Brian Wilson - What I Really Want For Christmas

[Rocker]

I was just going to write something about giving Brian's Christmas album a fresh listen this year and repeat again how it's usually due for a re-evaluation (or at least a re-listen) because it's so damned good as far as holiday albums go. Then it turns out I already did it here 6 years ago (and before that too) and what I wanted to say is already there! The only thing is the old playlist is defunct but this album is fairly easy to access and listen on any of the usual streams and to purchase a hard copy too.

I still think it's an almost criminally overlooked and underrated Christmas album with some great sounds and performances, and it's worth a listen this year too among all the holiday music being spun. And as mentioned in the discussion above, some of the videos surrounding the release are definitely worth checking out too. Brian and band knocked this one out of the park, and why some of these tracks are not being spun on the 24/7 Christmas stations and streams more frequently is a mystery to me.

Yes, it is a great album imo. The first album Brian released after Smile and you can immediately hear that the burden was taken off of his shoulders by the way he sings (even better things where to come). It's interesting to note that - apart from his own compositions - Brian sticks to traditional Christmas songs instead of Pop or Rock songs. It's probably the kind of music that was played in the Wilson's house during the season.
The bonus tracks are most welcome. "Joy to the World" is so beautiful. And although just a bonus track, it circles back to the new ending of "The Man with all the Toys".

[Jim V.]

I gotta say that "What I Really Want For Christmas" is just such a great Brian Wilson composition.  Just a remarkable tune. That's it.

[spgass]

Thank you for this post.  I listened to the album today while taking my dog on a nice long walk.  It was a very pleasant listen… my favorite was O Holy Night… I loved the harmonies.

[Awesoman]

It's a pretty decent Christmas album for the most part.  Although some of the songs here don't work particularly well with Brian's voice or the clunky faux-Pet Sounds production (I'm looking at you, "O Holy Night"), but what does work on here is pretty swell.  I like the new versions of "Little Saint Nick" (hard to mess that one up) and "The Man With All The Toys".  And the title track is quite pleasant.  Perhaps the best track on here though is one of the bonus tracks "On Christmas Day" which appears to be a re-rewrite of "Belles Of Paris".  Wish I could track down a vinyl copy of this one without having to pay a couple of hundreds for it. 

[HeyJude]

Wasn't this the album that got caught up in the Sony "rootkit" controversy?

While not a major deal when it came to Brian specifically, it slightly tainted a lot of releases from around that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

[guitarfool2002]

Wasn't this the album that got caught up in the Sony "rootkit" controversy?

While not a major deal when it came to Brian specifically, it slightly tainted a lot of releases from around that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

I don't recall any issues specifically with Brian's Christmas album in terms of the rootkit mess affecting sales of the album or anything similar. That's in terms of any media coverage saying if you put this specific Christmas album in your CD drive it will install a bunch of bloatware...I don't recall it even being on the radar as an issue within the fan groups online, but I could be wrong. More of an issue was the reaction of certain small and annoying pockets of fans and fan cliques who decided to bash the album online and even bash the clip (which I believe was posted as a RealMedia file, how's that for a blast from the past) which Brian posted of one of the songs, and that led to a lot of bad stuff. But that's sadly part and parcel of portions within this fan base.

I actually never had issues at all with the rootkit crap because I rarely played CDs on my PC at the time after trying to play a Michael Penn album on the PC and having it install all kinds of garbage and code under the guise of it being an "enhanced" CD-ROM that was set to autoplay and auto-load all kinds of files as soon as it booted up on the drive. And it was hard to get rid of all the various files which that CD embedded onto my PC.  After that, I always checked my CDs for such content labeled on the packaging or disc and simply wouldn't play those albums on a PC. Pretty easy fix but also not a good move from the labels who tried to tie all of that crap to consumers' discs when most had no clue what was going on or why their albums were installing random files and slowing down their PC's when they tried to listen or even convert the albums to play on portable devices.

It seems like a generation ago, but reading that old article also reminded me of when Apple pulled one of the dumbest corporate business moves when they loaded a U2 album onto users' devices without letting them know in advance, and without their permission, and it caused an uproar.

[guitarfool2002]

And just as a further comment on the possible reasons why we don't hear tracks from Brian's Christmas album in regular rotation on the various streams, streaming services, or online playlists: Not saying this is the case specifically with this album, but it may have to do with the way labels and label management of their song catalogs works and has been working. In short, it's not an honest business, not that it ever has been, but it's coming out as late as the present day in 2023 that labels and those corporate interests who run the vehicles for those labels' products can and do bury and under-report certain artists while promoting others. And it's basically a case of stacking the deck in favor of some while burying others, and the actual hard facts and numbers regarding sales and streams don't matter.

Just one example with streaming, reporting to chart services (like Billboard, etc), and all of that. What labels will do is a form of "bundling" to the major streaming services. That means they'll negotiate a deal where they'll offer a major, blue-chip artist who is guaranteed sales and click revenue if the services also take a deal on lesser or lower tier artists. So they will offer, say, Taylor Swift to a streaming network if that network also "buys" 20 lesser known artists from that label and its subsidiaries as a bundle. It's the same thing TV networks do with cable subscriptions, and now video streaming services where we have to subscribe and pay for 100 channels we don't watch and have no interest in, just to get the 2 or 3 top tier channels we do want to watch. It's why I dropped cable TV years ago to be honest.

So take that "bundling" practice, and consider that the label controls which artists get sent to the various online outlets and streaming services, and the success of those songs and artists is often a result of consumers letting their streams play at random for hours during the day instead of choosing specific songs to be played on their stream. If that label wants to promote a given artist, it's basically built into the system they have created so a person's stream might play 4 Taylor Swift songs every hour and those get tallied as individual plays rather than people actively requesting their device play a Taylor Swift song. And whatever other artists that label chooses to "bundle" into the deal will get popped onto those streams as well, whether consumers want to hear them or not. And artists who the label may have in their stable but may not be in favor as much as others can get buried by the same system, despite demand or popularity.

Then factor in that the estimate I've heard is approximately 100 to 200 streaming "clicks" or plays is equal to one actual purchase of a song on any of the sales sites like iTunes in terms of weight on the chart services. So if a label places a certain song and artist in the streaming bundle, and has however many millions of consumers playing a playlist during the day on their device and service of choice, the charts will tally those "plays" accordingly and sometimes artificially inflate those chart numbers for placement, whereas the real power financially is when consumers actually purchase the song versus having it on a random playlist where they listen to music.

Not saying this is anything new, but it may help explain why certain artists are not included on the yearly Christmas charts and playlists, while others somehow mysteriously appear everywhere.

And I love the song, always have, but isn't it odd that Brenda Lee scored a #1 "hit" in 2023 with her Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree, recorded in 1958? The song has ALWAYS been in regular rotation, for decades! And then in 2023 it suddenly becomes a story repeated and replayed on most major media outlets who also have a financial stake in these dealings?

Hmmm....manipulation, perhaps?

[pixletwin]

I have had "Ding dong ding dong ding dong day. Frosty the Snowman has melted away!" on my mind quite often during the holidays.

[Awesoman]

Wasn't this the album that got caught up in the Sony "rootkit" controversy?

While not a major deal when it came to Brian specifically, it slightly tainted a lot of releases from around that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

For what it's worth I've been able to rip this CD into iTunes on more than one occasion using various PC's I owned at the time.  Not sure if that really applies to the controversy but I never had any problems combating any potential copy protection techniques concerning the album.

[Wirestone]

I listened to the record a couple of times this holiday season and it sounds terrific.

Brian does some of his best work when 1.) he loves the idea and 2.) no one pays attention so he can do whatever he wants. The man clearly enjoys Christmas, and the hype machine from BWPS had settled down by this point.

So he makes a real, inspired, lovely record. It easily matches the later covers albums and (in my opinion) the Beach Boys' '60s effort as well. The originals, incidentally, sound fabulous. Kudos to Clive Davis for signing him up to do this, and shame on Clive Davis for not pushing it further and harder in subsequent years.

[Rocker]

FWIW, this seems to be the european version. The US version had a stronger glitter effect on the cover and Melinda mentioned on Brian's messageboard that they were kinda pissed that someone messed up with the european release.

Here's the US version: