Saturday, November 26, 2005

Never Judge A Record By It's Cover


You've no doubt heard the adage of the title of this post, or at least heard it applied to books. In this case, the cover is much better than the contents. This great cover that looks like a yuletide rip-off of Disney's It's A Small World ride conceals a typical string laden Christmas snooze-fest. They couldn't even bother with getting the info on the front and back covers to match, and then the label is different from either of those. And don't get me started on the typos and grammatical errors in the song titles! It's a shoddy production all around. That said, I have to admit I liked a couple of the tracks on side two. So why don't you download 101 Strings-Christmas Moods (Somerset SF-71000, 1964), and let me know what you think. The cover below is from a reissue. At least the title on the front of this one matches what the record says, 101 Strings-The Glory Of Christmas (Alshire XM-4, 1980). There was a CD release with the same name some time ago, but it appears to be long out of print. You won't mistake this scratchy LP copy for that CD version, don't worry. I love that original cover though! (If the picture above looks a little familiar to some of you old-timers, it's because I shared a detail of it back in August.)

1 comment:

  1. This is one I've been meaning to rip myself. We had the one with the blue cover when I was growing up. It never sank in quite as much as The Mike Sammes Singers or The Hollyridge Strings (for obvious reasons). Still, it brings back lots of memories.

    There is another cover from another release. I don't have mine scanned, but you can see it here:

    The Glory of Christmas

    Thanks, Ernie!

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