Trollheart's Christmas Media Megathread (Incorporating The Scroogedown)

[Trollheart]

Christmas Eve - James Last with Engelbert Humperdinck - 1995 (Avalanche)

There's an episode of the TV sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf where the characters are on a planet where all the world's most evil people have come alive as waxworks (bear with me) and Lister and the Cat, locked in a cell and awaiting their fate, are watching as Lister names off all the bad guys. Hitler, Mussollini, Rasputin... then he gasps, unable to take it. "Oh my god!" he says in disbelief and horror. "That's James Last! I recognise him from Rimmer's record collection!"

If you don't know the series that probably meant nothing to you, but it does serve to underline that to people of my age, when we were young, James Last was the Devil. Not a good Devil, like Ozzy or Alice, who made you want to rebel against society, your parents, whatcha got? No. James Last was the good Devil, the Flanders Devil. He was everything we hated in music, everything we were opposed to. His soulless, feather-light treatment of classics and pop tunes drifted from every lift (elevator) in every shopping centre (mall) and his grinning face could be seen peeking out of every record shelf labelled "Easy listening". James Last was the antithesis of rock; he took safe tunes and made them safer, and we hated him for it. At least, I did, and all my mates did. He was the kind of music your parents listened to, and there was no more damning indictment than that.

I was always a Mantovani man, myself; if you wanted some relaxing instrumental music, the man from Italy was the one to go to. But Last? Ugh! You'd rather listen to white noise than his pre-packaged brand of supermarket soft pop instrumentals. And yet he was mega-popular, selling over seventy million albums - dude, that's 0.07 BILLION albums! - and with a discography that takes up three full columns on Wiki. And Christmas was one of the times when he was unleashed upon us with his full, terrible ferocity.

To make things worse, here he's joined by sixties singing sensation Engelbert Humperdinck - a man who actually changed his name TO this! I mean, he wasn't born with it: when he became famous he TOOK the name! Beggars belief!. Also surely one of the most frequently misspelled and mispronounced names in music history? So he sings while Last plays, and we all promise to do anything the duo say if they will just PLEASE STOP!

There's nothing more to say. The bossa-nova beat was invented for people like Last, and even though I'm now old enough to be a parent (though I'm not one) I STILL loathe his music with a passion. Some demons just never die, y'know? Still, he's getting on in years, can't have much time left ... unless he's signed a contract with the Devil! Oh no! Surely not...?

TRACKLISTING

1. Believe In Love
2. Have I Told You Lately
3. Holly Holy
4. Ave Maria
5. One More Night
6. Your Love
7. Bed Of Roses
8. White Christmas
9. Lean On Me
10. A Whole New World
11. O Little Town of Bethlehem
12. God's Sending Angels

[Trollheart]

Christmas in the Heart - Bob Dylan - 2009 (Sony)

Now I'm no Dylan fan, but surely even he must hang his head in shame at getting roped in to the "Christmas album" deal, something I would have felt sure, from his reputation, that he would have steered clear of, even sneered at? I'd be more surprised, to be honest, to see Nick Cave or Mayhem release a Christmas album! But here he is, complete with Russian-looking horsedrawn sled, snow and lots of songs about the festive season, delivered in the characteristic lazy drawl that has become his trademark, and made of him a living legend in music. Personally, I don't like his singing, but who am I to talk?

Well, looking a little deeper now, I see that all profits from the sales of the album went to various worthy charities, so I guess I can't put him down too much on that front. None of the songs are composed  by him, which is itself perhaps unusual for such a prolific songwriter. He prefers to stick with the standards: "The first Noel", "Here comes Santa Claus", "Winter wonderland" and so on, with "The Christmas Blues" and Mitch Miller's "Must be Santa" thrown in to just offset the traditional songlist. It's Dylan's first - and to date, last - Christmas album, and it sold very well, so I guess the charities the sales supported at least had a happy Christmas. Can't say the same for anyone unlucky enough to have received this as a gift.

TRACKLISTING

Here Comes Santa Claus
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Winter Wonderland
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Little Drummer Boy
The Christmas Blues
O' Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Must Be Santa
Silver Bells
The First Noel
Christmas Island
The Christmas Song
O Little Town of Bethlehem

[Trollheart]

Christmas at Home - Donny Osmond - 1997 (Sony)

Another suave, insincerely-friendly face stares out at you from yet another album cover for a Christmas collection. This time it's the darling of the seventies, America's most blue-eyed boy at the time, the star of the Osmonds, Donny. He's cooked up a concoction of Christmas favourites sure to brighten any Christmas. Er, yeah. With expected songs like "God rest ye merry gentlemen", "I'll be home for Christmas" and "The most wonderful time of the year", you also get more eclectic, perhaps lesser-known fare such as "After December slips away", "Who took the merry out of Christmas" and "A soldier's king", so at least you have to give him points for a certain amount of originality. But how original can you be on a Christmas album?

