Tiny Tim's Christmas Album (Rounder)

There is something more than a little surreal about the way Americans "celebrate" Christmas, so the holiday practically demands a soundtrack with a little strangeness and a dab of humor. These four discs from the camp fringe do the trick: "Space-Age Bachelor Pad" from Mexican dawn-of-stereo visionary/composer Esquivel is the oddest and best of the bunch, collecting tracks from 1959-62 loaded up on bizarro effects (docked a half-star for its 28-minute length). Arthur Lyman's "With a Christmas Vibe" is also drenched in Tiki bar exotica, a Kris Kringle-in-Maui feast for the ears. And any holiday record that features typically sly, even jaded, performances by purring Peggy Lee and Dean Martin, as does "Christmas Cocktails," can't be all bad. The late Tiny Tim's effort is, depending on your tolerance for the ukulele-strumming performer, a camp masterpiece or nightmare, particularly his falsetto disembowelment of "O Holy Night" and a fire-and-brimstone "Silent Night" in which he intones, "All ye hypocrites..."

Friday, December
Source:Greg Kot Chicago Tribune
Reproduced according to "Fair Use"