EP. CXXXIV: 'Punk Rock Christmas 2' - Various Artists

Okay, people. 

It's mid-November. The Holiday Pre-Season is upon us.

And you all know what that means. . . .

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey.

We're on the tenth year of me doing this, folks. Ten years of hunting down Christmas records of every stripe, whether they're limited edition, color pressings intentionally hunted down off of Amazon, dusty, mice-chewed vintage albums found stacked (flat, of course) in thrift stores, or random curiosities with hilarious album art plucked from the Dollar Bin at my local record shop, Radio Wasteland. I'll amass a small pile of yuletide albums - usually between ten and fifteen - pour a drink, and then type up a review for each and every one of them throughout the Holiday Season.

It's simple work, but it's honest work.

Seeing how it's the first installment of this season's vinyl scrutinization, I'll once again direct your attention to the sacred rating scale we use around these parts:

10 - . . . And Out Come the Wolves  (Perfection. Don't believe me? Name a better punk album. I'll wait.)

9 - Cowabunga!  (I'm Gen-X, guys - for people in my age group, this term encapsulates the feeling of being round-house kicked across the face by a Ninja Turtle. But in a good way.)

8 - Awesome  (Solid, without any major faults. 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  (This is the point where it gets dicey. 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   (This is the dime-a-dozen wasteland, where you find your Julie Andrews and your Percy Como's. 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 to Yours Truly.)

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

2 - Reality TV  (There's only one thing shittier than Reality TV, gang. . . .)

1 - Ohio  (Do I really have to explain this?)

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:  Punk Rock Christmas 2

Album Artist:  Various Artists

So this album was purchased by mistake, believe it or not. A couple months ago I had attempted to buy an album called Halloween Garage Blues off Amazon (you know, for Halloween.) Well, the album arrives a few days later, I open it up, and - lo and behold - it's a James Brown Christmas album. I double-checked the UPC sticker on the cardboard mailer, and it said it was Halloween Garage Blues, but the album inside was different. I briefly thought about keeping it anyway, but I'm only so-so with James Brown and dropping $18 on a Christmas album just to review on this blog of mine seemed stupid, so I ended up returning it.

I tried ordering the album a second time, and - just as before - the cardboard mailer stated that it was, in fact, the album that I had ordered. But again, upon opening it up, I found this album instead. Punk Rock Christmas 2. At this point, I said 'f*** it' and just cut my losses. I love punk rock, I love Christmas, maybe this one would pan out decent. Plus, it looks pretty cool: pressed on heavy, white vinyl, the jacket and presentation of this compilation is awesome - album artwork carries the same skeleton motif as as the first installment in this series (which I don't own. . . yet). 

Now, on to the album itself.  Punk Rock is tricky, and I say that as someone who holds this sub-genre of rock and roll as the greatest out there. There are multiple styles, spanning nearly fifty years, and as such you have to build a punk playlist adhering to certain rules. Most importantly of these is sound: punk rock has evolved from snarling, fashion-oriented rebellion (in England's and New York City's respective, late 70's scenes), to the class warfare motifs of the hardcore explosion in California and Washington D.C. in the early 80's. It started to die out, only to see a rebirth in the skate-punk bands of the mid-90's, and then MTV caught on and, on the heels of successful crossover bands like Green Day and The Offspring, we ended up with the highly polished 'pop-punk' of the early 2000's. 

Though calling any pop-punk band 'punk' is a grievous sin. Don't do that shit: Pop-Punk stands alongside 'Boy Bands' or 'Hick Hop' atop the World's Most Insufferable Music list.

With sound in mind, we have the approach to compiling albums with various artists. You CANNOT have a '70s punk band on the same album as a pop-punk/emo group, that's the sort of thing a 7th grader does when building their edgy playlist to listen to on the school bus every morning. Regardless, whoever came up with this compilation seemed to be grasping at straws in order to fill up a second compilation of punk-ish Christmas songs, because that's exactly what we have here. Classic originators from the '70s like Johnny Thunders on the same side as the insufferable, whiny-voiced Amber Pacific, whose entire discography is clearly written for 14-year-olds who think Amber Pacific is 'edgy.'