Donny looks well, standing in unconvincing snow in his expensive black suit, under an unconvincing sky and with one very unconvincing Christmas tree in the background, grinning at the camera, no doubt thinking of how much money this record is going to make off gullible fans, but you have to say at least he looks the part. However, I do wonder why so many of the reviews of albums like this on the likes of Amazon and CD Universe are so universally gushing. Guess they only select the good ones: don't want someone saying "This album is crap! Don't buy it!" now do they?

It's from one of these reviews that I find the one sentence that sums up this album, and also acts as a warning, though it's not meant to. These are the actual words of a fan: "It is one of the very best Christmas cd, right next to Clay Aiken, The Osmonds, and the Carpenters' Christmas cds." Nothing more need be said.

TRACKLISTING

1. Angels We Have Heard On High
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
3. I've Been Looking For Christmas
4. After December Slips Away
5. It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
6. Baby, What You Goin' To Be
7. Deck The Halls/ Hark The Harold Angels Sing
8. I'll Be Home For Christmas
9. Who Took The Merry Out OF Christmas
10. O Holy Night/ Divine
11. A Soldier's King
12. The Kid In Me
13. My Grown-Up Christmas List
14. Mary, Did You Know?
15. Come To The Manger

[Trollheart]

Christmas On the Open Road - Various Artists - 2008 (Oh who really cares?)

Man, these terrible Christmas albums have really taken it out of me! I couldn't even be bothered to find out what label this is on, but there's one good thing about this crummy album: it's the last in our series. I have no idea at all what it's about. Sounds like the sort of thing truckers might record, songs about being away from their families maybe, but I can't be sure. I know none of the artists featured on it, apart from Taylor Swift. The songs? They seem to be a mixture of standards like "Silent night", "The first Noel" and Elvis's "Blue Christmas" and I suppose original songs with titles like "Christmases when you were mine", "Papers angels" and "21st century Christmas", and someone called Russell de Carle sings "I got the blues for Christmas". I know how ya feel, man!

There's also some godawful song I've never heard before - and hope never to hear again! - called "Hockey sweater", not to mention "Christmas in jail", which, judging from the performances of some of the artistes here, is what they should be looking forward to! What is the point of this album? Then again, that's really a question you could ask about the last twenty-four albums in this series I guess.

TRACKLISTING

1. Christmas must be something more (Taylor Swift)
2. Merry Christmas to all (Doc Walker)
3. Silent night (Johnny Reid)
4. I wanna be your Santa Claus (Willie Mack/Jason McCoy)
5. Paper angels (Jimmie Wayne)
6. 21st century Christmas (Jaydee Bixby)
7. The first Noel (The Higgins)
8. I've got the blues for Christmas (Russell de Carle)
9. Auld lang syne (Jack Ingram)
10. Blue Christmas (Tara Oram)
11. Christmas in jail (Prairie Oyster)
12. Christmases when you were mine (Taylor Swift)
13. Hockey sweater (Dala)

I conceived this notion originally late in November, and initially wanted to make this a countdown to the very worst Christmas album ever, but quickly realised I had not the time to listen to each album, possibly more than once, so as to judge and place them. Not that these are albums you'd really want to listen to any more than once in any case, if at all! But it would have been cool to have crowned one album the Christmas Turkey. Still, what can you do? Perhaps next year I'll try listing the best Christmas albums. Probably a short list though.

In any case, I hope you've enjoyed this satirical and gently  humourous look at some of the albums released down the years over the festive season. I think you'll agree some were worse than others, some not so bad, and some so awful they should be forever locked away from human sight. Had we rated them, I feel sure the likes of the albums from The Kelly Family, James Last, Star Wars and that Irish Christmas one would have had a good shot at getting in there at the top, not to mention The Waltons and A Country Christmas! Ah, so many terrible albums, so little time!

Finally, if by some chance you happen to like any of my selections, as I said at the start, don't take offence. It's all in fun, and no slight is meant. Christmas is a time for japes and frolics, after all, and if you can't laugh at this time then when can you? Hope this list raised a few smiles, and all that's left to say is have yourselves a very happy Christmas, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and whatever you choose to listen to.

