in 1987, I guess I was bitten by the same CD buying bug that many were: I bought into the Time-Life “Rock ‘n’ Roll Era” series of CDs.  Thankfully I found that the musical selection on these were fine for my purposes, although the sound often suffered a bit.  It did enable me to amass a good collection of “oldies” that I otherwise never would have bought.  One surprising favorite came my way during the holidays–the compilation Jingle Bell Rock.  A couple of the Motown tracks need to be skipped (the Temptations’ “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” is narcoleptic at best), but for the most part it is a very enjoyable and crowd-pleasing collection of holiday favorites.

On here are tracks by Jan and Dean (“Frosty the Snowman”, rescued from obscurity), The Ventures (“Sleigh Ride”), Jack Scott (“There’s Trouble Brewin'”), The O’Jays (“Christmas Ain’t Christmas Without The One You Love”) and Dodie Stevens (“Merry, Merry Christmas Baby”).  The usual suspects are here also (“JIngle Bell Rock”, “Run, Rudolph Run” and “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”) and Elton John’s “Step into Christmas” finishes out the disc with the most recent song in the collection.  You can find Jingle Bell Rock if you look hard enough, although you can find another variation or two that changes out and/or skimps on the 25 tracks that this disc offers.