Ep. LXXXI: 'The Sound of Christmas, Vol. 2' - Various Artists

Amidst the rapidly chilling weather, let us warm our hearts and souls with some Holiday blandness from yet another thrift store compilation. . . 

Album Title:  The Sound of Christmas, Vol. 2

Album Artist:  Various Artists

This acquisition was made last year when I bought a stack of used vinyl from my local Bethesda thrift store.  I actually haven't gotten around to purchasing any used Christmas vinyl this year, as I'm sitting on about a two-dozen that I still need to work through.  I paid 50 cents for this, and, as you're about to find out, I probably paid too much.

The album cover alone is a clear indicator that what you're about to put on your turntable is bonafide garbage.  The concept, I'm sure, was supposed to be two children experiencing the magic of Christmas by gazing upon a Christmas tree.  I can't decide if it's the lighting here, or the kids' clothes, or maybe the kids themselves, but something causes this concept to fall flat.  

The Unloveables

For me, when I look at this, I see a couple of young urchins in an orphanage gazing longingly at something they can never have for themselves - a genuine, family Christmas.  Perhaps all the cuter, more desirable orphans were already adopted into loving families, and now, in the bleak pit of their mutual despair, these two are drawn to a lonely, horribly-decorated Christmas tree set out in the orphanage common room.

No lights, just uglier-than-sin glass ornaments that look like they were hand-crafted by depressed and feeble-minded orphans who grew up in the system before being kicked out at the age of eighteen.

Maybe that's a stretch, and maybe I'm reading too much into a shitty album cover, but one thing's for damn sure:  this recording is just as depressing as the scenario as I just described.  This is yet another lackluster addition in a long line of releases from our Usual Suspects:  The Lettermen, Nancy Wilson, Glen Campbell, Peggy Lee, a couple different orchestras, and the infamous and terrifying Tennessee Ernie Ford.  

I'm not going to go too in depth with this analysis, because I feel like I've reviewed this album a dozen times before in one form or another After awhile a lot of these comps begin to sound the same:  overly-dramatic orchestral arrangements for songs that don't need it, boring medleys, spoken 'from our house to yours' messages, terrible song selections, tone-deaf singers, and, in this particular case, the terrifying bellowing of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing about - no joke here - Virgin breasts, guaranteed to shaken the resolve of even the hardiest of yuletide revelers.  

This is, once again, background music for the elderly, perhaps shopping in a department store in the late 60s/early 70s.  One of those stores that's closed on Sunday because having a store open on Sunday hurts Jesus' feelings, and where retail salesmen still get a commission on how many new vacuum cleaner models they can sell.  

Throughout this bleak, Holiday hellscape, the warbling of shitty Christmas music wafts across the stained tiled floors and carpeted walls and into the hearing aids of its patrons, who hum (out-of-tune) along with the Balrog-like crooning of Tennessee Ernie Ford.  

God does not live in this place.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Another turd from the Usual Suspects.  Not the worst compilation from these assholes I've heard in my years of rating Christmas Records - Nat King Cole's delivery on a track earns this compilation a point - but it's still not good enough to be called 'Boring.'  This is just terrible enough so that it can't manage to fade into the background.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. LXII: 'The Bells of Christmas Chime Again' - Eddie Dunstedter

Here we go, folks.  Time to get back into some weirdness.  Some terrifying, soul-shattering weirdness.

Album Title:  The Bells of Christmas Chime Again

Album Artist:  Eddie Dunstedter

I'm not gonna lie here, folks:  I totally picked this up from Radio Wasteland (for a $1) knowing that it was going to be a complete train wreck.  I mean, c'mon - chimes and organ?  In the dollar bin?  You know what you're getting here.  

You can practically smell the moth balls. . .

The opening track on Side A of this album is supposed to be 'White Christmas,' which - you'd think - would be a pretty straight-forward affair.  You'd think, with 'chimes' and 'organs' involved, this was going to sound like an every other organ-heavy Christmas album we've covered in this here Record Odyssey of ours.  Heavy on the warbly church service vibe, visions of elderly parishioners quietly nodding off all about you.  Maybe some dead poinsettias strewn about the wood-paneled walls of the congregation, along with faded gold tinsel and dust-covered hymnals.

