Various Artists - Merry Luxmas ~ It's Christmas In Crampsville: Season's Gratings From The Cramps' Vinyl Basement

Some of the songs on this "special interest" seasonal item come from a cassette compiled by the much-missed Lux Interior which he called, well, it rhymes with the title of this review, but you know how sensitive Amazon are about langwitch, so I'm not taking any chances.So it's a collection of ancient Christmas novelties, mostly from the realms of blues, R&B when it meant R&B and the popular end of jazz, which basically means songs that are either about being drunk or which sound like the artists were actually drunk at the time of recording. Or both. If that's leading you to expect sax solos which inevitably quote "Jingle Bells" (leaving you with the impression there was only one tenor player in 1950s R&B and he played on every single release in the genre for the entirety of the decade), well, your glowing red nose is in perfect working order. There's also a side order of pure novelty records which may well leave you losing the will to live: step forward Spike Jones's version of "O Christmas Tree" (known within my family as "O Christmas Tree My Maryland, we'll keep the Red Flag flying here") and Gayla Peevey's "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". Either of these is entirely worth the price of admission whilst leaving you with the determination to avoid them for the rest of your life. Go figure.In other words, it's a seasonal compilation of shameless festive exploitation that features exactly the sort of Christmas records you'd imagine Lux Interior would love, and it's entirely adorable. Every track here (with the exception of the closing "Did You Spend Christmas In Jail", a scary gospel sermon from Rev JM Gates, and the Cool Breezes' exquisite ballad "Let Christmas Ring") is a masterpiece of naked opportunism, but strangely adorable because of its insincerity. Perhaps it's because the artists and producers know the audience is in on the gag, so it all avoids the appalling, cynical pandering of the likes of "Last Christmas". So if you fancy a few Yuletide selections but want to get away from the inevitable, this may well be just what you need.That said, if, like the present reviewer, you're strangely intrigued by obscure Christmas records and already have multiple copies of Louis Armstrong's "Zat You Santa Claus", The Youngsters' "Christmas In Jail" and the Cadillacs' version of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" (the best version ever, though on the ladder of human endeavour that's one of the lower-quartile rungs), well, relax, knock back an eggnog and accept the fact you need them again. Because here they come with The Marquees' "Christmas In The Congo" and you have no idea how much you need The Marquees' "Christmas In The Congo".