More Beatles-related tomfoolery, this all-instrumental album recasts 12 Christmas standards as the tunes on a Bizarro World version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Essentially, Tom Marolda of the band The Toms lays the arrangements from the various songs off "Pepper" over the Christmas songs. So we get "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" done as both versions of "Sgt. Pepper," "The Christmas Song" as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" as "Getting Better," and so on, until we get to a medley of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Good King Wenceslas" in place of "A Day in the Life." He maintains the playing order of the original album for dramatic effect as well. While this is an imaginative idea and the album is listenable, the dramatic effect of the juxtapositions is minimal to these ears. Possibly this is the site's prejudice in favor of vocal music manifesting here, but there's a certain "Eureka!" factor we get when listening to the Rubber Band doing "Mary's Boy Child" as "Nowhere Man" that none of the songs on this album can duplicate. Nevertheless, this is fun to have around, and two bonus tracks, "Fake Christmas" by The Toms and "Surviving Christmas" by Horizontal Ladies Club, are good power pop that add value to this CD. UPDATE: Amazon only has collector's prices, but Not Lame appears to still have it in stock at popular prices.
St. Nick's Christmas, The Lonely Hearts Band (Not Lame)
More Beatles-related tomfoolery, this all-instrumental album recasts 12 Christmas standards as the tunes on a Bizarro World version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Essentially, Tom Marolda of the band The Toms lays the arrangements from the various songs off "Pepper" over the Christmas songs. So we get "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" done as both versions of "Sgt. Pepper," "The Christmas Song" as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" as "Getting Better," and so on, until we get to a medley of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Good King Wenceslas" in place of "A Day in the Life." He maintains the playing order of the original album for dramatic effect as well. While this is an imaginative idea and the album is listenable, the dramatic effect of the juxtapositions is minimal to these ears. Possibly this is the site's prejudice in favor of vocal music manifesting here, but there's a certain "Eureka!" factor we get when listening to the Rubber Band doing "Mary's Boy Child" as "Nowhere Man" that none of the songs on this album can duplicate. Nevertheless, this is fun to have around, and two bonus tracks, "Fake Christmas" by The Toms and "Surviving Christmas" by Horizontal Ladies Club, are good power pop that add value to this CD. UPDATE: Amazon only has collector's prices, but Not Lame appears to still have it in stock at popular prices.
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