How to listen to the CCA
While I'm revisiting Posts of Christmas Past, let me add something to my dog-eared review of the classic album "A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records," the legendary Phil Spector production that around my childhood house was respectfully known as "the colored Christmas album."
Today while listening to it again, and having a great time, I realized that there's a secret connected to the album. Namely, there is only one way to play it. And that's to put it on at the beginning and play it straight through. No multi-album "shuffle" with anything else mixed in. No picking up a track on the radio between songs by other artists (or even worse, a bunch of commercials).
No, it's track 1 (side 1, cut 1, in the old parlance), then 2, then 3, and so on. Any other strategy will detract from the beauty and power of this recording. If you need a break, take it where the old side 1 ended, after Darlene Love's "Marshmallow World."
The one modern improvement I'll grant you for this one is the subwoofer. Spector, Sonny Bono, Leon Russell and the boys in the band were not afraid to get some great licks in along the bottom. And turn it up a little. Pay attention. By the time Love starts belting out "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home") (track 11) -- if not before -- you'll be where you need to get.
| Posted at 4:12 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
I've always thought the best part was the creepy Phil Spector talking at the end.
Posted by Linda | December 8, 2005 7:36 PM
...[T]here is only one way to play it. And that's to put it on at the beginning and play it straight through. No multi-album "shuffle" with anything else mixed in. No picking up a track on the radio between songs by other artists (or even worse, a bunch of commercials).
If memory serves, your idea is the very definition of what constitutes an "album" -- you know, the not-so random offering of a dozen or so songs related to one another, presented in an ordered, aural tableau that might move and compel listeners in the same way a play or novel might change, motivate or annoy their viewers.
Yes, lots of so-called albums over the years have been crapitalized compilations of singles. But there once was a time when the entirety of an album sang another song, perhaps even told a story. You'd never know it now, especially in these iPod-driven "personal music" times when the personal jukebox means more than a connection to another person.
Another sign'o the times, Jack.
Posted by Worldwide Pablo | December 9, 2005 12:05 AM
I've always thought the best part was the creepy Phil Spector talking at the end.
"Creepy" hardly begins to describe it. "And as I sit before the Yule log, thinking fondly about how I will now seduce one of the teen singers, I look forward to a special time when I will beat her within an inch of her life."
Another sign 'o the times, Jack.
Yep. In the old days, side 2 cut 1 had to be good -- perhaps the second catchiest tune on the album. Nowadays you stack 'em in reverse order of hit potential right from track 1, because you lose listeners with every song. As a result, the flow tends to get weaker and weaker.
Posted by Jack Bog | December 9, 2005 5:04 AM
It's funny -- you posted about this record on the same day a friend of mine (who's making me up a package of Christmas music) asked me if I had it, so I got two opportunities in the same day to discuss Incredibly Creepy And Holiday-Inappropriate Phil Spector. Who wishes you a Merry Christmas from jail.
Posted by Linda | December 9, 2005 12:21 PM