This is the most offensive and irreverent Christmas album you’re likely to ever come across. If you can put up with some cursing in your carols and a couple of sloppy takes on Christmas classics, however, you’ll discover a few gems featuring distinctive bass lines, great sax-playing, and inspired piano riffs by one Pete “Wet Dawg” Gordon.
You’re reading the cover right: It’s “Horny Holidays,” by Mojo Nixon and the Toadliquors.
Admittedly, I’ve got a soft spot for this collection, since my dad bought a copy during the last trip we took to New Orleans together. He played it in the car all the way back to my grandmother’s house. Two hours after leaving Tower Records, I knew this would be my go-to Christmas album.
Some of the songs are filthy (“Trim Yo’ Tree”), while others are haphazard versions of classics (“Good King Wenceslas”).
I won’t lie. Some of these songs will embarrass you in front of your friends and family.
Others will make it totally worth the humiliation, however. “It’s Christmas Time” has some of the best sax and piano parts on the album, though the album’s version of “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus” runs a close second. And Mojo’s rendition of “Run Rudolph Run” may be the most inspired version I’ve ever heard.
If you’re willing to have fun with some offbeat Christmas music and aren’t easily offended, then buy this album. Just don’t play it in front of kids or your mom. Unless she’s just like my mom, and is totally cool with that kind of thing.
Note: Mojo Nixon is best classified as “psychobilly,” apparently, and I hesitate to admit that this is the only album of his that I own. I was shocked that this was also the only Mojo album I found among in my dad’s music collection – maybe that tells you a little more about its awesomeness.
Wikipedia has a pretty thorough page on Mojo Nixon, and Mojo’s site features an enlightening and hilarious timeline of his life.
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