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Dylan's Christmas Album: First Listen!
12:19 PM GMT 13/10/2009
Christmas In The Heart: candy cane or Yule log? Michael Simmons decides... kinda.
SANTA DROPPED BOB DYLAN's Christmas album down MOJO's chimney last night, and as we celebrated with premature mince pies and stollen it provided plenty of food for thought.
Overall, it's without a doubt the most minor and oddest record in Bob's canon. The 15 selections are all straightforward Christmas standards and there's a cognitive dissonance on hearing He Who Gargles With Battery Acid backed by what sound like the Anita Kerr Singers. That Dylan's voice is shot (albeit poignantly so) isn't as glaring when he sings If You Ever Go To Houston; it's when he attempts Winter Wonderland. And throughout Christmas In The Heart Dylan makes Tom Waits sound like Antony Hegarty.
Moreover, the mixture of kitsch and reverence is surreal, referencing both his jokey Theme Time Radio Hour persona and the Born-Again Bob's true believer trip, reinforced by graphics that include the Three Wise Men as well as Bettie Page in a scanty Santa get-up.
The two songs that thoroughly work are Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Must Be Santa. The former has an inherent melancholia that suits Dylan's shredded throat and the latter is animated by David Hidalgo's jaunty Tex-Mex squeezebox, giving it a polka feel that resonates with the Eastern European immigrant communities of Dylan's Minnesota childhood. And The Christmas Blues boasts a soulful mouth harp solo by Sonny Boy Zimmerman.
If he'd played it less straight - more like his pal Eddie Gorodetsky's legendary Christmas anthologies - it might've been stronger. We would've recommended Robbie Robertson's haunting Christmas Must Be Tonight and Commander Cody's tongue-in-cheek Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas. Or perhaps a duet with Amy Winehouse on The Pogues' A Fairytale Of New York. But then Bob always has to do it his way and, for better and worse, that's why we love him.
Tony Garnier, George Recile, and Donnie Herron (nice Hawaiian steel, Don) from the road band are here, as well as Hidalgo, jazz and soul legend Phil Upchurch on guitar, and studio vet Patrick Warren on piano, organ, and lots of celeste (naturally - it jingles like bells). There are seven background vocalists including Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald of L.A.-based Hot Licks-like duo The Ditty Bops, although there's nary a swung phrase here.
For one, Dylan biographer Larry "Ratso" Sloman digs it. He calls it "The Self Portrait of the 21st Century" and explains that "in context, I loved Self Portrait even though it was reviled by so many." (he's not alone) Sloman's Dylanological interpretation is that "Bob is the ghost of Christmas past beckoning us back to a time when 'peace on earth, goodwill to all' was still considered to be a possibility." Hey, who says Dylan no longer protests?
In all fairness, 100 per cent of the artist's royalties from the sale of this album will go to charity in perpetuity. Internationally, The World Food Programme and Crisis UK will benefit; in the US it will be Feeding America, which guarantees 1.4 million Americans will get fed this holiday season. All Dylan fans should show solidarity with Bob's mensch-mindedness and throw a few shekels down for the needy.
Furthermore, how often do we really listen to Christmas albums? Even classics like Phil Spector's or James Brown's? We suspect that most people spin these platters for no more than a week - if that. Yes, we will play this record over the holidays, as much to praise the Imp Of The Perverse as Jesus and Santa. And if MOJO wasn't privy to review copies, would we still buy it?
You're damn straight. Merry Christmas!
By Michael Simmons
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 12:19 PM GMT 13/10/2009
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I expected a stronger album. but is good, is what we have. Always bob ..,
Posted by gramofonico at 6:43 PM GMT 13/10/2009 Report Abuse
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Can't wait to get it...reat review!
Posted by stonesryan at 5:27 AM GMT 14/10/2009 Report Abuse
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Being a Dylan fan, I got the CD yesterday; and it is obvious that the album is not a masterpiece! lol. It may be nice for little children though. Anyway, Bob Dylan has NOTHING to prove today. The review will not make any difference. He is one of the greatest artists ever, period.
However, I think everybody should spend 10$ for this charity work; it is not that much after all, and it will certainly help many people getting through a less terrible winter. Even if the CD box will quickly go to oblivion on one of your shelves.
Posted by FM at 3:32 PM GMT 14/10/2009 Report Abuse
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I'll certainly buy it; it's Bob, and it's for charity. Can't lose, really. Knowing Bob, they'll at least one yuletide tune he's recorded but left in the vaults that's an absolute blinder.
I hope he throws a few of the songs into his concert set lists; to hear Here Comes Santa in between Masters of War and Tangled Up in Blue would be beyond surreal!
Posted by HappyGrinch at 6:27 AM GMT 15/10/2009 Report Abuse
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I've always loved Christmas music but some pseudo-intellectual "real" music fans gawf at it. "We can't wait 'til it's over so we don't have to listen to that crap" they grumble every year. You see, these people are too cool for Christmas and they use the commercial aspect of it to justify how right they are (in their own minds). Well, lo-and-behold, Bob digs Christmas music too. Now everybody is trying to figure out where they stand on this. HA! I'm so glad Bob has done this record! If anything, it confuses all the nay-sayers into either knocking Bob or admitting they actually like a Christmas album. Well, I for one, being a life-long Dylan fan as well as being uncool for liking Christmas music, will play this every year along with Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, Elvis, The Beach Boys and every other recording artist who isn't "too cool for Christmas". I love it!
