From the moment we hit play on Robbie Tucker’s Peppermints, his self-proclaimed “first and only Christmas album,” Tucker runs wild with descriptive lyrics and deft storytelling, amounting to one of the strangest Christmas records you’ll ever hear. Peppermints sounds like a cast recording for a non-existent Christmas production just waiting to be created.
Throughout the album, Tucker uses a collection of cartoonish voices to tell the story of Christmas through the eyes of various characters; Santa, unlucky shop owner Gordan and, what seems to be, an adult Tucker reminiscing Christmases past. By the end of the record, one could easily imagine each song reenacted by Avenue-Q puppets in a Yuletide anthology.
Over the course of Peppermints’ eight songs, Tucker runs the gamut from pensive piano ballads (“Like an Elephant”), thumping dance music (“Gordan”), quasi Calypso (“Ohh Dee Ohh Doe!”), and acapella spoken word (“Wishbook”). The latter two are particularly interesting.
“Ohh Dee Ohh Doe!” is the first anti-religion Christmas tune I can recall hearing. Tucker draws parallels between the naivety of believing in Santa and believing in “another man in the sky”. In between channelling his inner Harry Belafonte on the non-sensical hook, Tucker cheekily encourages parents to teach their children to “love and be kind” rather than teaching them that “a man died on the cross for their sins”, and that if they believe “one man can be three”, then modern science would amaze them.
This is, by far, as controversial as Peppermints gets.
As the album goes on, Tucker grows increasingly sentimental. Nowhere is this more apparent than the nearly eight-minute spoken word poem, “Wishbook”. Tucker reminisces on a Christmas tradition that generations of children remember fondly: leafing through the annual Sears Wishbook until it falls apart. Like many of us, Tucker would excitedly circle the most tantalizing toys, gawk at seemingly otherworldly gadgets (an ice cream maker), and wonder how his parents could want mundane necessities like shoes and groceries. Tucker concludes the story with the revelation that while his mother has since passed away, his parents taught him that, if he looks he looks hard enough, all the happiness contained in the Wishbook can be found within himself.
While Peppermints clocks in at barely thirty minutes, Robbie Tucker is able to showcase a series of expressive vignettes that cover the range of emotions we feel during the holiday season; from saccharine sweet to slightly condescending. Peppermints is unlike any holiday album you’ll hear this year.