ApologetiX Reviews

Have Yourself a Parody Little Christmas

(Released 2001, special release to those on the ApologetiX mailing list)

Tracks:

1. Micah No. 5 [parody of "Mambo #5" by Lou Berg]

2. December 5 or 6 B.C. (Oh Holy Night) [Parody of "Oh What a Night" by the Four Seasons]

3. Santa Clause [Parody of "Panama" by Van Halen]

4. Hotel Can't Afford Ya [Parody of "Hotel California" by the Eagles]

5. Manger [Parody of "Angel" by Shaggy]

6. Christmasnite [Parody of "Kryptonite" by Three Doors Down]

This CD is an EP (extended play) that ApologetiX rushed out for Christmas 2001. It contains three new tracks and three tracks off existing CDs. This CD was made available only to those who are on ApologetiX' email list. If you want a copy of this CD, you will need to sign up on the ApologetiX email list (go to http://www.apologetix.com and sign up there; note that you may have to send email to j@apologetix.com to find out how to order this CD).

Note that ApologetiX is coming out with a full Christmas CD for the 2002 Christmas season (and, presumably, it will contain these six songs), so those who aren't avid ApologetiX fans and have to have everything ApologetiX may want to wait for the full Christmas CD.

Micah No. 5

Lyrics: good
Music: Excellent
Vocals: Excellent
Production: Excellent
Faithful to original song : N/A
Message: Prophesy of Christ's Birth in Micah

Comments: I've never really listened the original (hard to believe, eh? Where have I been all my life?). But this is a great song. Karl's production skills have gotten really good in the ApologetiX studio and this is a great cut.

December 5 or 6 B.C. (Oh Holy Night)

Lyrics: Excellent
Music: Excellent
Vocals: Excellent
Production: Excellent
Faithful to original song : 5
Message: Date of Christ's Birth

Comments: Surprisingly enough, this is my favorite track on the CD. I gave it a low "Faithful to the Original Song" rating because ApologetiX has really improved this one. This one has J's patented "rap over the instrumental section" and he does a great job. The lyrics are fantastic and it has a great message. I'd buy this CD just for this song.

Santa Claus

Lyrics: Good
Music: Excellent
Vocals: Good
Production: Fair to Good
Faithful to original song : 7
Message: Parody of a Christmas Icon

Comments: Hey, I like Van Halen. Just before ApologetiX released this CD, they'd asked for song suggestions for their next CD. I wrote back "More Van Halen." So I was excited when I saw this parody on the Christmas CD. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. Largely, I suspect this is due to way overblown expectations, but this song just doesn't work for me as well as I expected it would. The lyrics are good, though not great (which is too bad, 'cause the concept for the song is great). The production of this number is a bit weaker than the other tunes on this CD; the vocals don't stand out as well as they need to (and I suspect this is a large part of the problem I have with this CD). Of course, J and the band aren't Dave and Van Halen, so I have to rate the vocals just Good rather than Excellent (though this is no fault of J's, his vocals are great, they're just a shade below the original song). This is also the reason the "Faithful" rating is "7" rather than "8" or "9". However, don't let this prejudice you; my ratings on "faithful" and "vocals" are based on how well the song sounds compared to the original Van Halen line-up and that's hard to mimic. As I said, the vocals don't seem to pop out as well as they could; hopefully ApologetiX will remix this one for the 2002 Christmas CD.

Hotel Can't Afford Ya

Lyrics: Excellent
Music: Excellent
Vocals: Excellent
Production: Excellent
Faithful to original song : 9 out of 10
Message: Christmas Story

Comments: Apologetix "redid" this song. In the email they sent out they claimed that they redid it so they could do it the way they always wanted. Frankly, the production is better and there are a few extra (spoken) lines in the song, but otherwise it's nearly identical to the original on "Jesus Christ Morningstar". So go check out the review there. I have upgraded the "production" rating from "good" to "excellent" because the production on this CD is better than on "Jesus Christ Morningstar".

Manger

Christmasnite

These two songs are straight off the "Keep the Change" CD. See the reviews of these songs here