Krappy Xmas Muzak

I've been tormenting a few of my closest friends for about 6 years now. Just about every Xmas, I make a holiday CD with the shittiest music I can find. Actually they're not all shitty. It's a combination of humor, crap and "so bad it's good" stuff. The trouble is that it's often impossible to tell which is supposed to be good and which is bad. Yup, they're that bad usually.

I can honestly say that I have more Christmas music than anyone I know. I keep them all in this crappy box (they don't deserve to be in a CD rack) and pull them out when I work on making the CD each year. I usually scour record stores and department stores after the holidays when all this crap is marked down too.

Anyway, this year I scored a couple of gems, Christmas on The Ponderosa and Christmas with the Brady Bunch. Pure crap although the Brady's didn't make the final cut on to the CD this year. It's always good to have something in reserve for next year.

Here's the final, finished, crappy CD (entitled "Still Crappy After All These Years"):

1. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town / Ray Charles
This one is actually good because I found that if I start people with too bad of a stinker, they can't make it through the rest of the album. Yes, they're that bad.

2. All I Want For Christmas Is You / Olivia Olson
This is from Love Actually and this girl really has some pipes.

3. Let's Put Christ Back In Christmas / Pat Godwin
Pat's a guitar comic who is very funny. This starts with "Frosty the Snowman was Jesus Christ's best friend." An instant classic.

4. Christmas Is All Around / Billy Mack
Also from Love Actually, Billy Mack is the character Bill Nighy plays as a washed up, has been rock and roller who comes back with a Christmas single in an attempt to revive his career. He steals the movie.

5. Another Rock 'n' Roll Christmas / Garry Glitter
This may be so subtle no one gets it (but then, often the jokes are just for me). Putting Garry Glitter right after Billy Mack is a not so funny reference to the washed up rocker (Garry not Billy) who was awaiting trial in Vietnam on charges of sleeping with girls below the age of consent. The ultimate penalty, if convicted, may be death by firing squad. Classy.

6. Deck The Halls / Dan Blocker
This one really sucks. Hoss is way off key and because he talks so slowly, he can't get all of the Fa La La La's out on most of the lines so it become Fa La La. Painful to experience in person.

7. The Christmas Story / Larry The Cable Guy
Just a funny monologue, but he actually refers to the Baby Bejeezus. I'm throwing folks a bone after having to endure Hoss's singing. Plus it's kind of a bumpkin juxtaposition going on.

8. Last Night (I Went Out With Santa Claus) / Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Finally another good one, but it does talk about going out partying with Santa. So even the good ones are pretty inappropriate for holidays.

9. The Little Drummer Boy / Johnny Cash
The Man in Black actually did an entire Christmas album. This is an exceptionally bad track because he kind of talks his way through it and the drums are really lame. This may have been when he was on heroin. He sounds like Mr. Ed and is just a bit too slow in the whole song.

10. Christmas On TV / Chris Isaak
A good one again and seemingly an original composition as well. This is also foreshadowing of the major tv motif that is to come. Yes, another too subtle reference which no one but me will get.

11. The Chanukah Song / Adam Sandler
A funny one and not that new, but I needed a bridge to the whole Hebrew thing that is coming.

12. A Goyisha Hanukkah / Pat Godwin (more comedy to lessen the blow that is to come)
Another swell Pat song. This one features boyfriend and girlfriend experiencing cross cultural holidays with each others' families.

13. Santa Got Lost In Texas / Michael Landon [aka Little Joe]
No one will get this. Michael Landon was half Jewish. I don't remember which parent it was, but he was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in Queens, New York. Most folks will just think this song is incredibly crappy--and they're right.

14. Linus And Lucy / Vince Guaraldi Trio
This is from the Charlie Brown Christmas special and you've probably heard it a million times. If you don't know it, hit Track 4.

15. The Christmas Blues / Dean Martin
The man can really sing and I've never heard this song before. I'd probably label it as a good one.

16. I've Had A Very Merry Christmas / Jerry Lewis
And this man really can't sing. This will make you appreciate how annoying Jerry was when doing his Nutty Professor shtick. This song will make you understand why Deano drank.

17. Santa Clothes / Dean & Jerry
This is actually Bob & Tom doing dead on impressions of the former comedy team. And it's funny one about Santa cross-dressing. I just like how I was able to work a Dean, a Jerry and a Dean & Jerry in together. Again, a joke just for me.

18. Mr. Heatmiser / Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
We're into a tv motif here. Not the original from the special, "The Year Without a Santa Claus" but instead a great cover. BBVD rocks it.

19. You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch / Brian Setzer
Another great cover. I'm feeling sorry for folks here after subjecting them to Johnny Cash and Dan Blocker. Otherwise there's no way they get two good songs in a row.

20. Frosty The Snowman / Jimmy Durante
The original from the special. A real charmer which should bring back memories. A quick tangent, when my roomie in school grew a moustache, he looked exactly like the evil magician.

21. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town / Fred Astaire
Another original. It's still amazing to me that someone best known for his dancing is most well known to our generation as a claymation figure who sang.

22. The Evil Santa / Gilda Radner, Bill Murray
A sketch from when they were with the National Lampoon. Gilda plays a little girl who keeps asking Santa for toys and Bill just keeps saying no. Includes the famous phrase "Trap Door" when he dumps her off his lap.

23. Rockabilly Christmas / Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Opens with "Santa's got his hair all piled high, swinging his sleigh right through the sky." And you can actually get the chorus stuck in your head. "Rock, rock, rockabilly Christmas." All we need are Jon and Vince for a little swing dancing.

24. Gather Round / Earth Wind & Fire (really bad)
There's something amazingly funny and jarring about EW&F doing a Christmas song. The bass and trumpets are especially odd. Funk and the holidays. Rock on.

25. Blue Christmas / Chris Isaak
A slightly off-kilter take on the Elvis classic. I probably should have put this next to Rockabilly Christmas, but it's even more jarring after Earth, Wind & Fire.

26. Christmas Commentary / Larry The Cable Guy
Larry eventually comes to the conclusion that if you don't participate in Christmas, you shouldn't be able to participate in the advantage of low Christmas prices. "Half off is only for believers of Jesus." Oh, and the Three Wise Men should be allowed to drink beer at the live nativity scenes.

Rock on, kids. If you've got worse ones than these, please let me know.