[Trollheart]

And that, my friends, is it, finally. When I originally made these threads (or features in my journal) I often took weeks, even months to put them together. Before the advent of Metal Month (what?) I could start as early as October. This time, to my considerable surprise, I did it all in six days! Yes, admittedly, almost all of it was pre-written by me, but even so, copying over, checking and occasionally amending posts, and making sure everything fits into the general theme of the thread, takes time. So now there are still twenty minutes of Christmas Day to go, and I'm done. Rather proud of myself.

I hope you've enjoyed some of what I've written, and who knows? Maybe I'll do it again next year. No, that's not a threat! If you haven't managed to read some of it (hardly all), don't worry:  this will be here and you can ignore it at your leisure. I've certainly enjoyed my little trip down Christmas memory lane, and revisiting the stuff I wrote when I was ten years older and had a lot less cares. I even bumped into the Ghost of Christmas Past on the way, but he was in a hurry to visit some old miser. Funnily enough, he looked to be heading for my house! Hey!

Anyhoo, all that remains is for me to wish you all a Happy/Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays or whatever festive greeting you prefer to use. Wherever you are, whatever you do and however you celebrate it, enjoy your Christmas. I'm off to relax!

As we say in Ireland: Nollaig shona diabh!

As they've been so involved in the thread, I'll leave the last word to America's favourite family.

[Guybrush]

Man, I wanted to comment on your review of Scrooged, but it's like three pages back.

I just wanted to add a couple of names. Loudermilk, the employee that Frank Cross fires at Christmas and whose life very quickly spirals, is of course played by Bobcat Goldthwait in a phenomenal role.

And it could be mentioned that the score is by Danny Elfman and bears some resemblance to things he'd do on the Beetlejuice and Edward Shoehornhands soundtracks.

It also had a bit of a troubled production and Bill Murray ad-libbed so much and went so bonkers during the final monologue the guys thought he was having an actual mental breakdown.

[Trollheart]

Thanks for that, Guybrush! Naturally, with so many movies to get through initially, I wasn't able to research much about them other than the cast, then I watched each in turn and made my own comments. But that's stuff that's good to know. Glad you enjoyed it anyway, and are reading. Happy Christmas (is there a Norwegian version? Probably is)!

[Guybrush]

Thanks for that, Guybrush! Naturally, with so many movies to get through initially, I wasn't able to research much about them other than the cast, then I watched each in turn and made my own comments. But that's stuff that's good to know. Glad you enjoyed it anyway, and are reading. Happy Christmas (is there a Norwegian version? Probably is)!

There's been theater productions, but no movies that I know of. That's fine with me.. I think we got enough versions over the years 😅

Another weird Christmas movie here is Mama aka Rock 'n Roll Wolf. It is a musical best known for this song:

Back in the day, there was one TV channel and they got part of their programming from Eastern European countries. At least back then.. I remember it well.

[Trollheart]

Oh sorry, you took me up wrong. I meant is there a Norwegian greeting for Happy or Merry Christmas? As for the versions of A Christmas Carol, I stated at the beginning I was only looking at movie versions: no TV ones, no plays or even versions where famous people read the story. I got them all, except (gasp!) Barbie's Christmas Carol and that one I really wanted with the animals.

[Saulaac]

I liked your John Zorn post a lot, TH. His label did a lot of crazy stuff, including bands from France. I guess he was at least bilingual, perhaps multilingual.
Stabat Akish was a Toulouse band on his label who were brilliant but short-lived. But he spotted them which is the main thing.

[DJChameleon]

I've been reading this thread as well just didn't comment on it.

[Guybrush]

Oh sorry, you took me up wrong. I meant is there a Norwegian greeting for Happy or Merry Christmas? As for the versions of A Christmas Carol, I stated at the beginning I was only looking at movie versions: no TV ones, no plays or even versions where famous people read the story. I got them all, except (gasp!) Barbie's Christmas Carol and that one I really wanted with the animals.

Oh right! We say God jul which is basically short for have a good yule 🙂

The word "Christmas" isn't something I'm aware exists in our language. We only use yule or "julaften" (yule evening).

[Trollheart]

Thanks guys! Nice to know someone was reading. I know statistically about one percent of readers actually comment, but that's the only way I usually know that someone is reading, so thanks for letting me know.

I may do this again next Christmas, but one thing is certain: I'll give myself a lot more time to do it!

Happy New Year to yiz all!