 Various Artists Easily the best installment in the Ultra-Lounge series, Christmas Cocktails remains one of my favorite Christmas albums, a wonderfully rowdy compilation of "actual" good Christmas recordings and plenty of "fake" good stuff as well. The cheese is mixed seamlessly with the classic, blurring the definition of "lounge" beyond its original meaning as a marketing tool. Probably because Christmas music is hokey to begin with, the great stuff stands alongside the terrible stuff with little differentiation … although I don't mean "terrible" like the Jingle Dogs/Cats or Michael Bolton. The "terrible" stuff here is just stuff that, compared with the likes of Nat King Cole, is way beyond the bounds of taste and propriety. Case in point, the opening track, Billy May's outrageous "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo" with its bizarre, Flintstones-like vocal outbursts in the breaks ("Holly berries!"). Unforgettable, to quote Natalie Cole and the dead guy. Also up there in the weird-o-sphere is Ray Anthony's awesome "Christmas Trumpets," which sounds sort of like what would happen if Disney decided to make a "go-go dance" movie circa 1970. Some of the tracks are "real" classics: Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" (a staple that never loses its power; perhaps one of the two or three best Christmas performances ever), Lou Rawls' "Christmas Is," Nancy Wilson's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?," Dean Martin's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm." These keep things from getting too "funny" (see the other volumes of this series to see what I mean). The funny stuff here is quite funny, and remains so after lots of annual listens: "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus/Jingle Bells Bossa Nova" by Eddie Dunstedter, featuring the seasickest organ this side of Korla Pandit; the Hollyridge Strings' wildly overproduced "Jingle Bells/Jingle Bell Rock"; "Cha-Cha All the Way" by the Capitol Studio Orchestra (entirely new lyrics for "Jingle Bells"). The masterpiece is Ray Anthony's "Christmas Kisses," probably the song I look forward to most each holiday season. The type of thing Connie Francis and Hayley Mills might have done together in some improbable "Christmas at the Beach" kind of movie. Wonderful fun. A lot of the remaining tracks are neither "good" "or" "bad" but rather just solid Christmas songs with an offbeat edge: Kay Starr's "Everybody's Waitin' For The Man With the Bag," Julie London's "I'd Like You For Christmas." Throughout, Christmas Cocktails is a giddy ride in a Shriners mini-car. It's truly in the spirit of Christmas as I see it (for isn't the spirit of Christmas to have dirty fun and mock the Lord?). One of the few Christmas discs actually worth owning. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of why Christmas music is so hard to listen to anytime but in December. I suppose we all allow for mass stupidity only for a short time each year; the rest of the year, it's stupidity masquerading as hostility.
Review by NevilleBrother4039@aol.com |