Bummed Out Christmas
various artists
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The
only thing really wrong with this wonderful concept album (suicides, after
all,
spike during the holiday season) is that it could have been even better.
Rhino Records, our host for this unhappy hour,
has a propensity for throwing a few newer, inferior tracks onto compilations like this (apparently
trying to prove they're "edgy"). Sadly, all this does is dilute the high quality of what
remains. On Bummed
Out Christmas! (1989), though, even one of the new tracks is a winner ("Somebody Stole My
Santa Claus Suit," featuring Dan Hicks), leaving us with ten uniformly depressing (though frequently
comical) yuletide laments. Divorce, incarceration, murder, several cases of drunk driving, and "Viet
Cong all around me" - the weather outside is, indeed, frightful.
Albums
- Bummed Out Christmas (1989)
Essential Songs
- Christmas Eve Can Kill You (Everly Brothers, 1972)
- Christmas In Jail (The Youngsters, 1956)
- Christmas In Viet Nam (Johnny & Jon, 1966)
-
Christmas Spirit?? (Wailers) Top 100 Song [close]
-
Don't Believe In Christmas (Sonics) Top 100 Song [close]
- Lonely Christmas Call (George Jones, 1962)
- Santa Came Home Drunk (Clyde Lasley & The Cadillac Baby, 1960)
- Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit (Christmas Jug Band, 1987)
- Who Said There Ain't No Santa Claus (Ron Holden, 1960)
- Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas? (Staple Singers, 1970)