I Am Santa Claus

AMG Review of I Am Santa Claus

Roch Parisien
All Music Guide

Rivers twists standards into bawdy, sometimes hilarious spoofs -- "Do You Hear What I Hear" becomes "Didn't I Get It Last Year?"; "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" gets mauled into "I Came Upon a Roadkill Deer" -- plus some killingly accurate band parodies. The title track is rendered to the tune of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man"; "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is performed like the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"; and it finishes off with the AC/DC-clone track "Jingle Hell's Bells." Satire projects like this always contain their share of groaners, but the best stuff is quite funny.