Goldie Lookin ChainIt's a Goldie Lookin Christmas!Review

One wonders what comedy rappers Goldie Lookin Chain (GLC) are hoping to achieve with their Christmas album, or if they even thought about it much at all. It makes exactly the same mistakes their previous albums made, as they fail to differentiate enough between the message and tone of their songs—which could only ever succeed as parodies—and the things they are supposedly poking fun at. So instead of spoofing the Christmas album for being the music industry’s cynical attempt to cash in on the spirit of goodwill, their album is just the same: as such, it is mostly a parody of itself.

There have been a small number of inspired moments in GLC’s career, such as choosing to dedicate Your Missus Is a Nutter to David Beckham when they played on the pitch before an England game. Their early, self-released albums had a certain lo-fi charm, as they rapped about their hometown of Newport over simple hip hop beats in their own accents. Some of this filtered through onto their major label releases, which included the number three single Guns Don’t Kill People Rappers Do. But the feeling of a bunch of teenage friends having fun in their bedroom with a boom box and a microphone has been replaced by the atmosphere of a group of grown men desperately trying (and failing) to be funny in a pretty expensive recording studio.

There is a desperation behind this record which is really quite sad, considering the music is supposed to be light-hearted. Songs like Dubstep Christmas succeed neither as originals nor as parodies, since they lack the quality to satisfy anyone familiar with the genre they are referencing; yet they are also completely devoid of insight or wit into that genre, or indeed Christmas. On their narrative songs, which have veered away from hip hop and towards cheesy pop, there are tales of love and "having it off" at Christmas. If this album is supposedly about Christmas albums’ tendency to be sentimental and naff, then it has certainly hit the mark. The problem is, GLC have produced something which is those things.