Everyday Stupidities

If you haven't read yesterday's entry yet, do that and then come back up here. Thanks!

   Okay, I remembered one stupid thing I was going to kvetch about yesterday: Bing Crosby Christmas albums. Or more accurately, how I haven't found a complete and comprehensive collection yet. Okay, everyone is familiar with White Christmas (a.k.a. "Merry Christmas"), which is the biggest-selling Christmas album in history. The legacy only begins there. I have a Bing album of more well-known Christmas songs called Songs of Christmas (which I refer to as "Sofa King Bing" because it was put out by La-Z-Boy)... see it. It doesn't end there. Yesterday I was in Costco and came across a Bing boxed set which was $4 off, containing three CDs and a bonus DVD of a 1935 production of "Scrooge" (which I've seen several times in the dollars stores... 1935 plus the 72 year copyright life equals "just came into the public domain this year, woo!"). Disk One is a very obscure Bing album, where every song is original and new -- ergo no one has heard any of those songs since then (with exception of "Christmas Is..." which Johnny Mathis has covered, and for the record "'Round and 'Round The Christmas Tree" is not the same song as Gene Autry's "'Round 'Round The Christmas Tree"). That's different and welcome. Disk two is mostly popular Christmas songs sung by Bing on TV and radio specials, and songwise half of them don't have a studio version so this is a treat. Disk three is what pisses me off: They could have put in Songs Of Christmas since it's uncommon, or at the least made a compilation of fun well-known Bing Christmas songs which weren't on White Christmas such as "The Holly And The Ivy" and "I Wish You A Merry Christmas" plus added offbeat numbers like "Christmas Dinner Country Style" and lost B-sides like "That Christmas Feeling" (which I have the single of as well as his short duet with Frank Sinatra used as a radio show's closer). But what did they do? They put together a random collection of Christmas music, added one Bing song -- his duet of "Jingle Bells" with Frank Sinatra from a 1940's radio special (available on several inexpensive holiday collections) -- and titled it Bing And Friends. Bzzt, wrong! I'm seeking an actual compendium of Christmas music by Bing Crosby, everything he's ever recorded for the holidays, and I have yet to see anything that even comes half-way. And to prove it, I did a search in a P2P and found another CD's worth of obscure Christmas music!

Okay, so I realize this rant is about as obscure in nature as Bing's "Is Christmas Only A Tree?" but it matters to me.