Well, if you can believe it, dear readers, that would have been waaaaay better than what we have here.

The Haunted Mansion, ca. 2019.

For the first twenty or so seconds of the opening track, I wasn't aware I was listening to 'White Christmas' at all.  Instead, it sounds like the opening foreboding of Disney's Haunted Mansion, the eerie organ beating on in a sluggish cadence like it's summoning forth the deceased.  There's a few descending chord progressions, too, that seem to go on for minutes, as if the tormented soul hammering away on this organ is resolute in pounding EVERY. LAST. KEY. on the way down to the lowest possible octave.  

Straight down into the bowels of Hell.

Look, I know I sometimes have a flair for the dramatic, but if you were to listen to this album yourself, you'd see where I'm getting such horrifying imagery.  I've seen the likes of Tennessee Ernie Ford a time or twelve in this series of mine, but at least with that piece of absolute shit you have someone singing.  Here, without any lyrics whatsoever to remind us of a human presence in this recording, we're left to our own macabre imaginations.  

And it ain't pretty, folks.

May he haunt your dreams. . .

Dungeon music from The Legend of Zelda kicks of 'Winter Wonderland,' which later becomes a full-tilt, seedy carnival jamboree.  'In the Clock Store' sounds f***ing insane.  Cuckoo clocks and autonomic bird sounds over an organ?  With an overall German glockenspiel hammering away in a relentless swirl of noise?  It sounds like the sorta shit you'd hear in the heads of occupants in a Bavarian insane asylum.  Oh, and 'Ring Christmas Bells'?  The shit sounds like it's being played by the Phantom of the Opera on a two-week bender.

I wish I were over-exaggerating.  I really do.

If you guys ever want to see what the face of pure evil looks like, America, I'll show you:

Don't look directly into his eyes.

VERDICT:  1/10 - Ohio (This is the scariest Christmas album I've heard in a long, long time.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. LII: 'Popular Christmas Classics' - Various Artists

 Welcome back to the Odyssey, America.

I forgot to remind you all, in my last post, of the scale we use around these parts when rating these Holiday audio offerings.  This is what you can look forward to, my personalized 1-to-10 Scale:

10 - . . . And Out Come the Wolves (a symbol of perfection, and arguably one of the greatest albums made in the last twenty five years)
9 - Cowabunga! (if it makes you want to shout like a Ninja Turtle, you know it's good.)
8 - Awesome
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.)
5 - Meh  (Albums in the 6 - 4 range almost always get 'Shelved.'  I hold on to them - for the time being - but they lose turntable time for the duration of the Season.)
4 - Borophyll
3 - Seriously? (anything below this point is put into my annual 'Donate to Goodwill' pile)
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)

Now, let us throw on your jam pants. . .

Album Title:  Popular Christmas Classics

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Santa, probably writing up his Manifesto.

So I snatched this up from some thrift store awhile back - God knows which one - and it's sat in my pile of 'records-to-review' box down in our storage room for a couple of years.   I picked it up for the album art (at left), which, to me, hints at a ridiculously hokey, dated Christmas track list.  At the time, I didn't really read the artists and song selections that are literally plastered all over the cover, but, as you can see, it's definitely a 'Best of. . .'  for the Holiday Season.

This album definitely lives up to its title.  Nearly every song on this album can be heard every year in stores, on the radio, in TV commercials, you name it.  In fact, I'd say roughly two-thirds of the tracks here are the definitive versions of each Christmas song.

Probably safe to say all these guys are dead by now.

You've got Burl Ives' famous version of 'A Holly, Jolly Christmas,' the stand-out track from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  There's Bing Crosby's 'Do You Hear What I Hear?,' that's easily the most-widely recognized version of that song, and was made famous by its iconic usage in Gremlins.  The Harry Simeone Chorale's rendition of 'The Little Drummer Boy' is the one you hear in your head the second I name the song title - it's the quintessential version of that carol.  There's more, too, that are easily the most-played versions one hears during this time of year.