(They're not.)

I wish I could say that this was a compilation of poorly-chosen artists alone, and that even if they didn't blend well laterally they at least all had some decent songs on here. Sadly, that isn't the case, I'm afraid. Some songs - like Naked Aggression's 'What We Buy' and MDC's '(Merry Christmas) The World's on Fire' aren't even Christmas songs, they just have Christmas-related words in the song title. That's lazy-ass studio exec'ing, guys. 

Pace is an issue as well. Reagan Youth's 'Punk Rock Christmas' or The Members' cover of 'Happy X-Mas (War is Over)' are slow and painful affairs that barely qualify as 'punk' at all (and punk legends Reagan Youth's vocals are so bad on this track you can barely listen to the song in its entirety.) It's okay to slow things down once and awhile in punk music, but when that happens you have to do one of two things: 1.) switch from shout-singing to actually singing, or 2.) continue to shout-sing. The former takes talent, the latter takes conviction. . . and in punk rock conviction is the biggest asset to a vocalist, and the main determining factor in whether or not a band will cut it for you. I listen to a LOT of punk rock, and my favorite bands are the ones where the singer can be believed in what he's saying, even if he sings like total shit. Within a second or two of a vocalist coming in on a verse I can tell whether or not I can listen to that band, regardless of whether or not I like the sound of the band (ex. the Dead Kennedys sound awesome but I can't listen to them because Jello Biafra's voice makes me want to take my own life.)

It's not all doom-and-gloom for this season's first album review, though - we have some definite bright spots to highlight here. The Rumjacks' track, 'Christmas in Killarney,' is a breath of fresh air, rollicking across three minutes like the Dropkick Murphys' cousins from Australia were only in town to celebrate the Holidays for one night and were damned sure to make the most of it. 90's skate-punk veterans Pulley and Down by Law (as well as Down by Law's singer's side-project band, Dave Smalley and the Bandeleros) all deliver on their tracks, as well. There were even a couple bands I was previously unaware of, like Bankrupt (from Hungary, I guess?) and Ship Thieves (who arguably have the best track on this entire album with 'Who Put the Gum in Santa's Whiskers?') who managed to figure out how to do Christmas songs the proper, punk way. 

It shouldn't be f***ing rocket science, but I guess some bands - and the label executives who compile these holiday albums - struggle with it.

So, in the end, this album is all over the damn place. Cohesively, it's a hot mess - from bands' sounds not meshing, to artists of various eras not blending together track-by-track, to bands who probably shouldn't even be in the same zip code as authentic punk bands, etc. Some songs are definite punk rock originals about the Holidays, but others just seem to feature Christmas-ish words in the titles. There are great songs on here, and some decent ones, some 'meh' ones, and some God-awful ones that I will skip over every, damn time. If one of your determining factors when selecting a Christmas album is consistency, than this one is certainly not your jam.

Ultimately, it comes down to an appreciation of the genre itself, and when it comes to punk rock, rules aren't meant to be blindly adhered to. Cohesiveness and consistency? I guess none of that really matters in the end with punk rock. As shitty as some of the songs on here are, there's enough glorious, Holiday moments to be found on here to keep it in rotation.  Oi Oi Oi.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (If it were possible to rank it a '6.5' I would, but we don't do that '.5' sorta shit around these parts.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

- Brian 

Ep. CXV: 'And They Killed Christmas' - Various Artists

Folks, brace yourselves for what may be one of the weirdest releases of this Holiday season. . . 

Album Title:  And They Killed Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

I stumbled across this album a year ago on a site called MerchBar - one of those sites that offers vinyl for dirt cheap, but it may take you, like, six months to get in the mail. I hadn't heard of this particular release before, but I figured with The Vandals on it - and for an insanely low price of $3 - it was kind of a no-brainer. Plus, it's pressed on green vinyl, which, as we all know, makes it sound better.

Anyway, this album may be the most random compilation of music I've ever listened to. I assumed that with The Vandals headlining this baby, we'd have ourselves some kinda snotty, punk-ish album on our hands. Maybe not all the acts on here would come from a punk rock background, but at the very least maybe the lyrics would be snarky or it'd be sort of rock-ish in tone. 

