Ep.CXLVII: 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' - The Caroleers

Two days left, America - think we got time for one more Holiday album review for this season. . . 

Album Title:  Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Album Artist:  The Caroleers

Ah, another children's album. This one caught my eye 'cause the damn thing was still sealed in shrink when I picked it up (which happens from time to time - apparently the $2.98 hype sticker wasn't enough to sell it back in the day.)

The Caroleers have appeared on a couple different albums that I've reviewed in the past, and from what I can gather they were some kinda vocalist group that was created by a studio for the sole purpose of recording in-house records. They're usually garbage, but they seem more at home on a kids' album, for sure. This album plays out like a variety show, it's by no means a straight up collection of children's songs. There's like little skits and spoken word scattered throughout the album, which, for a normal listen, would be jarring as all hell, but we have to remember that this is a children's album and, uh. . . . I guess little kids like that sorta thing? Who knows, kids are dumb.

The song selection on this album is super weird, though. Most of these songs are not familiar ones at all - aside from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town,' these are all originals. It's like some studio executive balked at the suggestion that they just record an album of the Big Kids' Songs ('Up on the Rooftop,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' etc.) and said, "F*** that, fellas - I got this. Hold my beer." Then proceeded to hire in-house songwriters to craft their own, brand new children's Christmas songs. 

You know, like a crazy person would do.

This, as you know, is a cardinal sin - probably the most egregious of sins one can make on a Christmas album, and one that I've only seen circumvented on a handful of occasions with decent, original Christmas songs. But let's put that on the back-burner for the time being and play devil's advocate for a second: maybe this album's sound is strong enough to defend it's bizarre track list?

Well, readers, this album sounds like it was produced by Hanna Barbara or something back in the day, the music is straight-up 1960s Children's TV music - not the '40s orchestral insanity of, say, the Loony Tunes or whatever, but that cashing-in-on-the-swing-of-the-60s thing. It's soooo campy that you can imagine if this thing was the soundtrack to an animated special, the characters would all have bobs and go-go dresses. Aside from cartoons, you also heard similar background music in family programming like The Brady Bunch or Partridge Family - that vanilla, safe-for-all-audiences, period-accurate backing music. The production itself isn't half-bad, this sounds like it was recorded with some semblance of a budget, so the idea that they had the opportunity to record classics that kids would easily recognize (and reside in the public domain) is mind-boggling.

I mean, there's a song on here called '10,000 Santa Clauses' on this frickin' album. Not just the one. Not two or three. Ten thousand of 'em. You can't make this shit up.

Again, these songs are kids' songs, so they're all upbeat and jovial, and the singing is far too animated and expressive for adult listening. Every syllable isn't just sung, it's acted: you see this a lot in life-action children's television, like when people sing on Sesame Street or Barney or whatever. With all the ridiculous facial expressions and over-exaggerating of body movement. Pair that with previously discussed campy, 60s music, and you have an album that plays out like a fever dream that one can only escape from with a bullet to the skull.

So fine, I get it, I'm not the target audience for an album like this, but still - I've ranked some stellar, children's Holiday albums in the past (the soundtrack to classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, offerings from heavyweights like The Muppets, Disney's main characters, etc.), so it's not like I'm going to just torpedo this post's installment merely because it's not 'my cup of tea.' Give me some credit here, folks. No, this album isn't bad because it's a children's album, it's bad because it suffers from a crappy track selection and poor execution in the delivery.

'Who's That Up on the Roof,' for example, sounds like a child contemplating snatching his dad's shotgun from the garage when he hears some stranger walking around on his roof. There's a level of indignation in this singer's voice that makes one's skin crawl,  even more so 'cause it's a little-ass kid singing. Why is this kid so pissed there's a dude up on his roof? You'd think with it being Christmas Eve and everything this kid would put two-and-two together and realize it's Santa Claus before he murders him (via Stand Your Ground laws.)

This album would have been a solid '5' or even '6' if they had chosen more familiar songs, because the production isn't god-awful (The Caroleers, who I've reviewed before, seem to find their footing within the context of overly-animated, children's music.) The backing music is pretty campy, sure, but this was recorded in the 60s and, well, that's just what was popular back then. I can even excuse the spoken word bits and skits because, as we've said multiple times before, this is a children's album and they wanted to weave some storytelling in there. That's all fine and good. I guess.

What's not fine and good is the hubris of the producers who decided to forego all decency and insist on penning some of the most cringe-inducing, lyrically asinine Christmas songs I've heard all season.  We as adults have a right to protect children in this society, and this album is the sort of thing that warrants a phone call to CPS.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously?  (Not the worst children's Holiday album I've heard - by a long shot - but I just can't wrap my head around the decision to include soooo many original songs on a children's album. Kids like singing along to songs they know by heart, WHY wouldn't they include some familiar hits on this album?)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. CXLVI: 'Twenty Best Loved Carols' - The Tappan Zee Madrigal Singers

Wait wait wait - a Renaissance-inspired, a cappella, Christmas album recorded by a bunch of nerdy high school students in the 1970's? Did Christmas come early this year or what?  

Album Title:  Twenty Best Loved Carols

Album Artist:  The Tappan Zee Madrigal Singers

So, when I hear the word 'Madrigal,' I think of that shitty Disney movie Encanto. You know how each Disney movie that comes out now has to highlight some random culture from elsewhere in the world ('cause diversity)? Well, Encanto is based somewhere down in South America, and the main family's surname is Madrigal. The grandmother is a huge bitch and should have been killed off by the drug cartels instead of her husband at the beginning of the movie, but hey - Disney didn't consult me when they were developing the film.

Anyway, 'Madrigal' on this album doesn't refer to Encanto, but instead to some random form of Italian singing dating back to the Renaissance and Late Baroque periods (I clearly didn't know this ahead of time, I Googled it when I first checked out the album cover.) So what we have here, by the looks of things, is some '70s-ish Choir of young adults (or teenagers), recording Christmas songs as a Choir for some Holiday album. In a Renaissance-y sorta way.

You excited yet?

Right away we can get a pretty good idea of what we're getting ourselves into here. Hell, we just covered a different high school choir recording a Christmas album (well, sort of) a couple weeks ago. These people are bound to be able to sing well enough (otherwise why the hell would they get their own Holiday alb- wait, never mind, I've reviewed plenty of albums that were horribly sung.) 

The recording quality here sounds half-way competent - they didn't hire the local 'tech guy' from the First Baptist Church down the street to run the reels - so this album, from a production standpoint at least, isn't terrible. 

The same can't be said for the song selection, and, well, the arrangements.

Whoever arranged these tracks wrote the vocal sheet music as if they were a Medieval Times enthusiast with a hankering for Beatnik literature and math-jazz. There's a sprinkling of songs on this release that sound traditional, in a church choir singing a familiar church song sorta way, but most of the album is just. . . odd. The arranger/conductor/whatever leaned hard into a contemporary sound for these 'Madrigal' singers, in order to - and I'm spit-ballin' here - capitalize on their 'youthful energies.' 

Imagine you're a composer in his mid-40s, working at some university or whatever, and you special in vocal arrangements. You're fond of cigarettes and turtlenecks, and have appeared on multiple, local television programs in that 2am-5am window. You've been given money by a school to record an album to showcase the school's talented choir, and all you have to do is write renditions of twenty, random Christmas songs, with vocals arrangements that fit the performers.

So, falling to hubris, you start concocting the most un-Christmas-y sheet music known to man. Imagine Charlie Brown's Christmas album, but geared towards 18-year-olds who are obsessed with Shakespeare and the paintings of Edmund Blair Leighton. It's a career-killing move, unless you're tenured and can literally do whatever the damn hell you want at your age. 

These vocal arrangements are far too 'jazzy' for standard Christmas Carols sung by a choir - this sounds like the sort of nonsense art students would listen to during the Holidays. And not the usual 'hipster' art students, mind you - don't get me wrong here, folks. No, these are the classically-trained art students who LOVE the Middle Ages and revel in Medieval aesthetic. Like, you know damn well each and every one of them has a favorite chanting monk.

Jesus, just look at the picture of this choir on the front album cover - do you think they were asked to dress like that or they just showed up to rehearsal wearing those get-ups?

Is that the whole 'Madrigal' thing I learned about? Weird chord progressions and vocal acrobatics? Sure, they show off a vocalist's range, but. . . who honestly cares how well a 17-year-old can sing? Do you? Are you going to get invested in a bunch of kids who can sing well, and, like, follow their careers over the years and root for them? Maybe start following them around on tour in a Volkswagen bus and make a series of poor decisions along the way?

No. Hell no you're not, because nobody cares about teenagers. Trust me, I know - I teach middle school. 

This album's major failing (aside from the aforementioned vocal arrangements) are that a solid portion of this track list is comprised of songs that no one, in their Goddamn right mind, would ever want to listen to. Especially on a Christmas album. Yeah, they have a few famous Christmas staples on here ('Joy to the World,' 'O Come All Ye Faithful,' etc.), but they're outnumbered by over double the amount of obscure, religious songs that were most likely penned by penitent monks in the 12th century. They could be based (loosely) on Jesus' birth and the Nativity and whatever (the church-y Christmas stuff), but it's a stretch.

I mean, what the F*** does 'Balulalow' mean?

They had the audacity to name this album Twenty Best Loved Carols, when, in all actuality, it should have been named after the second track on Side A, 'Come, Gay Shepherds.'

Wakka wakka.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll  (This album should be burned at the stake for witchcraft. It gets a couple pity points for having a few, traditional - but still boring - church-ish choir numbers in its track list. )

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. CXLV: 'Christmas Greetings From' - Jerry Vale

Hey sport, you mind if I sit down next to you on this here couch and sing a couple'a Christmas songs for ya? 

Album Title:  Christmas Greetings From

Album Artist:  Jerry Vale

We can thank Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin for this score, and I picked it up because while the name rung some bells, I didn't know anything about this guy. Based on the album sleeve, I anticipated some sort of Johnny Mathis-ish crooner from the '50s or '60s, so that right there would give one a rough idea of what you're about to immerse yourself in. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for Christmas albums comprised of only one artist, because unlike compilations or the like, you can get a better idea of of their range over the span of several songs. So Jerry has a dozen or so songs to convince me he can deliver on a Christmas album.

Going into this album, I should reiterate that I didn't know anything about Jerry Vale at all. Upon dropping the needle on Side A, he's definitely a crooner in the same vein as Mathis, or Perry Como, etc. Unlike those two, however, Jerry sounds like a sitcom dad singing. Like, the dude's voice just sounds like it's wrapped in a sweater vest and khakis, and isn't above having a heartfelt conversation with you on a floral couch after finding a pack of cigarettes in your sock drawer.

The song choices found in this album's track-list are all safe picks, with no left-field inclusions to be found anywhere. No original Christmas jams, thank God (smart move, Jerry.) If I had to take a quiz and hand-pick songs that I'd expect a crooner like this to cover for his Christmas album, I probably would have guessed correctly about 3/4 of the songs on this track-list  (and C's get degrees, folks.)

The production, mix and arrangements are all top-notch for the era (again, guessing '50s or early '60s), which tracks because I imagine this guy was a big deal back in the day, and probably sold a butt-load of albums to the same circles that were devouring Mathis and Como's works. This gives the album a few points, putting it on par (sonically) with albums like those Great Songs of Christmas compilations - the backing music is in the same vein.

Honestly, this album is far from horrible, but Jerry doesn't give any memorable performances here. At. All. None of these songs are Holiday classics. Using Como as a comparison, we can site several of that guy's Christmas songs as Seasonal standards in media and popular culture, but Jerry - while competent enough - just comes across as 'someone else doing more of the same.' He sings just like all those other '50s and '60s crooners, the music's just about the same too (he was probably featured on several of those Great Songs of Christmas compilations, come to think of it), but it just doesn't connect. 

It might be the tone of his voice, it's too 'nice' and almost gives the impression that this dude's idea of 'cutting loose' involves a nice slice of pie instead of a bourbon, neat.

If Perry Como is Jonathan Stamos on Full House, then Jerry Vale is Bob Saget. They're both male, father figures to the same girls, sure enough, but one of them has charisma in spades (hence you being able to identify several of Como's Christmas songs on the radio), while the other is incredibly disappointed he found your cigarettes. 

Not mad, just disappointed.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Another collection of '50s/'60s crooner-music, Christmas-style, this time from a guy who would probably refer to you as 'sport' in conversation.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. CXLIII: 'Cas Radosti' - The Slovak Heritage Society Festival Choir and Ensemble

Hey, gang - we got any Slovaks (Slovish?) in the house tonight? 

Album Title:  Cas Radosti

Album Artist:  The Slovak Heritage Society Festival Choir and Ensemble

This one couldn't have been passed up. A Slovak Christmas album? I'm pretty sure that's the one that's the John Oates to Czech Republic's Daryl Hall, right? Central/Eastern Europe-ish? Somewhere in there?

Well, for a buck who cares, I was gonna give it a go.

The album cover is pretty lame. Someone hired a 10th grade art student to grab their finest assortment of Crayola markers (the skinny ones, not the fat ones) and draw a picture of a bunch of Slovaks trying to set the inside of a barn on fire. There's some wet laundry hanging on a line, multiple discarded buckets and pots, and inexplicably some special needs boy with a ca. 2011 Justin Bieber haircut, balancing on a wooden beam.

Not entirely sure what's going on here, but I think whoever drew this needs to pursue other avenues of employment.

The back side of the album jacket is much better, however - we actually get some information about this cryptic recording. As it turns out, 'Cas Radosti' translates to 'A Time of Joy.' Makes sense, it's Christmas. Further, this album was recorded in 1983 in Barre, Pennsylvania by The Slovak Heritage Society Festival Choir and Ensemble. . . which, if I'm reading this correctly, is like some kind of parish choir that performs in this predominantly Slovak community in. . . Pennsylvania. 

The Ladies Pennsylvania Slovak Catholic Union (yes, they must have enough Slovaks, Catholics, and Catholic Slovaks in Pennsylvania to necessitate the creation of a Slovak Catholic Union) were nice enough to produce this recording for everyone in their diocese. . . or parish, or whatever you call that, how the Catholics divide up their church territory. It kinda sounds like Pennsylvania has a kind of Dearborn, Michigan thing going on, except down in Dearborn they're mostly Chaldean, not Slovak-ish.

Anyway, Side A opens up with bellowing, Communist fanfare - lots of brass and Slovaks (and Slovakettes) singing with gusto. You can practically see the olive drab-sporting civilians saluting the Slovak soldiers as they goose-step by on their way to lighting the People's Republic Tree of Christmas. This opening track isn't long, and up next the mood does a complete 180: the next number is more or less a handful of guys standing up at the front of a church, reading some kinda congregational Call to Worship (they speak in Slovaki first, then switch to English so us normies can understand what's going on.) Then the congregation responds, and soon the whole place breaks out in song (to be continued for several tracks, which, honestly, all basically sound the same - God knows what they're singing about, I didn't read the entirety of the liner notes.)

I think this might be a live recording, actually: quality here is decent for a cathedral recording, because based on the depth of the vocal audio (the echo, the reverb) you can tell they had the mics set up far back from the choir, and the acoustics of the cathedral amplify the choir's volume. At first I thought the congregation itself might be singing the songs, but they stop just proficiently enough to allow soloists or an instrument take center stage, and there's no way in hell hundreds of people would be able to do that.

The accompanying musicians vary considerably, and for the most part they fade into the background and let the singers take center stage (which is the right move for an album like this which is clearly attempting to showcase Slovak singers doing Christmas shit their native tongues.) They even have frickin' bagpipes on here, and that blows my mind because I didn't realize the Slovaks had bagpipes, I thought that was limited to the British Isles. Sadly, the bagpipes here don't have the clout and majesty of their Irish and Scottish cousins, and instead like a gaggle of half-starved cats being slowly skinned alive over a trash barrel fire by a couple of homeless Slovaks.

I could keep going with this album, but I don't think I need to: this is a live recording of a Slovak choir singing. . . Christmas songs?. . . in a large church of some kind. In Bumblef***, Pennsylvania. Can they sing? Yup. Are the arrangements good? Yup. How about the mix and recording quality? Good, sure.

So is this a decent record?

Not unless your Slovak. If you are, I bet this album hits HARD. For the rest of us, this is a competently done album with decent church music, but it's still a religious choir album. I appreciate cultural diversity as much as anybody, but I feel like this album would have been better had it worked some traditional Slovak tunes and instruments into the music (why do they have bagpipes?) As it stands, this sounds like a giant cathedral choir recording a church service.

. . . just, you know, in Slovakish.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh  (It's like going to church in Eastern Europe. It might look super cool inside the centuries-old cathedral, but, at the end of the day, you're still stuck in a boring church service.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

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. CXXXVIII: 'Kids Bop Christmas' - Kidz Bop

Welcome back, music-lovers. Hope you guys are ready to be creeped out by a bunch of little kids. . .

Album Title:  Kidz Bop Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

If you haven't raised kids in the last 20 years, you may have never heard of Kidz Bop. 

I had caught wind of it while working at Meijer in my 20s (it started when I was in college) but it wasn't until I had kids of my own and they started listening to it that I really became acquainted with the concept. As little kids grow out of the 'princess phase' and transition into their elementary school years, where they're not yet tweens and haven't started wearing makeup yet (at least how normal chicks wear makeup), they start to become aware of pop culture. Seeing how most pop music isn't necessarily appropriate for the 6-10 year-old demographic, the geniuses behind Kidz Bop realized that they could take the same popular music that dominates the radio, clean up the lyrics, and have kids sing the songs instead.

Whoever thought of this was a genius, because the shit sells like hot cakes.

My girls were obsessed with Kidz Bop for a couple years, when we first moved back to Michigan, before they were old enough to listen to real artists on the radio. The Kidz Bop producers recorded plenty of YouTube videos of the kid performers singing and dancing along to the major chart hits, and my girls wasted hours in front of their computers being hypnotized by this craze.

Kidz Bop was, and I assume still is, straight-up crack for little girls. And my kids devoured it.

There's a creepy air to all this Kidz Bop stuff, though, and I feel the need to touch on this before we continue. Now, while albums such as this one are geared towards little kids, the performers still adhere to sleazy music industry standards. All the kids performing on this album are good-looking kids - there's no fat kids, no kids with weird faces, or disabilities, etc. These guys look like they just walked off the set of an after-school, Disney sitcom, and that is intentional. The music execs churning out these Kidz Bop albums know that sex sells, and even if the target audience isn't aware of that sort of thing yet, they know that if they can have eight-year-old girls watch some 12-year-old boy sing a child-appropriate version of a boy band number, they've got her hooked. 

Lots of inserts - like this Advent Calendar - with this one. 

It's super gross, but it doesn't shock me in the slightest.

Another thing that's a little disturbing, but understandable, about the last twenty years or so of this craze, is that the child performers tend to age out of this child-only music business. Since the early 2000s, there have been multiple Kidz Bop 'groups' (usually five or six of singers at any given time, a mix of boys and girls), and once they get too old - probably like 15 or so - they're replaced by younger kids and those older kids go on and. . . who knows. 

Never found a cookie recipe in an album before. That's odd.

I'm sure there's a stable full of ex-Kidz Bop performers who have developed severe mental health issues after serving on a few albums. They're pushed into this business at a young age by their parents and, once puberty hits and they're no longer suited for the role, they're shown the door. I doubt most of these kids found success in the music industry later in life, and I'm sure substance abuse runs rampant in this community.

My Holiday Checklist look WAY different. 

Anyway, on to the album. I came across this on Amazon a few years ago while browsing for Christmas records. I didn't have any desire to purchase this double-LP, of course, but for a super-low $6 for brand new, colored vinyl, I figured this might be something worth picking up. Maybe to hold on to for a decade or two until I start getting grandkids of my own and they want to listen to G-rated Christmas music performed by fellow children, I don't know. I mean, this isn't the sort of album that any adult in their right mind would throw on the turntable during the Holiday season, and God knows my kids have zero interest in this past obsession of theirs, but for this blog's sake, I figured 'what the hell.'

Listening to this album as an adult, without little kids on hand to justify it, is super weird. The production value is insane - there's a lot of money behind this franchise and it shows. The backing music and mix is  professional and on par with any contemporary Holiday album you'd pick up from a well-known, popular-selling artist. The only thing different with this one, of course, is that there's no adults to be found anywhere across the two records - this is a strictly kids-only affair, so all the vocals are done by upper-elementary and middle-school aged performers. 

And yes, the child performers can all sing very well - they're probably hand-selected by recruiters at one of those open-auditions that pop up around the country and attract thousands of kids (and their parents) who are chomping at the bit to break into stardom.

So, having kids singing on a children's album is fine - nothing wrong with that whatsoever, it's expected - provided they're singing kiddie Christmas jams. There's tons to choose from, too -  'Up on the Housetop' or 'Jingle Bells' or 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' Stuff along those lines. What we get into on this release, however, is young children performing songs like 'All I Want for Christmas is You,' by Mariah Carey, or risque songs like 'Mistletoe.' 

Nobody wants to hear a group of 4th graders singing about kissing people under the mistletoe. That's super gross, and I feel like I may end up on some kinda registry just for listening to this in my own house without little kids present to justify it.

Questionable song choices aside, there's nothing horrible, per se, to be found on this Holiday album. And while hearing little kids singing about kissing people and missing lovers during the Holidays is gross, it's got enough 'standard' Holiday music across the two records that make it a solid album for upper-elementary school aged kids who feel too old for Disney cartoons but aren't yet to that pre-pubescent, tween phase. 

If I were a seven-year-old girl, I imagine this album would f***ing slap. Alas, I'm a 45-year-old dad raised on punk rock and consequently this album does nothing for me.

. . . . and that's a good thing, folks, because if I did enjoy this you'd probably have to report me to the authorities.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (Probably a flawless children's Holiday album, but I wouldn't know because I'm not an eight-year-old girl crushing on twelve-year-old boys. I'm giving this a '5' because it's well-produced and the track list, for the most part, is solid. I imagine in twenty years my grandkids will eat this shit up, but until then it's going into storage and won't see turntable time until then.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. CXXXVII: 'Silent Night: Organ and Chimes Favorites' - William Daly

Hey, we got any organ fans in the house this evening? If so, prepare yourself for a special treat. . . .

Album Title:  Silent Night: Organ and Chimes Favorites

Album Artist:  William Daly

Ah, another 'chimes' Christmas album. We've had a lot of these over the years, and they vary in the intensity and absurdity of their chimey-ness - sometimes sounding like a boring church service, sometimes sounding like some kinda demonic, carnival sideshow attraction. I spotted this at Radio Wasteland years ago and snatched it up on a whim from their Dollar Bin with zero expectations; based on the album artwork, the fact that this was marked down to the 'discount price' of $1.79 in 1983 (or $5.82 nowadays, which is cheap for a new LP), and the fact its a chimes record, I didn't have high hopes for this one.

Dropping the needle on Side A is pretty much akin to walking into your Grandma's church. Not the one you usually go to, where you kinda know some familiar faces and the lay of the land - you know what kinda music they're gonna play, you know the order of the service, etc. - but your Grandma's church. The kinda church you go to and everything's off and things feel weird. Like, you know Jesus is probably still a big deal and everything, but there's a weird smell in the air from the combination of moldy pew cushions and the 75-and-older crowd (who make up 80% of the thirty-four people in attendance), and you find yourself overcome with a sense of unease. 

The organ work on this album screams 'old people slowly dying in church' more than any other album I've ever reviewed over the course of the last decade or so. And that's saying something, guys. It's not a swirling, circus-esque freakshow organ (we've had that around these parts before), channeling the very fissures of Hell, but instead a slow, warble-y progression to the grave. The arrangements on this piece wouldn't be out of place at a funeral, which might sound weird considering these are Christmas songs and that would usually deter one's mind from going straight there, but. . . here we are. 

It's hard to make up-beat carols sound the exact same as a somber, more religious Christmas song, but William Daly somehow makes it happen. Lots of whole notes to be found here, those are definitely his favorite. Everything comes across in the same time signature, the same level of intensity, and the same volume, as if Will realizes that to take one, musical step out of the norm here would certainly kill (smite?) any or all of the elderly patrons in attendance. It's like some kind of church-y fever dream that you can't escape from.

I never thought in my entire life that I'd ever welcome the sound of chimes in a Christmas song (or any song for that matter), but man - when the occasional chimes do come in to the songs, they're a f***ing blessing. 'Organ and Chimes' is a bit of a stretch for an album title, folks - this should be called 'Organ, feat. Chimes.' They're an accent accompaniment here, not the main attraction, and while I'd usually be the first to stand up and shout, "CHIMES ARE NOT A LEAD INSTRUMENT," I'm so beaten down from the funeral organ on this album that when the chimes do come in here and there it's like a bucket of ice-cold water right in the face. You remember you're alive, and not sitting in attendance for your own funeral.

With a bunch of old church-goers who, for whatever reason, are the only people that bothered to show up to your funeral. 

At that point it's time to re-evaluate your life, folks.

 

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously?  (Christmas music for a funeral. If that's your thing.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. CXXXVI: 'Fanny Farmer presents The King Family Christmas Album' - The King Family

Do you guys love your family?  If so, how much?

Album Title:  Fanny Farmer presents The King Family Christmas Album

Album Artist:  The King Family

Another dusty relic pried from the Radio Wasteland Dollar Bin, this one stood out to Yours Truly a year or so ago (or whenever it was that I last scooped up a pile of old, Holiday vinyl for reviewing) thanks to the sheer number of people on the album cover. At first glance, you'd assume it's some kinda choir, right? Some kind of Mormon Tabernacle thing going on here, one would think. That or it's the most crowded, insane wedding cake topper I've ever seen.

But then you catch the album title - "The King Family" - and you think to yourself, "No wait, this can't be - this can't all be one, single family, right? RIGHT?' How many kids did the mom and dad have? Are cousins and siblings involved in this undertaking, or is one branch of the family and as kids have kids of their own they're just automatically drafted into active, Holiday service?

Seriously. Who has a family that big in the first place, let alone cramming all these sons of bitches into a studio somewhere in order to cut what is, I'm sure, a great piece of Holiday music.

I had to know more.

So not being at all familiar with the 'King Family,' I figured this one would be worth a spin around the ol' yuletide turntable. I can speak as someone who has a moderately-sized family - five siblings, each of which has three kids (-ish, we're the exception with two) - that putting all of us together in some 1960s recording booth and having anything remotely close to being 'music' come out would be an insurmountable task. A few of us play instruments, sure, but getting us all to work together without killing each other (or staying sober) would be a staggering undertaking, and I don't know if we'd be able to pull it off.

With that in mind, I was willing to give the King Family - who, according to the album cover's back text box, number over 50 - the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, maybe they have their shit together.

Nope.

It clearly becomes evident that, for the most part, they don't have the entire family on here crooning at all times. As crazy as it sounds when the whole clan is crammed into the studio at the same time, shouting over one another like train going off the rails, I'm almost let down they didn't lean full-tilt into this the entire time. God knows this album would have gone from 'boring' to 'terrifying,' and then perhaps this one would be worth of remembrance somewhat. But no, for the most part the family seems to play it safe and take turns with each song: a small collection of ladies sing a lot, and I assume those are the daughters (going by the jacket's backside photos), then there are dudes singing in baritone (dramatically of course, 'cause it's the 1960s), and those guys gotta either be the sons or else husbands of aforementioned daughters. 

Are these all siblings you think, or husbands and wives?

I like to think that for those poor sons of bitches who married into the King Family, this was something that was party of the marital agreement. "Yes Clark, I'll marry you, but you have to sign here on this contract agreeing to participate in any and all future Christmas albums we as Kings will be undertaking until Papa says we can be done." If the guys didn't run for the hills at the first site of that wedding clause, well hell - that's on them. They knew what they were getting themselves into.

You'll be happy to know that later on in the album, on Side B, they even release the young children from their cells and let them growl and sputter on some of the more upbeat carols. It's as unbridled and chaotic as you might expect from a dozen or so kids hopped up on sugar and finally able to stretch their legs a little. None of these little urchins can sing, obviously, but everyone knows that this is a FAMILY affair: everyone's gonna participate in this great, family fun whether they like it or not.

Anyway, this album is mixed pretty well, but the engineer tends to let the vocal soloists dominate at a higher volume than they probably should have. When there's a chorus going, the mix is pretty decent (by 1960s variety show standards, that is), but when it's only one or a handful of singers on display (for lack of better term), the engineer dials it up to assumedly let 'the stars shine.' How much of this is at the bequest of the King matriarch and her legion of mom-aged daughters, I have no idea - I'm guessing they had a say in the creative process here. 

As far as song selections go, for the most part the good people at Fanny Farmer - whoever or whatever the hell that is - had the good sense to stick to the classics. God knows the folks over at The Mike Douglas Show or The Ed Sullivan Show probably wouldn't tolerate too much of that 'original' Christmas music. According to the back jacket cover, this King Family was a well-known act back in the day that had done their due diligence on the ol' black-and-white TV circuit - they know the drill. Sticking to the whole 'variety show' playbook, they blend different songs together in little medleys or suites, never devoting an entire track to a song in its entirety. If I had to wager a guess, it's due to the fact that they wanted to squeeze as many relatives as possible on to the album without pissing anyone off. That's the sorta thing that could really ruin a family Christmas. Or future family Christmas album.

Gonna go out on a limb here and assume this is 'M. King.'

The vibe of this album plays out like a cheap version of the music used in movies like Bing Crosby's White Christmas. I noticed 'M. King' wrote many of the arrangements on to be found here, and he must have been the brains behind the operation, wheeling extended family members into the studio by forklift and arranged them in groups in front of microphones when they were needed. Still, I've heard countless Christmas albums that have used these same, boring, 50s/early 60s, 'pop culture' arrangements. Holiday music to slow dance to. And later drink yourself to death in front of a Christmas tree.

This album reminds me of the early 2010s when some indie rock bands would have like twenty people in their acts, and you'd have people on stage whose sole responsibility was like shaking some maracas or dancing or some crap like that. That used to annoy the shit out of me, and I wanted to pull these bands aside and be like, "Guys, it's totally cool to have friends on the side, not all your buddies have to be in the band at all times." I get that the King Family has a lot of members in its tree, but Jesus H. Christ folks - trim the fat here and there. Maybe Cousin Al doesn't have to be on this year's Christmas album, maybe he can just be the guy that drives all these people around in the converted, old school bus you use to drive from county fair to county fair. And hook up with fat chicks with gonorrhea working the Tilt-a-Whirl from time to time.

There are no stand alone tracks on this album that deserve special scrutiny. I really tried to find you guys something comically bad about this one to eviscerate, but damn it all if this entire album all sounds the exact same. Variety Show sleeze, predictable and boring, like we've all heard a million times before. 

Just with, you know, something like 50 f***ing' singers. So if that's your jam, folks - maybe you'll enjoy this one.

I sure as hell didn't.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Less is more, guys.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian