I think it’s safe to say that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is going to be one of my favorite movies of the year. I haven’t actually seen it yet (I’m waiting to do a double feature with a friend of this and Aquaman), but given how much praise it’s been getting over the past week, I don’t think I need to worry. When I saw the first third of the movie back at NYCC, one of the jokes that got the crowd laughing hysterically was the brief aside that there was a Spider-Man Christmas album. That album featured such great hits as “Spidey the Snowman” and the highly controversial “Spidey, It’s Cold Outside”, but everyone thought it was just a one-off joke.
That is, until Sony announced this morning that the album actually exists and released it just in time for Christmas! It just puts a smile on my face that I can listen to a Spider-Man Christmas album while I wrap my presents. And, you know what? I did exactly that. I downloaded the album, which is only $5, then got ready to get my wrapping finished. The album ended about 11 minutes later, but it’s an album I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
With only five tracks on it, and most of them no more than two minutes, it was a breeze to get through, but the content of each song was really something special. The album takes several classic Christmas songs and remixes them with Spider-Man lyrics and themes for a cheery and cheesy couple of minutes. There’s “Joy to the World,” where Miles sings about how he’s a hero that doesn’t get paid and asks for people to donate to his Gofundme for web fluids, “Deck the Halls” has Peter B. Parker sing about how great of a hero he is to everyone’s dismay, “Up on the House Top” is about how Spidey stops villains on Christmas Eve and send them to prison, and there’s a very abridged version of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by 60’s Spider-Man.
The absolute best song on the album, without a doubt, is “Spidey Bells”, where Peter Parker slowly has an existential crisis as he sings about the joys of Christmas. He starts off cheerful before coming to the realization that he’s a sellout who could have done so much more with his life and now he’s just a depressed shell of a man that feels like he’s wasted most of his adult life, but he’s gotta make that paycheck somehow! HO HO HO!
If you have a couple of bucks, definitely give it a look. It’s harmless fun, though I am very disappointed that they didn’t include “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Non–Denominational Holiday.” They could have made a killing off of it!