That's not at all what we have here.  I'm not even sure I'm qualified to try and explain this damn thing.

'My First Christmas as a Woman' is exactly what you'd come to expect from The Vandals, most of the cornerstones of punk music, dating back to the early 1980s. The lyrics are hilarious, it sounds like the Vandals doing a Christmas song, and, while it's not one of their better songs by any means, it's not downright awful. If the rest of the album was up to the caliber of this opening track, you'd have yourself a solid '7' on your hands, no doubt about it.

But that's not what we have here at all, folks.

There's a stretch of songs that follow where you get the vibe that they were going with some kind of a punk/rock version of Dr. Demento's Christmas album with this release. 'Aquaclaus' is a decent enough parody of Jethro Tull's Aqualung, replacing the lyrics of the classic original with some shit about Santa or whatever (obviously.)  'X-M@$' is surprisingly good, which is all the more bizarre considering it's from Corey Taylor, whom I believe is the front man from Slipknot (a notoriously shitty band.) Verses are meh, but the chorus sounds like Social Distortion, it's pretty badass. 'Sexy Santa' by Steel Panther is cheesy '80s cock rock - hairspray, guy-liner, and tight, leather pants - just with Christmas-y lyrics (about Santa being sexy, in case you were wondering.) It's not awesome, but for purposes of album filler it's not terrible.

Then everything grinds to a f***ing halt. 

'An Old Fashioned Christmas' by Linda Bennett is some soft pop number from the 1970's that is so sonically out of step here that it's like being doused with a bucket of cold ice water. At first it comes across as just any other Anne Murray Holiday jam (though the woman's vocals twang a bit more), until the dark theme of the song becomes evident: a dad/husband's usual bus (that he always takes home from work) runs head-on into a tree, and there are no survivors. The woman singing - the mom/wife - believes he's been killed, but puts on a brave face for two whiny-ass kids who are all concerned (on Christmas Eve, of course.) This is when the song's inclusion on this particular album becomes obvious. It's not a great song, but it's kinda funny. . . in a macabre sorta way.

The randomness and absurdity explodes on Side U (instead of Side 'A' and 'B,' they went with Side 'F' and 'U'. . . seriously.) 'Silent Nite' is a weird, Butthole's Surfer-inspired, heavy acid trip with a drunken Balrog on vocal duty. I'm not sure who the intended audience is for this song, but drugs are definitely involved. 'Santa's Gonna Kick Your Ass' is a polka number that could have appeared on a novelty Holiday album if it weren't for the Rated R lyrics. Lots of nyuck nyucks abound.

If we were going to base this album solely on concept, I can imagine giving it a '7' - I get what they were trying to do here - but the song choices fall flat a lot of the time. Musically, this thing is so frickin' random that you can't passively listen to it, and you really have to be invested in analyzing the concept (Christmas sucks) to appreciate it. There's no way Kris would ever listen to this.

I think what really sinks this album is the inclusion of songs that are so bad that the producers thought it'd be funny to add them to the track listing. Like, there's nothing comical about the lyrics, they're just bad songs. While I enjoy the 'so bad it's good' trope as much as the next guy, it's not a great idea when compiling a Holiday album. There are three or four songs on this album that were selected because they're comically bad: the previously described 'An Old Fashioned Christmas,' Burt Bacharach's 'The Bell That Couldn't Jingle,' 'Christmas Is (Make it Sweet)' by Bobby Sherman (and a bunch of tone-deaf little kids), and Steve W. Mauldin's 'O Holy Night.' 

One song like this would have been more than enough. Devoting nearly half an album to this 'joke' is overkill.

So, all in all, I think I'm gonna hold on to this one for the time being, but I don't see it getting a lot of spin time. A couple songs on here are okay, but nothing's spectacular - this is more of a comedy album than a punk album (what I thought I was getting), but it's like one of those comedy films where there's a couple scenes that are decent but the jokes seem to fall flat most of the time.

That's not a movie you're going to re-watch a ton of times, guys.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Decent (They leaned in too heavy with the 'so bad it's funny' thing and over-played their hand. I was waaaay too sober for this one. . .)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. LXXIII: 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas' - Gwen Stefani

Alright, alright. . . 

Album Title:  You Make It Feel Like Christmas

Album Artist:  Gwen Stefani

So I picked this one off of Amazon about two years ago, more or less because it cost about $10 at the time, and it was insanely high-rated.  Granted, I'm not what you could call a huge Gwen Stefani fan by any means;  I mean, I didn't mind No Doubt back in the mid-90s - c'mon, they were a ska band with a hot singer - but I don't listen to her music these days, and couldn't tell you one song she's performed since, oh, 1997.

My wife, on the other hand, does like Gwen - maybe not one of her all-time favorites, but definitely enough for me to pull the trigger on a brand new, $10 Christmas record.  I figured 'what the hell,' might be a nice addition to the collection (I don't own a lot of contemporary 'pop' records, it'd definitely fill that niche.)  Plus, it's pressed on limited edition White Vinyl.

Booya.

Anyway, this album is a fairly painless experience.  As stated before, Gwen isn't someone I regularly listen to:  she's a pop singer these days, and that's one of the few genres I just can't stomach.  Still, that being said, her voice and singing style hasn't changed all that much since the '90s, even if the music behind her has.  

Who the hell is the soul-less ginger in the corner?

I think this the biggest reason I'm able to stomach this album in the first place (it also doesn't hurt that, even at her age, she's still ridiculously hot):  it's easy to fool yourself into hearing the feisty, young singer fronting a hard-swinging ska band, jumping around the stage and into mosh pits.  Instead of, you know, some lady who makes pop albums and judges performing contestants on a reality TV show.  Gwen keeps things simple on this album, she doesn't attempt belting out anything too strenuous, nor does she reach for those unattainable high notes.  That was never her forte - she's a good singer, not a great singer.

That, and she's hot.

The songs themselves on this album sway back and forth between Christmas classics and some of her own originals, and in all cases the songs are produced well and the arrangements are solid:

Things are upbeat for the most part, which isn't a huge shocker because that's kinda Gwen's shtick - she's a 'fun' singer, in the vein of Cyndi Lauper.  Her versions of 'Jingle Bells' and 'Let It Snow' are upbeat numbers with a horn section, 'Santa Baby' could be a striptease number, and even with slower, quieter numbers - 'Silent Night,' 'White Christmas,' etc. - she doesn't put on a solemn, reverent face.

Her originals are okay.  She's got two off this album this get heavy radio play during the Holidays - 'My Gift is You' and 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas' which she penned with her country-singer fiance, Blake Shelton.  As far as Christmas pop goes it's tolerable, but certainly not my cup-of-tea.  This is more of a reflection of my distaste for bullshit radio fodder, however - even if Gwen Stefani wrote the greatest pop album of all time, it's still likely I wouldn't care for it all that much.

So, all in all, reviewing this album was hard, because I'm not a huge fan of the genre itself.  There's nothing wrong with this release, mind you - it's done well and I'm sure, if you're a fan of pop, you'd love it.  Gwen's delivery isn't trying to make you realize the true meaning of Christmas, or remember praise Jesus, or yank at your heart strings.  No, she wants you to have fun.  She wants you to get into the Yule of the Season.  She wants you to get laid.

And I'm okay with that.

VERDICT:  7/10 - Pretty Rad (A well-produced pop album that executes Holiday classics and original songs without issue.  Not my favorite, but she is hot.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

- Brian

Ep. LI: 'Christmas Songs' - Bad Religion

Don't kid yourself, America.  You know you missed this.

It's that time once again, folks.  We're in the Holiday Pre-Season.  Halloween is long, past dead, and even though we've yet to run that whole Thanksgiving gauntlet. . . who cares.  It's not like Thanksgiving is a real holiday anyway.

Do you see end-caps at Meijer or Target advertising Thanksgiving merch, aside from hand-towels?  No?  Well, there you have it.  Not a real holiday.

Now as we've discussed here in this blog in previous years, the Holiday Pre-Season here in the Hough household brings about one of my favorite yuletide traditions:  the audio-scrutinization of every, last Christmas LP I own.  I dig out all of my Holiday vinyl (which, over the last few years, has gotten to be quite substantial indeed) and put aside the tried-and-true classics for repeated use in my designated Crate of Yuletide Awesomeness.  Check it out:

There's about thirty or so LPs that get to chill out in this place of honor, and these are ones that I play on a pretty regular basis throughout the Holiday season.  Other albums that I still consider worth keeping, deem mandatory classics, or otherwise don't find myself playing a lot - like Christmas with the Chipmunks, or Disney's Christmas All-Time Favorites (call me crazy, I don't have a hankerin' for children's music all that much anymore) - are put away safely in storage for Christmases yet-to-come (say, when I have grandkids or something.)

This Battle Station is fully operational.  Bring on the Holidays, motherf***ers.

I keep a separate crate of unplayed, untried, and untested Holiday vinyl off to the side, atop my sub-woofer (see picture.)  As each Christmas record is tried out on my turntable, it either a.) finds its way into the Crate of Yuletide Awesomeness, b.) is kept shelved away in storage for future Christmases, or c.) it's thrown in the 'Donate to Goodwill/Sell to Radio Wasteland' pile.  Each album is given careful consideration and scrutiny, which I then disclose to you, dear reader, in hopes of saving you the trouble of going through this process on your own.

Granted, I'm sure I'm one of, like, six people on Earth that undertake this endeavor, buuuut. . . I think it's worth it.

And so, with my reintroduction to the Craft being once again given, nestle in by the fire, pour yourself a holly, jolly egg-nog (I take mine with rum), and let's set off once again on this, our Great Christmas Record Odyssey. . .

Album Title:  Christmas Songs

Album Artist:  Bad Religion

For this, my 51st record that I've reviewed on this Odyssey, we hit the ground running.

That kid's so damn happy he got shoes for Christmas. . .

Bad Religion, for those of you not familiar with punk rock - the genre, the scene, the culture - are one of those few bands that are universally respected, if not adored, by everyone.  I can count on one hand the few other bands in punk rock that are just as well universally praised:  Operation Ivy, The Clash, The Misfits. . . that might be it.  Bad Religion have been around since the early '80s, and as elder statesmen, perform with the experience and credibility of a band that gives zero f***s whether or not you like them or buy their music.

Only one side of this album has music - kind of a short list.

This freedom to focus on music has given their sound a weight that many bands in the genre lack.  Greg Gaffin, their lead singer and principle songwriter, sings with a battle-worn conviction that few bands today - in any genre - can match.  This is one of the reasons why the far-fetched concept of a well-respected, universally-loved punk band covering Christmas standards works.

For example, the vocals on 'O Come All Ye Faithful' reverberate like a street anthem - a rallying cry for revolutionaries and Holiday cocktail aficionados alike.  You can pump your fist to it:  Greg's not just singing a seasonal song, folks.  Listening to this you believe he means lives and breathes every word of the song.

So, this album is good, and I'd even say some of the tracks are great. . . but I can't see myself giving this one above an '8' rating.

One of the greatest labels in punk music. . .

Here's the main reason why:  they keep the tempo and sound the same throughout the entirety of the album, with little variation.  Granted, punk rock is supposed to be fast and/or hard - it's the soundtrack to skateboarding, mosh pits, driving too fast down the highway, overthrowing a government, etc.  But, from start-to-finish, across an entire album - filled with many songs that are performed traditionally slow - can get tiresome.  Giving songs a 'punk cover' was all the rage in the '90s, and some bands - looking at YOU, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - totally made a career out of taking old songs, speeding them up, and singing them in a 'punk' way.

This is the first CD I've owned since 2006. . .

Gaffin, as a solo artist, has recorded a couple really solid country/folk, Americana-punk albums that are hauntingly good (Millport, Cold as the Clay, etc.)  Had he gotten Bad Religion behind that style instead and given a few of these tracks that kind of treatment, this album could've instantly become a modern classic.

Instead, I'm more than happy to settle for it being really, really good.

VERDICT:  8/10 - Awesome (Punk rock elder statesmen pump out a badass Christmas album and don't give a f***  about slowing down occasionally for variety's sake.)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -