Look, a lot was going on in 1999. For me at 14, essentially two things stood out: Eiffel 65 and the requisite suburban white girl’s fixation on Eminem. I realize there were other things afoot: Clinton, Y2K, probably some other stuff. But my point is, I was plugged into music. I was listening to garbage. I used the RADIO, for God’s sake.
So tell me, friends, how I missed Rosie O’Donnell’s 2-album series of Christmas standards with such pop stars as…Cher? Jessica Simpson? And…
“Is that -” you ask with a tremor, and with eyes dark and hollow, I nod. It is. It is Smash Mouth and Rosie O’Donnell, and yes, Rosie is requesting that Smash Mouth attend to her “real big stocking.”
There’s no competent explanation for this album, or for its precedent, A Rosie Christmas. And I did scour Wikipedia. I eventually ended up on someone’s Wordpress, and that stranger summarized this project as an outlet for Rosie’s Broadway obsession, with a charitable bent (some proceeds went to a children’s charity). A vanity project, I thought. Fine.
But how, I ask, howling in manner of John Gardner’s Grendel, HOW did I COMPLETELY miss all traces of this album’s astounding existence?
So many popular artists are involved that this album’s invisibility starts to seem like some kind of setup, and maybe I’m the joke. Am I the joke? Did Y2K happen? Did I really just hear Mark McGrath shouting his autotuned way through Rosie O’Donnell on…Silver Bells?
I wonder if I can microdose this album like psilocybin.
God help me, I love this one.
GUYS IT’S A LOT