Ep. CXXIII: 'White Christmas' - John Schneider

Greetings from the far reaches of the Holiday soundscape - from its dark, mildew-y corners, I bring you this Aryan relic. . .

Album Title:  White Christmas

Album Artist:  John Schneider

This dollar-bin find from Radio Wasteland was a no-brainer for Yours Truly, gang. I mean just look at this guy: one can't help but be immediately drawn to the blonde locks and overly-friendly countenance of what very well may be the whitest man of all time. Cozily wrapped up in a festive sweater so ugly Bill Cosby wouldn't touch that shit. 

I have no idea who John Schneider is, but based on the photos of homeboy on the outer sleeve, he's either a.) a Mormon missionary, b.) a Christian singer, or c.) a German pop star.

(If we're going with 'c' on this one, the title White Christmas takes on a notable, Third Reich sorta vibe.)

There's not a lot of information to gleam from these two photographs, and not much in the text to to give this guy much of a backstory (no 'From Our House to Yours' cheesiness to read through, no message from the producer). I could probably look up who this guy is on Wikipedia or whatever, buuuut I don't feel like opening up another tab right now.

Whoever he is, the production value on this album is pretty good. Like there's a legit band here, not some random asshole playing one of those keyboards where you can hit a button and suddenly F# sounds like a maraca. The arrangements are mixed well, too - it doesn't sound like someone's cousin recorded this with home equipment in a local church on a Thursday evening (because we get LOTS of that around here, it seems) - but holy shit, are they boring.

Schneider totally sounds like, say, an animated Prince Charming. All pure and innocent, with a hint of whimsy and a dash of heroic bravado (not that Prince Charmings ride into battle at the head of great host or anything, they're usually just gallivanting through a forest in tights - not sure why they even bother strapping on a sword.)  

Listening to him sing, the guy's over-annunciation gives the impression that he's the sorta guy that doesn't know how to use contractions when speaking. No highs or lows in the vocals, no swagger or gun powder in the delivery, no over-the-top brashness like you often times get with those church-y Christmas singers. No conviction at all, really - just a guy singing words off a lyric sheet in a studio and collecting a paycheck.

This is how a guy laying down tracks for a Disney character would do it - Schneider's probably moonlighting providing vocals for the love interest on Cinderella's Christmas Album.

He's not a terrible singer, I guess, but he's far from what I'd call 'pro' level. You know when you go out to a bar and when you walk in you notice there's people singing karaoke? And eventually a bunch of drunks drag one of their reluctant friends up on stage and, after a few moments of obligatory 'modest protesting,' the friends starts singing, and he's like surprisingly good?  You're like, 'Oh damn, this dude can actually sing.'  Know what I'm talking about?

Well, that's based on the civilian scale of singing ability, folks - like when you see an actress on TV and are all like, 'She's not that hot,' but you know if you passed her on the sidewalk you'd most likely have a heart attack and shit your pants. 

. . . .

We all do it, it's cool. It's not weird.

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Prince Charming cuts a Christmas album and can't figure out why his true love would choose to remain asleep instead of being conscious for this snooze-fest.)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. CXX: 'Christmas at Our House' - Barbara Mandrell

Alright gang, grab yourself a Holiday cocktail and settle on in for an early '80s Yuletide shit-show. . .

Album Title:  Christmas at Our House

Album Artist:  Barbara Mandrell

Guys, this is a weird, weird album.

This Barb chick was apparently was an up-and-coming country singer back in the day. I had to Wikipedia her because I've never heard of this person, who apparently was relevant (kinda) in the late '70s and early '80s. There were a few songs that hit the radio, she had a short-lived variety show back in the day, etc. 

But I consider myself somewhat of a 'music aficionado,' so the fact I haven't heard of her isn't a good sign.

What the hell - this dog looks like a f***ing Muppet. 

Anyway, this album sounds like the entire backing tracks were recorded by a company that specializes in mass-producing karaoke CDs. In fact, even with this chick singing, the entire album sounds like a karaoke album (apparently she was a country singer, but aside from a barely-discernible 'twang' in her voice there's no trace of country on this whole album.) 

While reviewing this, I feel like I'm in a small town dive bar, drinking Coors Lite, and watching a mom of some guy I went to high school with acting like she's in her 20's singing while half-buzzed. Not to that slurry point of drunkenness quite yet, but to that point where she's slightly randy and has her sites set on an unsuspecting member of the audience.

With the exception of 'Winter Wonderland' - the only real Christmas song on this whole, frickin' album - all of the songs on here were clearly written by a team of local community college music majors that were given an assignment by their professor where they had to write 'Christmas Songs.' "For this assignment, you have to use the following Christmas terms in a song featuring at least three major chords: Savior, Christmas, Star, Light, Snow, Magic, Home, Season, Peace, Love, etc."

Guys, I can't stress this enough: Christmas Albums 101 dictates you include songs on your Holiday album that folks can easily recognize and appreciate. Give the masses what they want: "Jingle Bells," "Good King Wencelas," "O Come All Ye Faithful," etc. God knows there's, like, a hundred of them. And they're ALL Public Domain. It's not like money's an issue here, folks. The fact that the studio execs actually said, "Recognizable Christmas songs? Nah, we've got a better idea - hold our beers. . . " is mind-blowing.

The sound majority of the songs here are more religious in nature, which shouldn't be all that surprising seeing how they're from a 'country singer' and everything. This totally sound like the sort of album some small town wife would listen to while their husband Carl and his cousin Todd are out in the woods, drinking shitty beer and checking their animal traps. Around the double-wide trailer they share, this album is playing on a cassette deck (because a turntable would require too much technical skill to operate), and while the wife and Todd's girlfriend are smoking cigarettes and making food in a linoleum-tiled kitchen, a bunch of dirty-faced, fat kids are watching Ernest Saves Christmas while wearing their soaking-wet snow boats indoors. There's lots of antlers on hand, along with obesity and copious usage of the N-word.

Ugh.

Hey guys, wanna see Barb strangle this poor dog to death?

It isn't until well into Side B (seriously) that Barb finally drops another familiar jam, "I'll Be Home for Christmas". . . and even this sounds like shitty karaoke. It's a short-lived moment of familiarity, because the following tracks are all unrecognizable songs that either a.) were written in-house and approved by studio big-wigs that wanted to give this Barb chick a vehicle for Yuletide stardom, or b.) Barb wrote these songs herself. And, in the case of the latter, there's clearly a reason I've never heard of this chick. These songs are terrible.

Barb can sorta sing, but in a way that screams 'shoulder-pads' and 'wine coolers.' One gets the impression that she's the girlfriend of someone with connections. Maybe she was hot back in the day, I don't know. . . but one doesn't get a shot at recording a well-produced Holiday album without having talent or doing 'favors' for the record company execs. 

My money's on the latter.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (An obscure country artist from the early '80s records a highly-polished karaoke album filled with 'Christmas' songs that no one has ever heard before. And apparently people bought this album back in the day? Like, with real money?)

- SHELVED-

- Brian

Ep. LXXXIII: 'Holiday Sing Along with Mitch' - Mitch Miller

Prepare yourself, comrades, for a Luftwaffe-level assault on the Holiday senses. . . . .

Album Title:  Holiday Sing Along with Mitch

Album Artist:  Mitch Miller

Sweet Baby Jesus.  This one's weird, folks.

Such versatility. . .

Mitch Miller made a name for himself with an early '60s TV series called Sing Along with Mitch, that featured this dude and a male chorus (choir?) singing traditional, folk, and pop songs, while lyrics flashed along the bottom of the screen with one of those bouncing balls over each word as it was sung.  Due to the show's popularity - yes, it was popular with viewers -  they released a whole slew of records for people to sing along with.  Pop records, country records, showtunes records, and, like we have here, Christmas records.

Look at all these wonderful. . . lyric sheets.

The fact that someone could make so much money on something as stupid as singing along with music - something we all do anyway with regular, non-karaoke records - really says a lot about the early 1960s and how starved they were for entertainment.  The packaging on this album is interesting, for sure.  There's a still-intact lyric sheet with tear-out pages for each song, so folks could - I assume - rip out the page for the song they were listening to if. . . they didn't feel like holding. . . the entire album cover. . . .?  I guess?  I don't get it.

Anyway, so what does this slicked up production sound like?  Well, have you guys ever seen that meme online that says that when men reach their middle ages they have to either get really into smoking/grilling meats or really into World War II?  It totally makes sense to me, and Yours Truly is definitely guilty of the latter.  This evening I was actually watching the Stalingrad episode of WWII in Color (or something like that - it's really, really good) on Netflix shortly before retiring to the Study to put this album on my turntable.  Upon dropping the needle down, I immediately experienced flashbacks to what I had just been watching.

The first handful of songs on Side 1 are marches, sung by a boisterous male choir (chorus?), seemingly recorded in a large, barren room (the reverb and distance in their voices clearly give this away.)  And maybe it was the fact that I had just been watching German soldiers marching victorious through the burning fields of the Soviet Union in 1942, but listening to these first few songs it was impossible to not imagine a smoky beer hall filled with celebrating Nazi infantrymen.

Why are Nazis singing Christmas carols?  Why are they singing in English?  Who the hell is playing all the accordions?  

Questions like these I don't have answers to.

Not every song on this sing-along album sounds like Nazi propaganda, though.  There are polka-ish numbers, which shouldn't be too shocking for anyone, considering the rabid obsession Americans had with polka music in the '60s.  Other songs sound more folksy in nature (folksy in the Rankin Bass/Glenn Yarbrough The Hobbit vein, that is) - again, not too shocking considering the climate of American music back then.  There's even some children's songs on here. . . and yes, they're equally justifiable and run-of-the-mill for the time period.

While the song styles themselves vary every-so-slightly, the one consistent variable across all songs on this album (aside from the over-reliance on accordions) is the relentless, Aryan male choir.  Whether the song's fast or slow, hard or soft, march or polka, folk or children's, the Fuhrer's Supreme Choir rolls ever onward, crushing all resistance in its way.  There is no stopping the constant barrage of baritone, male bellowing that refuses to cede a single inch or decibel across both sides of this Holiday album.  Poland, France, Belgium, Norway, Czechoslovakia. . . . and now Holiday Sing Along with Mitch. 

What we really need here is for this choir to suddenly find itself bogged down and stuck in snowy, -30 degree weather for awhile.  

If history has shown us anything, guys, it's that a Russian Winter is a sure-fire way to force the Germans to a grinding halt. . .

VERDICT:  4/10 - Borophyll (Indiana Jones said it best, folks: "Nazis. I hate these guys.")

- SHELVED -

- Brian