The Balrog

All things considered, this should be at least a '9.'  Maybe an '8,' considering there's a couple less-known and 'meh'-ish tracks from Glen Campbell and Leroy Anderson on here you don't really give two craps about, and aren't as widely heard as most of the others.

But then there's Tennessee Ernie Ford.  That baritone-spewing, Balrog of a crooner, who has broadsided this Record Odyssey of mine time and time again over the years with his all-out shittiness.  He brings his usual Holiday Horror voice to the forefront with his terrifying version of "The Star Carol," which, if his voice tells us anything at all, probably references a frickin' pentagram.

I hate this guy so damn much. . .

VERDICT:  6/10 - Meh (This Greatest Hits-ish compilation features several famous songs that are mandatory listening for the Holiday season, but Tennessee Ernie Ford barges onto the scene and sinks this album a couple points all by his terrifying lonesome.)

- SHELVED -

Ep. XXX: 'Town and Country Sound of Christmas' - Various Artists

 Welcome to the 30th Episode of the Great Christmas Record Odyssey, America.  Let's flex them holly jollies of yours . .

Album Title:  Town and Country Sound of Christmas

Album Artist:  Various Artists

I picked this up from the Bethesda thrift store across from my school one day on my way home from work.  It cost 59 cents, the jacket was in Very Good + condition. . . that was enough for me.

A Who's Who list of boring, boring artists.

This compilation is supposedly put on by the good people at Town and Country.  I'm not entirely sure what the hell that is, though.  I mean, there was a Town and Country restaurant in my hometown of Clare, MI., back in the '80s and '90s, but that closed down years ago.  I used to drive by it all the time - it was right on the main strip of town - but I never once set foot in that joint, if only because it was where old people went to slowly pick at their homestyle platters in the dark.

Definitely not the sort of place I'd want to frequent.

So, was this LP released by some long-extinct restaurant chain?  It definitely sounds feasible, mainly because this album is the exact, audio representation of a dark room of elderly people, picking at their food in silence and patiently awaiting their deaths over plates of toast and casserole.  At this point, the meal, and the company, has become routine:  a worn out pantomime run on muscle memory that's lost all enjoyment or will to live.   That's exactly what we have here.

Most of these selections are by country artists - and, randomly, Lou Rawls and Ella Fitzgerald (token black artists - way to be progressive, Town and Country) - and most of these arrangements are as about as offensive and edgy as one could expect from a place like Town and Country.  This LP is a total bore-fest, which, in itself, would rank it a solid 4 on my trusty Holiday rating scale.  It's difficult to stay awake to this, with its muted music, too-loud-for-the-mix vocal tracks, and slower-than-necessary tempos, accompanied by warbling women and baritone men belting out boring renditions of Holiday favorites.

Then Tennessee Ernie Ford strolls in and scares the living shit out of everyone in the restaurant.

His Balrog-ish voice easily knocks this album down a solid two points, from a simple boring restaurant filled with old people down into a nightmarish hellscape where a demon from the 9th Circle of Hell emerges from a fissure in the Town and Country floor and starts terrorizing the elderly patrons trying to chew their macaroni and cheese.  Tables are flipped over, limbs are ripped off, adult diapers are soiled, blood flies everywhere, and no senior discounts are given.

If you listen to this album, may God have mercy on your soul.

VERDICT:  2/10 - Reality TV (A boring compilation suited for old people, made even more horrifying by Tennessee Ernie Ford's scarier-beyond-all-rational-thought sing-song 'crooning.')

- SHELVED -

Ep. XIV: 'Pretty Paper' - Willie Nelson/ 'Christmas' - Tennessee Ernie Ford

 Welcome back to another yuletide, holly jolly jam-fest, America. . .

Album Title:  Pretty Paper

Album Artist:  Willie Nelson

I'm a big fan of old honky tonk, guys.  Cash, Waylon, Hank, Twitty, etc.  Can't stand the new, poppy shit they're passing off as 'Country' these days, but the old country/western stuff of the '40s - '70s is usually gold in my book.  I have gigs of the shit in my iTunes library, and stacks of vinyl on my record shelves, so I like to think I know what I'm talking about.

