Consumer Guide Album

A Christmas Record [ZE, 1981]
Most of this oddly ambitious nine-song anthology seems a little off, but that suits its odd ambition, which is seeking the spirit in an audience turned off by seasonal shtick. Was (Not Was) and Alan Vega take on involuntary and semivoluntary poverty, the Waitresses aim for the singles bars, and Davitt Sigerson should by all rights be earning royalties up there with Irving Berlin--or at least Torme-Wells or Davis-Onorati-Simeone. B+