Posted by Scott Relf at 6:25 PM GMT 15/10/2009 Report Abuse
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HA HA! See what I mean?
Posted by Scott Relf at 7:20 PM GMT 15/10/2009 Report Abuse
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this is a great cd because it pushes it audience to do something, you can laugh if you like, you can sing along if you like, you can enjoy it as you may but you have given over something for charity so you have helped someone else. Mr Dylan has no worries about how this will be received, Feeding people is more important than any person's derision of some ones work of art, and Art is what this is , the production, the arrangements fit him like a glove. Some songs party , some move you, some drive like a bus, all in all they are there to be enjoyed. Could you say it was his gift to you? yes if you feel it to be so, the money will feed those you may never know or see, and if any one person who buy's this album also puts their hand in their pockets and gives again to some charity then Mr Dylan will have won, not because he pushed you, because you pushed yourself to help others.
Posted by Ray H, England at 8:35 PM GMT 15/10/2009 Report Abuse
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What is this "we" crap, album reviewer jive inanity or poppingjay editorial gas emission?
Anyone ever heard of rock and roll?
And no, you wouldn't buy it, liar. We may have been born again but we weren't born again yesterday. If you're so big on we us handing out "shekels" this season, why don't you give your copy to some gutter drunk who might for some absurd reasons like this ersatz crap music if he wasn't getting paid to please the label and then follow through and go buy it, deluxe edition with the extras, for charity, of course?
Didn't think so.
Just give the money straight to the charity and leave Columbia lawyers and accountants out of the equation. Suckers.
This is a terrible fake retro job that would have slurped fifty years ago and is positively retarded today. A thousand entertainers have done better holiday recordings. Cindy Lauper for Christ's sake shoots bullets through this dreck.
Only those lost dundering dittoheads who savor Booby's sellouts to advertising agencies and banks and defend his constant plagiarisms would find this abortion on their December playlist. There's literally a 1,000 better choices available, and to the royal "we" fact checkers, "we" listen to holiday music from November to January.
The insecure Jewish boy could have easily done a great job, as you begin to indicate, but he dialed in a turd from L.A., for charity, of course.
Good bit of reportage citing Sloman. Has his tongue been ANYwhere OUTside of Bob's rectum since the Ford administration?
Silly Mojo.
Posted by Bah Rump A Dump Dumb at 10:38 PM GMT 15/10/2009 Report Abuse
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Let's give Bob D. a break. ...after all, he is a living legend with a voice that is all his own. So what if getting older has done some re-arranging of his vocal skills. The man is in his 60s for pete's sake. When a legend still lives and moves among us, we should praise them for all the good music they've given us and not be so petty to think that we are so qualified to put him down!
I WiLL buy the album despite what all the lame-brain haters say!!!
Jyo
Posted by Anonymous at 12:11 PM GMT 19/10/2009 Report Abuse
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I take some umbrage with Christmas must be tonight as "Robbie's" song. Its a fantastic song but without the other members of The Band it would be nothing, don't get me wrong I'm a huge Band fan and fan of Robbie and consider him one of the greatest guitar players ever butI think it should have been noted as The Band's song Christmas must be tonight.
Posted by SonofLazerface at 8:24 PM GMT 21/10/2009 Report Abuse
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Isn't Dylan a Jew? He did not celebrate Christmas growing up so the title of Christmas in the Heart should perhaps be more realistically titled Christmas in the Music Industry. Wonder what it was like doing the studio work in April to make the October launch date. Something has happened here and you don't now what it is do you Mr. Jones.
Posted by Roger at 10:09 PM GMT 25/10/2009 Report Abuse
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This is just as bad as Billy Idol's Christmas album a couple of years back. Come on. It's just bad. Sure, it's provocative. But it provokes a discussion about the biz and about aesthetics, just like John Cage's silent piece always does.And of course, there's always Dylan-the Chameleon to discuss. But as a Christmas album, blech. As an album, execrable. But I collect Christmas albums-- Slim Whitman, Perry como-- so I will definitely buy this one.
Posted by ad at 11:41 PM GMT 07/11/2009 Report Abuse
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This album is really quirky and amusing. It has never been about Dylan's voice-- it is about his choices. We are very non-Christmas in tradition. Last year we had a party and the every age crowd stayed into the wee hours to view WHAT WHAT JESUS BUY? and MICKEY MOUSE MONOPOLY and then discuss. We plan to purchase this album because Dylan chose to do it and we will never know why but we do know that he chose to feed people with all profits and nothing could be more "christ" like. From a non-christian-- this is Dylan's loaves and fish miracle. Amen Bro Bobby-- who knows what it is like to be the instrument of the god voice ( How those songs came through him in the '60s).
Posted by Dianna Morton at 2:52 AM GMT 14/11/2009 Report Abuse
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