Willie generally falls within that category, too. . . but what we have here is, like, Willie's lame, chromosome-deficient half-sibling.  Instead of marijuana, whiskey, gravel and blood, this Bizarro Willie knows only doilies, living room organs, lemon squares, and the unbridled joys of a good, fleece throw.

What the f*** is up with that beret and earring?

This sure as hell doesn't sound like the Willie I know.  Jesus Christ, just check out his picture.

Anyway, this whole album features that aforementioned living room organ prominently on every track on this record.  It sounds exactly like the ones found in either one of my grandmothers' houses growing up.  Warbly, poor-toned eye-sores that were more novelty than instrument.  In the '60s and '70s, they were probably living room staples, I'm sure;  much like the Hi-Fi, wet bar, and umbrella stand.  I had fun playing on them when I was a kid, but shit - what the hell did I know when I was a kid?  I thought the Civil War was the greatest thing ever and played with G.I. Joes until I was waaaay too old to be doing so.

But let's get back to Mr. Nelson, here.

If you're looking for a solid Honky Tonk Christmas album, folks, I got some bad news for you:  this sure as shit ain't it.  This isn't even close to Country; hell, the stuff they're playing on 'country' stations now sounds more country than what we have here.  This album was cut in 1979, which may explain the gooey delivery of Bizarro Willie, the heavily-used Grandma Organ, and the creepy song list (a bunch of kids songs, Willie?  SERIOUSLY?)

I'm disappointed with this, to tell you the truth.  I figured I might stumble across a song on this record about a rebellious drifter rolling on down the highway, low on gas and money but full of Christmas cheer (and a bellyful of whiskey to boot.)  Or perhaps a slow ballad holiday song about a drunkard all alone on Christmas Eve, sitting in the dark, drunk, and thinking about his lost love and prioritizing his yuletide shit.

But no.

Here we have a woozy crooner butchering kids songs, far out of his element, somewhere in the bowels of his grandmother's living room.

It's really weirding me out.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Sympathy points for being Willie Nelson, who - despite what we have here - is a bonafide badass.)

- SHELVED -

Album Title:  Christmas

Album Artist:  Tennessee Ernie Ford

You know that ol' phrase, 'fool me once, shame on you/fool me twice, shame on me'?  That's kinda what we have, here.

At first, upon dropping the needle, I was met with a moderately fast country version of 'Up On the Housetop,' and I thought to myself, 'Well gall'darn - maybe Tennessee Ernie Ford has redeemed himself on this one' ('cause God knows his past appearances on some of those Christmas compilations have been train wrecks.)

Well, that was pretty short-lived.  As soon as the dude started singing, I once again remembered why it is this guy grates me so damn much in the first place:  his cartoon-villain, baritone voice.  It works for Johnny Cash, one of my top five favorite musicians, 'cause in his case it sounds like a man with a deep voice singing with conviction.  With Mr. Ford, though, you get the feeling that he actually talks like an average-pitched person, and is going out of his way and trying to have those baritone pipes.

The result is, well, unsettling.

If Skeletor's legion of bad guys on Eternia were cutting a Christmas album, Tennessee Ernie Ford is the first dude they'd phone up.  No doubt about it.

This album's arrangements are hokey, and with Ford's creepy bass-heavy voice crooning over top of it, it's hard to imagine this album being any worse than it already is.

. . . but then the spoken verses appear.

I don't who the hell enjoys the spoken verse on an album.  If I'm listening to music, I don't want to hear someone stop singing only to start talking to me - that's like watching a dramatic scene of a movie and then having the actor turn to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and speaking directly to the viewer.  It's jarring, and it's stupid.

But that's not even the worst part, folks.  Oh yes:  this album gets worse.

