Customer Reviews

Christmas Spanking

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

 

 

I found a copy of this CD in a used CD store and had to listen to it because of the name. I was VERY pleasantly surprised. This is NOT your typical Christmas album, but it is A LOT of fun. I played it at work and it became a hit there as well. From a rousing rendition of "grinch" to a very catchy version of the Peanuts christmas tune, you'll be very entertained. And if you've ever wondered where to get "Silent Night" played on the saw, well here it is.

Leave it to the Spankers to cash in on Christmas in a way that doesn't pile on the warm and fuzzies or insult our intelligence. Though I was initially suspicious of the band's motives, I now think that this album deserved to be made. Not only is it more musically adventurous and more varied than anything the Spankers have done before, it also confronts and accepts the ambivalence most of us feel about the holiday season, while still imparting loads of warmth and joy. It's great that they didn't just go the silly route or the sappy route. Instead, the Spankers managed to make a holiday album that 's both a lot of fun and rewarding to a careful listener. And Christina's "Blue Christmas" is devastating.

A Christmas Spanking is a refreshingly original Christmas album. It's not original in the sense of creating new Christmas songs; just some new interpretations of songs that you probably already know. The one original song, "12.25.61", is just a silly song by the lead singer (who simply goes by the name of Whammo) about having his birthday fall on Christmas day. The album was recorded live at a Christmas concert, so the recording quality tends to be a little muddy and the audience is occasionally distracting, but this just adds to the off-the-cuff feeling of the album.
Some of the highlights include "Mr. Grinch" which switches musical styles several times during the song, a bluesy version of "Rudolph", the Charlie Brown classic "Linus and Lucy" where the piano is replaced by a harmonica, and a ukulele version of "Blue Christmas" (it sounds strange, but it really works). Not everything works that well; their "Zat You, Santa Claus?" just can't come close to the Louis Armstrong original, and "Silent Night" on the musical saw sounds like it's about a baby born in a haunted house, not a manger. But overall, this is a fun record by a talented band that makes old-fashioned music sound good today.

These beatnik pranksters swing, jump and jive all over tradition; they tackle the Dr. Seuss and Charles Schultz canon, turn "Silent Night" into an eerie nocturne for a musical saw, and recast "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" as if it were discovered on the Robert Johnson box set.

I own five Christmas albums. Elvis, Bing Crosby, Mantovani, Roger Whitacker, and this one. This one is the best. Fresh takes on some standards, and other wonderful new songs. I'm not the most unbiased of reveiwers, as I own all of the Spankers' albums.

The Asylum Street Spankers are a band that plays music in an irreverent, "old timey" acoustic style. This Christmas album was recorded live over two days in 2000 (although the last song on the album is not a live recording). The songs are all covers of older songs, with the exception of "12.25.61", in which bandleader Wammo laments having his birthday fall on Christmas day. This is a very fun, unique Christmas album.