The Beach Boys Album: “Merry Christmas From The Beach Boys (EMI)”

The Beach Boys create some great Christmas music. But this is not a real album. It's a budget CD compilation and not from Capitol Records. Buy Ultimate Christmas. You get the original 1964 Christmas album in its entiriety plus GREAT extra tracks from the unreleased 1977 album and others.

This is purely a ripoff from start to finish. While I agree with the other reviewer that the songs here are great this package is not; weird song sequencing, absolutely no liner notes to speak of, and mediocre sound quality reign supreme here. (...) You're paying twice as much as this substandard Beach Boys Christmas CD, but you're getting three times as many songs (in superior sound quality), which is a bargain in my book.

Peace.

What can be the reason to release such a piece of s... ?

We have a wonderful Xmas album, available in three versions (the original 12 tracks, the same with some funny bonus tracks, and the "ultimate Xmas", addding the aborted second Xmas album. The original album is already quite short (aaah the sixties !) we don't need this truncated copy. Run away from it !

I think that if you like Christmas music, and you like the Beach Boys, this album has it all! I love Little Saint Nick, I've heard that as a kid, and I love it! We Three Kings of Orient All is a classic, a very underated song. And last, I'll be Home For Christmas and Santa's Beard are my top two fav.'s I love those songs! Great Album!

The Ultimate BB Christmas CD is the one to buy. It contains the original BB's Christmas album and previously unreleased songs from the never released 1977 Christmas album. As beautiful as the original Christmas album was the Ultimate CD is the true BB's Christmas album:

1. One of the many things I love about Brian is his use of sleigh bells in his songs (where else do you have that?). Does the original BB's Christmas album have sleigh bells on any of it's songs? Unfortunately I can hear none;

2. Yet on the previously unreleased material on CD, which number ten songs, the first song, the single version of Little Saint Nick, has sleigh bells, as do many other of the previously unreleased materials. Now we have the sleigh bells with the Christmas music. Yes!;

3. In the original Christmas album, the beautiful acappela version of Auld Lang Syne has Dennis with a voice over, the previously unreleased material has this song without the voice over. You want a BB only song, this is one of them;

4. Dennis' Morning Christmas song alone is worth buying this CD, it is simply an amazing beautiful song written and produced by Dennis in 1977;

5. Track list of the previously unreleased songs on the Ultimate CD:

Little Saint Nick (Single Version) [w/ sleigh bells!, glockenspiel and celeste, IMO much better than original album version]

Auld Lang Syne [acappela w/o Dennis' voice over]

Little Saint Nick [to the music of Drive-In]

Child Of Winter

Santa's Got An Airplane

Christmas Time Is Here Again

Winter Symphony [Brain's contribution to the 1977 Christmas album, absolutely beautiful song]

(I Saw Santa) Rock'in Around the Christmas Tree

Melekalikimaka

Bells of Christmas [a beautiful song by Al Jardine, Ron Altbach and Mike Love]

Morning Christmas