Review: The Boy Least Likely To, Christmas Special
This album is certainly about Christmas, but it is not very special. The Boy Least Likely To have put together eleven tracks which are fairly innocuous and sometimes catchy, but nothing more. A holiday album is a project which should only be undertaken with great care, because it’s so hard to avoid sounding completely uninspired – anyone contemplating a Christmas album should remember that any original song idea they might come up with has probably already been done many times before.
The Boy Least Likely To seems delighted to jump right into this trap. The album starts off well enough, with a jolly track about putting up a Christmas tree, and wondering, “if Christmas is about being together/ then how can it be Christmas if we are apart?” The sentiment of the song is a staple of Christmas songs, but the imagery of bringing out the memories of last year’s Christmas along with a new Christmas tree is interesting enough. I began thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have been so skeptical. Sadly, my skepticism was warranted; the next track is called, “Christmas isn’t Christmas.” As in, “Christmas isn’t Christmas without you.” That’s right, this song has basically the same theme as the song it follows.That’s the problem: The Boy Least Likely To never really offers anything else that is compelling in Christmas Special.
This album contains two songs about snow, covers of “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “The Wassail Song”, and a song called “Jingle My Bells.” This last song made me question the whole intent of the album. The hook contains the words “jingle my bells, and I’ll jingle yours,” in between verses that seem just a bit too suggestive to be coincidental. Are The Boy Least Likely To just being ironic in putting out a Christmas album? Are they saying, “a Christmas album is so played out and very difficult to pull off – it would be hilarious if we made one!”? I’m not sure if they were being ironic, or if their generally lame lyrics and instrumentation were sincere. Either way, I do not recommend listening to this album.
2/10
–Tad, DJ of The Good Hip-Hop Show
