Customer Reviews

Billboard Rock N Roll Christmas

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Now if only Billboard put out volumes 2, 3, etc. or at least added more to this one; however; it is a great r&r Christmas collection and sounds great at home, in the car or at your office party!

I'm not sure how these particular songs came to be chosen for this CD. The Billboard CD series supposedly features the highest charting songs, based on the Billboard music charts. Well, most of the songs on this particular CD didn't make the Billboard charts at all! Only the Billy Squire, Beach Boys, Canned Heat and Cheech & Chong tracks actually charted. They really should have included Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)", but they probably were unable to license those particular songs. But to be fair, Billboard didn't have Christmas charts every year, so many of the songs here probably would have charted if Billboard published Christmas charts during the years the songs came out. Regardless of all that, this is a good collection of rock and roll Christmas songs. Not perfect, by any means, but still a solid collection.

A couple harder to find classic rockers"Queen","Foghat",and "Canned Heat" make it a good pick.Packaged with many very good standards by which all rock n' roll yule tuneage should be judged is party delight.Besides the finale takes you back to a time when you cared less and a smile came easy.

I almost forgot I have this CD. It's a little short on substance, only 10 songs, but about half of them are rare and hard to find, those being:

Thank God It's Christmas - Queen
All I Want For Christmas is You - Foghat
Christmas at Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic
Christmas Blues - Canned Heat
Santa Claus & His Old Lady - Cheech & Chong

The Weird Al song sounds like something on a Bob Rivers or Dr. Demento album. I like the Queen song as well. The others not mentioned above are pretty much standards, The Beach Boys, the Dave Edmunds Band, etc. It's a nice selection, but they could have added a few more songs to it. It could be a Top 12 or even a Top 15 collection.

I've gotta find this CD which is somewhere in my house. One other thing, when you play the last song by Cheech & Chong, make sure there aren't any little kids around.

Love just about every song on the CD. One of the best Christmas albums/CD's ever !

I am so glad to get this CD. I have the cassett but no tape player LOL. I am 65 and both daughters and I love this CD. Only one song I dont like ( Ground Zero). I had this CD in a couple of days after I ordered it and I thank you very much . I am computer dumb and dont know what # 5 tag this product means Sorry.

I shouldn't have bought this because I dont' even listen to it anymore. I bought it cuz Queen was on it and other good songs but that was it. Most of the songs weren't really great.

This is a good CD, especially for $10. Rock and roll Christmas songs are great, although I would prefer all the classics in rock and roll on a CD... But Christmas at Ground Zero is the best Christmas song ever, hands down. With lyrics like: "We can dodge debris while we trim the tree, underneath the mushroom cloud," this song is awesome. Go ahead and pick this up for the holidays!

This is one a series of "budget" releases covering various aspects of Christmas to be released over the years by Rhino/Wea in conjunction with Billboard, all with 10-tracks each and liner notes in the form of track-by-track comments. Sound quality is generally good to excellent. All have "Billboard" as part of the title.

Some others are: Family Christmas Classics; Top Christmas Hymns; R&B Christmas Hits; Greatest Country Christmas Hits; and Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present), and Christmas Hits (1935-1954). Some of the foregoing are also offered in 4-pack and 5-pack editions. In essence, some of these are the one you have to have if you want to recapture the delightful seasonal sounds of your childhood (assuming you're old enough to recall the periods covered).

This one, however, seems to have been thrown together under the theme "R&R Christmas" without a lot of thought given to the 10 tracks in that regard. For starters, I certainly don't think that either Weird Al Yankovic's Christmas At Ground Zero or Cheech & Chong's Santa Claus And His Old Lady can be construed as R&R. They are both funny, and the last one even charted over four different seasons (1971 to 1973 and 1998), but it seems they would have been better placed in a volume dealing with Novelty cuts. There are certainly enough like that to fill out a 10-track release.

Among the rest, the ones most are likely to recall are Christmas Is The Time To Say "I Love You" by Billy Squier, which reached # 9 on the Billboard Christmas Charts in 1984, Little Saint Nick by The Beach Boys, a # 3 in 1963 and # 6 in 1964, and Canned Heat's Christmas Blues, a # 18 in 1968. None of the others will likely trigger any memories, especially the obscure version of All I Want For Christmas Is You by Foghat, although I must say it's hard to believe that Rock And Roll Christmas by George Thorogood & The Destroyers did not make any charts when it first came out!

Hard to figure why they didn't fill out the album with true R&R Christmas tunes like Bryan Adams' Christmas Time (# 4 in 1985), Jingle Bells by Booker T. & The MG's (# 20 in 1966), Please Come Home For Christmas by The Eagles (# 18 in 1978), and The Man With All The Toys by The Beach Boys (# 3 in 1964). Now THAT would have made this a 5-star entry.

There is much to commend "Billboard Rock N Roll Christmas," starting with the opening track of Queen's "Thank God It's Christmas." Billy Squier's "Christmas is the Time to Say 'I Love You'" and George Thorogood & the Destroyer's "Rock and Roll Christmas" certainly get the place hopping. But then we have Weird Al Yankovic's "Christmas at Ground Zero." Now, I love Weird Al and I know all the words to this song, but it is just out of place in this collection (and I have expressed similar concerns on other Christmas collections when a novelty song is thrown into the mix). Then we are back on track with Foghart and some old chestnuts that have been roasting on the fire for a long time with offerings from the Kinks, the Beach Boys, and Canned Heat. Then we have Cheech & Chong's "Santa Claus and His Old Lady" routine. At least coming at the end of the album it is not as much of a distraction, but I find it impossible to believe Billboard could not have come up with a couple of other choice rock 'n' roll Christmas songs without the comedy. Those caveats aside, this is a solid little Christmas rock collection that should easily add five songs worth having to your music library, not to mention a classic Cheech & Chong routine.