Christmas Eve --- James Last with Engelbert Humperdinck --- 1995 (Avalanche)
There's an episode of the TV sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf where the characters are on a planet where all the world's most evil people have come alive as waxworks (bear with me) and Lister and the Cat, locked in a cell and awaiting their fate, are watching as Lister names off all the bad guys. Hitler, Mussollini, Rasputin... then he gasps, unable to take it. "Oh my god!" he says in disbelief and horror. "That's James Last! I recognise him from Rimmer's record collection!"
If you don't know the series that probably meant nothing to you, but it does serve to underline that to people of my age, when we were young, James Last
was the Devil. Not a good Devil, like Ozzy or Alice, who made you want to rebel against society, your parents, whatcha got? No. James Last was the
good Devil, the Flanders Devil. He was everything we hated in music, everything we were opposed to. His soulless, feather-light treatment of classics and pop tunes drifted from every lift (elevator) in every shopping centre (mall) and his grinning face could be seen peeking out of every record shelf labelled "Easy listening". James Last was the antithesis of rock; he took safe tunes and made them safer, and we hated him for it. At least, I did, and all my mates did. He was the kind of music your parents listened to, and there was no more damning indictment than that.
I was always a Mantovani man, myself; if you wanted some relaxing instrumental music, the man from Italy was the one to go to. But Last? Ugh! You'd rather listen to white noise than his pre-packaged brand of supermarket soft pop instrumentals. And yet he was mega-popular, selling over
seventy million albums --- dude, that's 0.07 BILLION albums! --- and with a discography that takes up three full columns on Wiki. And Christmas was one of the times when he was unleashed upon us with his full, terrible ferocity.
To make things worse, here he's joined by sixties singing sensation Engelbert Humperdinck --- a man who actually
changed his name TO this! I mean, he wasn't born with it: when he became famous he TOOK the name! Beggars belief!. Also surely one of the most frequently misspelled and mispronounced names in music history? So he sings while Last plays, and we all promise to do anything the duo say if they will just PLEASE STOP!
There's nothing more to say. The bossa-nova beat was invented for people like Last, and even though I'm now old enough to be a parent (though I'm not one) I STILL loathe his music with a passion. Some demons just never die, y'know? Still, he's getting on in years, can't have much time left ... unless he's signed a contract with the Devil! Oh no! Surely not...?
TRACKLISTING
1. Believe In Love
2. Have I Told You Lately
3. Holly Holy
4. Ave Maria
5. One More Night
6. Your Love
7. Bed Of Roses
8. White Christmas
9. Lean On Me
10. A Whole New World
11. O Little Town of Bethlehem
12. God's Sending Angels