tellmemomma1966 wrote:
theme time is one of my absolute favourite things in the world. it's funny, touching, informative, and full of really great music. bob also makes a really incredible presenter in so many ways, i can't begin to describe it really. just brilliant, one of the best things in my musical world. haven't listened to all of it yet, i listen to a few episodes a week on average, sometimes less, sometimes more. i'm gonna listen to all of them before i revisit any. love it.
christmas in the heart, on the other hand, is one of the worst albums i have ever heard and one of the musical experiences i've had which i wish i could simply erase from memory, and ideally reclaim the time that it wasted and instead listen to something else. but i can't, and it sticks firmly in my mind as one of the most saddeningly awful things i've ever heard. i'm aware that there is a cultural divide between me and bob which prevents me from engaging with the record to some extent - i'm not american, am only eighteen, and have grown up in an environment where christmas was celebrated mostly just because everybody else did and it was an excuse to have a big family party of the sort that could only happen if there was a special occasion for it - there was nothing special about christmas for me except that it was the time of year that had been chosen to be the special one (not that this made it any less good or special). i'm not familiar with or fond of american christmas music. there seems to be some special thing in the album that i'm missing, that i'm unable to connect with. regardless, the thing just sounds so awful to me, to put it plainly. the contrast between the saccharine backing (which sounds to me like the instrumental music that they play here at supermarkets and shopping centres around christmas time) and dylan's croaky unmusical singing is too much for me to bear.
the christmas episodes of theme time serves the same purpose much better, so far as i can see. despite the aforementioned cultural gap, i finish listening to the christmas episodes feeling like i have empathised greatly with a warm feeling that comes from the christmas tradition, as expressed in a variety of interesting musical forms. i finished listening to cith feeling really alone and scared and confused, and hadn't learned anything much, other than not to listen to it again.
this is just my view; if you love christmas in the heart then good on you, it would be pretty stupid of me to hate you for liking something that i don't
Dude , you don't have to believe in Christmas or even be familiar to them. I hate religion and love CITH . Frankly , i don't think Bob is so familiar to the American christmas traditions either , him being raised as a Jew...
Anyway , there's no point in arguing i guess , if you say Dylan's singing is bad . We just hear different things . Dylan's voice is poetry to me , and i'm tired of people saying it's bad. Of course it's technically not good but who cares ? I don't care about a
good voice like Adele's or something like that. I mean i respect it , but i just don't care about it .
Most of the singers that i love have odd voices and are considered by many to be unalble to sing. (Leonard Cohen , Tom Waits , Patti Smith etc )
Anyway , my point is : what you're saying is not special . It's too obvious .
An old guy with a very peculiar voice singing joyfull songs about Christmas . The idea sounds funny , provocative and bad . 99% of the people i know would see it that way . You have to look deeper than that , otherwise you're missing the point.
I wouldn't argue but i see you dig TTRH and that's cool. It means you dig Dylan's trolling because you see it's so ... honest
So give another listen to CITH with an open mind !