Musical Interlude, Part 3


Part three of my comprehensive look at my new Holiday albums....


Album: Christmas Wishes
Artist: Anne Murray

Growing up, I always hated country music. That's changed as I've gotten older, but I still don't have much in my music collection.

While it's still not my favorite genre of music, I'm finding that I'm enjoying the country Christmas albums quite a bit. I shouldn't be surprised: it's one of the most under-represented types in my now substantial collection of holiday tunes, so it's a much needed deviation.

I don't know much about Anne Murray - according to Wikipedia, she's a country/pop singer from Canada who was big in the 70's and 80's. This album is from 1981, and I'm enjoying it.


Album: Christmas with Jim Reeves
Artist: Jim Reeves

I'm going through these albums in alphabetical order, so it seems kind of odd that I get two country/pop albums in a row. This is also a solid album, though I don't like it quite as much as the Murray one.


Album: Christmas with Mario Lanza
Artist: Mario Lanza

I guess you can't go too wrong with operatic Christmas music. I suspect this sort of thing will have me wanting to smash my head against a brick wall by the end of the season, but for the time being I'm kind of liking it.


Album: Disney's Season of Song: A Traditional Holiday Collection
Artist: Various (Holiday Orchestra, Christmas Brass, Don Scaletta Trio, and Disney Christmas Carolers)

Ignore the fact Disney produced this: it's a collection of "traditional" holiday music. It's all well done, though I could care less about the carols, and there's nothing setting the orchestral music apart from the dozens of classical Christmas albums I have. But the Christmas Brass and Don Scaletta Trio are welcome additions to my collection. Also, this isn't a short album (25 tracks in total), so I'm definitely getting my money's worth.


Album: The Eyes of Christmas
Artist: David Pomeranz

I was getting worried that a string of good music would fill me so much goodwill I'd lose sight of the other side of Christmas: the cheap, gaudy, commercialism that permeates our world from Black Friday Eve through to the "exchange and gift cards" season of January. Fortunately, the next album on my list reminded me what Christmas is really all about.

For those who don't know who David Pomeranz is (everyone, I'm assuming), he's the guy who performed who performed the theme song to Perfect Strangers. This is apparently his Christmas album.

The vast majority of this thing is generic pop music at its worse; absolute tripe. That said, the second half deviates a bit. There are a couple of decently done classics, as well as a country/rock track called Santa's On Vacation that I kind of like.

Though on some level the revelation this guy is capable of real music makes the rest seem even worse in comparison.


Album: Fair with Her Firstborn
Artist: Doug Fullington - The Tudor Choir

This is an album of Christmas choir music, including some songs from the Middle Ages. No complaints - there are absolutely some cool tracks - but I don't expect I'll wind up listening to this much more.


Album: A Family Christmas
Artist: John Tesh

This is absolute crap. I assumed it would be when I bought it, but still... it's extremely bad; the kind of smooth, soulless jazz that sounds like it was made by a robot.

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