Worse than Ford's singing, worse than the corny spoken verses (which are soooo bad they're almost awesome at times), is the children's choir.  Ford - for whatever Goddamn reason - decided to record a Christmas album full of children's songs.  If having someone like Ford groaning over a collection of kid songs wasn't creepy enough, he has an accompaniment of children singing throughout the album.  Unlike the Disney children's chorus, which sticks to background vocals, on Ford's album the kids are the main attraction:  there are kids singing solos on this record, which puts the kid front and center on several of these songs.

What's so wrong about kids singing?  Well, nothing, I guess. . . but when they're singing back and forth with Ford's cartoon villain voice, it sounds HORRIFYING.  It sounds less like a Christmas album and more like Tennessee Ernie Ford has a bunch of kidnapped kids locked away in a pit in his basement, and in order for them to receive food, he demands that they sing Christmas carols with him.  They cry and beg to be let go, but Ford - dressed like a woman, wearing lipstick, and screaming at them in his sinister Holiday voice - demands they sing for their supper.  

"IT SINGS 'HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING' OR ELSE IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN."

VERDICT:   2/10 - Reality TV (It gets a pity point for the slightly country tone, cheesy inspirational note on the back, and comically terrible spoken verses found throughout this record.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Ep. IX: 'Songs for the Christmas Season' - Various Artists/ 'A Christmas to Remeber, Vol. 2' - Various Artists

 Here's a double-header for your Monday, Internet.

Album Title:  Songs for the Christmas Season

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Property of Indiana Jones

So both of these bad-boys in today's installments happen to be from my step-mom's dad, Bob Jones.  Somewhere along the line, he must have given these to me, or else I stole them from a pile of vinyl he was in the process of garage saling (probably the latter.)  I know this, of course, due to the black marker-enscribed 'JONES' emblazoned across the front of both album covers.  Just like Granny's labeling, only sans calligraphy.

Must be a generational thing.  Who knows.

The Not-So-Magnificent Seven

This album is weird.  Seriously.  The vocals on some of these tracks are so much louder than the music that it almost sounds like a karaoke record, which doesn't really make much sense at all.

The one saving grace on this whole album is Guy Lombardo (whose version of 'Auld Lang Syne' may be my all-time favorite version of the standard.)  Sadly, that track isn't on this record, but the track he does supply - ' Santa Claus is Coming to Town' - still features his trademark ballsy horn section.

Unfortunately, no sooner does Mr. Lombardo leave the stage then Tennessee Ernie Ford comes stumbling in to the spotlight like some drunken uncle at a little kid's birthday party, belching 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.'  It sounds more like a cartoon villain crooning than a professional caroler, which, to be honest, is almost so bad it's good.

But not quite.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (Weird audio quality - and a probably-drunk Tennessee Ernie Ford - distracts from an already lukewarm holiday album.) 

- SHELVED -

Album Title:  A Christmas to Remember, Vol. 2

Album Artist:  Various Artists

"So what happened to Volume 1, Brian?" you might be asking yourself right about now, "Do you own Volume 1?"

No.  No I do not.  And I don't plan on scouring Ebay for it.  I'll do that for the Muppet Show ('cause I do own Volume 2 of that treasure, and there's Volume 1 to obtain still - it's an awesome album), but not for this Christmas compilation.

Hey, you guys see Monuments Men?

As you can imagine - if anything, based solely on the dated, cheesy album cover - this album is pretty hokey.  And not hokey in a good way, either.  To be honest, I think the cover art clearly represents what you're getting here:  a Clooney-esque grandfather figure strolling up to your house while you're trying to make a snowman with your kid, and your kid quickly abandons good ol' fashioned family fun the second they see George Clooney walking up to your house with a bunch of material items.

In music form.

"Look Ma - George Clooney!"

Actually, there's one track on here that isn't bad: 'Do You Hear What I Hear?'  Not the greatest version of this song I've ever heard, but it does have one thing going for it:  it's the same version the main character's mom plays in Gremlins while she's baking in her kitchen.  And then the gremlin attacks her.  And she manages to fight it off her, shove it into the microwave, and nuke the sum'bitch.

So, all in all, the album's not a complete waste.  Creepy George Clooney and a Gremlins track.

Merry Christmas to me.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (I still wanna see Monuments Men.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian