Ep. CXXXI: 'Kiddies Christmas' - Unknown

Don thee now our gay apparel. . . just kidding, don't do that. This is a church album, and the church frowns on the gays.

Album Title:  Kiddies Christmas

Album Artist:  Unknown

So, yet again, we have a gem pulled from the darkest, dankest, recesses of Radio Wasteland's Dollar Bin. As usual, we find ourselves with another yuletide turd that is far worse than I had expected, which is saying a lot considering the dumpster fire that is the cover artwork. A group of kids, freezing out in the cold, gaze longingly through a window at an assortment of presents (featuring a small-ass dog who's just escaped from a box, apparently.)

Here's my concern: is this in a store's display window? Because, if so, that's the shittiest store window I've ever seen. Maybe it's one of those hipster-ish boutiques that specializes in artisan soaps where the store owners are a husband and wife adorned in knit caps and crappy cuneiform tattoos. And the shitty store window is an intentional move to showcase their store's authenticity.

That's actually the better scenario, because if this isn't a store's display window, then these special needs kids (because I'd bet the lives of my own children on the fact that the boy in the back is - there's no way on God's green Earth that kid's playing with a full deck) are staring into someone's house. Like a bunch of retarded, Peeping Toms.

Now, believe it or not, this poorly-executed cover design is actually the best thing about this album.  I wish I was kidding.

First of all, it should be obvious by the kids on the cover and the graphically-challenged Title art (sweet machine gun you sneaked in there, Graphic Designer) that this album is targeting the little kid demographic. I had initially assumed that the songs on this album would be sung by a children's choir, or, at the very least, a group of male and female vocalists who sound as if they're smiling while they're singing (know what I'm talking about? Like when you call someone on the phone and can hear in their voice that they're smiling.) And the track listing would be compromised of children's Holiday favorites ('Frosty the Snowman,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Up on the Rooftop,' 'Santa Claus is Comin' to Town,' etc. - there's, like, a bajillion to choose from.)

But nope. That's not what we have here.

Just look at this f***ing track list, guys. Why the hell did the producers of this release decide to feature a bunch of slow, boring, religious carols on a children's Christmas album? What frickin' genius made that call? Are solemn, religious carols a necessary component for the Holiday season? Sure, for most folks (you know, that 'reason for the season' and so on and so forth), but on a children's album?  

Guys, I speak from experience: kids do not like going to church. I fought that battle with my parents for years, and now my kids fight that battle with me. Church is boring (unless you're my wife), and I don't blame kids in the slightest for squirming miserably in the pews. So, considering this, what made the producers think that kids would want to hear church music on a Holiday album clearly marketed towards them?

It isn't until Track 3 that we get around to upbeat, more light-hearted Christmas carols with 'Deck the Halls,' which isn't really 'children's' in nature, but 'Dickens.'  If you actually pay attention to the lyrics of this one, this song is clearly a couple hundred years old, but damn - after those few boring church songs that open up this album, I'll take it.

Unfortunately, it's right back to the religious crap after our brief interlude, with some dude singing bass that could easily give Tennessee Ernie Ford and Jim Nabors a run for their money. It's hard to sell this album as a Holiday album targeting children when one of your prolific vocalists sounds like Paul Frees welcoming you to the Haunted Mansion. Even 'Jingle Bells,' one of the most upbeat songs in Christmasdom, is unnerving with these vocals.

Frank doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

This sounds like an album meant to scare kids into obedience during the Holiday season. There's no revelry or whimsy to be found anywhere on this atrocity. I would imagine the only people who owned this album back in the '50s were people that were adamant about home-schooling their children, lest they fall into the many, many traps of Satan in the Public Education System.

'Nancy' had a traumatic childhood. No f***ing doubt about it.

Being a veteran teacher of almost 20 years, I'll concede that we have plenty of said traps in our schools, but. . . c'mon. How can sending one's precious little angels into a public middle school be any less hellish than what they've amassed here?

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (This is the musical equivalent of getting your kids' hopes up for flashy new toys from Santa and then handing them personalized, devotional bibles on Christmas Morning.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. LXXII: 'A Christmas Festival of Songs and Carols, Vol. 2' - Various Artists

'Tis the Season for yule-tide jammitude, masses.  Throw on your Christmas pants and let's get down to business here, shall we. . . 

Album Title:  A Christmas Festival of Songs and Carols, Vol. 2

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Orphans gaze at mankind's most boring collection of toys . .

Well, we're still chipping away at that Bethesda stack I purchased a couple weeks ago.  Like I said before, for 59 cents apiece you can definitely score a crap-load without even realizing it.  I cleaned those guys out and probably dropped, like, $6.  Zero complaints here.

So, this compilation comes from the good folks over at JC Penney, which, I'm told, used to be some kind of department store back in the day.  All the rage.  Perhaps this album's hilarious cover art reflects this, with a bunch of probably-orphans gazing longingly at a storefront window display jam-packed with super-generic toys.  The kind that kids haven't wanted Santa to bring them since, like, 1964.

No wonder JC Penney ate shit and died.

A parade of button-eyed, creepy-ass children.  Kinda reminds me of that movie Coraline.

I mean, look at this crap-show.  A toy accordion?  What kinda of monster would see something like this and think, "Hot damn, that's just the ticket - that's gonna be swell for Junior to open up on Christmas Morning."  Perhaps, even worse, what kid would actually want something like this for Christmas?  Some poor bastard who has parents deeply involved in the polka craze of the 1950s and '60s?  And is grasping at straws for ways to win some kind of affection from them?  How depressing is that scenario?

Anyway, let's get back to the music on this release.  I suppose that's what we're all here for in the first place.  The track list on this compilation is run-of-the-mill, non-offensive, vanilla Christmas music from the sixties.  Every Holiday favorite your grandparents adored while smoking cigarettes in their shag-covered living rooms and waiting for the fruitcake to cool off.

All these '60s Christmas compilations follow a familiar playbook, and so I wasn't shocked in the slightest by what I found here:  a couple country songs, an instrumental medley, a couple 'powerhouse' vocal numbers, and a few numbers featuring choirs.  This variety is par-for-the-course for nearly every compilation I've ever reviewed in the '3' to '5' range in this Record Odyssey of mine, and, not surprisingly, this album finds itself in similar territory.

Chet Atkins' guitar work on 'Little Drummer Boy' is a decent track, and even though I've definitely heard better versions of this song, there's nothing really to complain about here.  Same goes for Arthur Fiedler's take on Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker - the Boston Pops do a commendable job.

From Our House to Yours.  Yet again. . .

Those couple songs aside, most of the rest of these songs are ridiculously boring, and a select few have that distinction of being pure garbage.  The use of a children's choir on the opening track of Side A is jarring; why producers back in the day felt it was totally cool to throw a children's choir onto a non-children's music compilation is beyond me.  Unless I'm listening to a children's album - which, honestly, I can't see myself going out of my way to do - I don't want to hear little kids singing.  Not at all.  Nobody wants to hear that nonsense.

Mario Lanza, who fancies himself some kind of vocal powerhouse, belts out with a fury on 'O Holy Night,' sounding more like a guy pretending to be an Italian virtuoso than the real deal.  I've heard drunks perform better.  And choosing a soft, religious carol as your showcase number isn't really a smart move, either - show that range on a banger (like, say, 'O Come All Ye Faithful'), not on something that's supposed to be reverent.  C'mon Mario, this is Christmas Music 101.

So yeah, this is typical, fade-into-the-background, boring Christmas music, that offers up few reasons to stay awake long enough to register it's still spinning on your turntable.  

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (This is what JC Penney would sound like if JC Penney was a Christmas album)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. XLVIII: 'I Love Christmas' - Various Artists

Seasons Greetings, y'all.  Let's get some jams goin' here. . .

Album Title:  I Love Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Okay, you know what, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it:  this music is so f***ing cartoon-y it ought to have some kind of label across the front cover that says "Recorded in Glorious Technicolor."

God help me.

I don't think very many 'artists' on this album had waded into the waters of puberty at the date of recording (they're probably all in their 50s now.)  This is a Lord of the Flies Christmas - children's choirs, children soloists, and only a handful of post-pubescent singers (Skeeter Davis, Roy Rogers, Florence Henderson, Spike Jones doing that Dr. Demento's Christmas favorite, 'All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,' etc.) bother making an appearance.

This really isn't the sort of record one puts on while trying to seduce a sweater-wearing, egg nog-sipping, young lady in front of some crackling yule logs.  This is the sort of record you intentionally put on to calm down a preggosaurus rex while she's in the deep throws of a 'get this f***ing thing out of me already' meltdown.  'Cause won't having kids someday be nice?? Or maybe when you're trying to calm down a roost-full of candy cane-fueled toddlers tearing around your living room.

Either way.

So is offering downright terrible?  No, no it's not.  This is a children's album, so you know what you're getting, more or less.  Not a lot of surprises, here.  The adult singers are delivering in the most monotone, calm voices they can muster ('cause, you never know, it could be nap time), and the children's choirs are singing with as much cherubic charm they can muster.  If you want Children's Christmas music, you might be okay with this.

Florence Henderson and Roy Rogers are kinda creepy, but. . . whatever.  I guess they're not nearly as creepy as the sinister-looking little girl on the album cover, employing a vice grip on a dead koala.

I love Christmas.

VERDICT:  5/10 - Meh (It's a children's Christmas album.  While not necessarily horrible, I have far better ones in my collection.)

- SHELVED -