think it has one at all.  A dusting of songs on here are decent, most of the album is bottom-shelf, thrift store fare, and the arrangement styles are all over the damn place.  The only people who would possibly like this horrible, horrible collection are elderly people who shop daily at thrift stores, and who actually like artists like Percy Faith, Jim Nabors, Kate Smith, and Mitch Mitchell.

All the more reason for me to return this as soon as possible.  After all, there might be elderly women waddling about Salvation Army as we speak, looking for Christmas records to liven up the Hi-Fi's in their crotchet-covered living rooms.  And Christmas is a time for giving, America.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Boraphyll (A parade of Goodwill heavyweights let loose in all their shittiness, and not even Johnny Cash is enough to salvage this boring record from the dusty, mothball Hell from whence it came. . . and to where it'll be returning very shortly.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian