L.L.Bean Holiday Songs

I love L.L.Bean, I wish New England was real. They make the only goddamn pair of black jeans that looks right on me. As much as I may try to pose that I’m above brand loyalty and that all corporations are evil or whatever, I’m very happy with the aesthetics and quality that I get from them. The only two things that I think are missing from their catalog are CDs and all-black Bean Boots. Now, I get to experience what I have lost.

This paper package is badly designed. The way it’s folded implies a booklet used to be in the middle as a stopgap, but I don’t see any rip marks or glue stains. Thus, this package is doomed to be forever lopsided, easily lost on a shelf, and degrade further and further. Also, they write the title a different way on the spine, disc, back, and front, so I’m just going with what’s on the spine.

L.L.Bean Holiday Songs is a stringed affair, built on guitars, peppered with hammered dulcimer and mandolin. I don’t specifically associate L.L.Bean with any kind of musical instrument, but the arrangement of this compilation feels more like an American’s idea of a cozy cottage in the Cotswolds than it does like Maine. This album doesn’t make me want to buy a flannel shirt, it makes me want to wear a tunic and wander Englands green & pleasant fields.

However, just because it fails to capture its intended vibe doesn’t mean I don’t adore this record. I do want to be a medieval peasant on Christmas. They try to frame this CD as “Holiday Songs from around the world” on the back of the record, which they do a decent job at. They include the first Canadian christmas carol, “Huron Carol”, though it would have been cooler to hear it sung in its original Wyandotte language. They also throw “Erev Shel Shoshanim” on here, which while not specifically a Hannukah song, is at least a nod in that direction. Overall, I really like the record because of how it contrasts with the rest of Christmasdom, even if it misses its intended mark of rustic Maine.

L.L.Bean Holiday Songs is a bad compilation, and I like it.