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Information and history of the 1979 Odyssey Productions Christmas disco recordings

There is a lot of information scattered around the internet regarding various Christmas disco recordings that have been around in one form or another since 1979. Appearing on budget labels on vinyl, CD, and more, people (including myself) have loved these recordings for the unique disco takes they offer on standard Christmas songs. The anonymity of the musicians involved in recording these songs makes finding information about the songs themselves and specific albums difficult. Here you will find a presumed history of these recordings, as well as lots of additional information about them, and various releases that they have appeared on throughout the years.

History

The information here is speculative but is probably as accurate as I will be able to report. According to jeffm12012's comment on A Christmas Yuleblog, they had "found some of the same tracks [from The Mistletoe Disco Band's More Christmas Disco] on a promotional LP titled Seasons Greetings from 3M". This record contains a few of these Christmas disco songs credited to Odyssey Productions with track times that closely match my digital copies of the same songs. Thanks to Ernie from the blog Ernie (Not Bert) generously sharing the contents of Seasons Greetings from 3M, I was able to find that the versions of "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" that are on this record are indeed these 1979 recordings. 3M, using the record to promote its Cantata Muzak-type service, would have credited the original group who created these recordings, Odyssey Productions, as opposed to one of the no-name groups on every consumer release of them, confirming the true origin of these songs.

Track listing

There are presumably 21 total Christmas disco recordings in existence from Odyssey Productions. They are:

  1. Sleigh Ride
  2. Jingle Bells
  3. Jingle Bell Rock
  4. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
  5. Joy to the World
  6. The Little Drummer Boy
  7. Winter Wonderland
  8. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
  9. Silver Bells
  10. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
  11. Twelve Days of Christmas
  12. Good King Wenceslas
  13. Hark the Herald Angels Sing
  14. Auld Lang Syne
  15. Oh Christmas Tree
  16. We Three Kings
  17. Deck the Halls
  18. White Christmas
  19. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
  20. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
  21. Jolly Old St. Nicholas
The track listing above is largely built from the Mirror Image albums available on vinyl. (Note that the Mirror Image albums released on 8-track contain a different song order.) This is how I first experienced these songs copied onto a cassette tape, so it is the order that I know and prefer, plus the few extra songs not released as Mirror Image filled into the slots where my first digital version had them located. You probably have your own preferred order, though.

One other point to note is that there are seemingly two versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". The two CD releases of these songs that I own (see "Definitive CD releases" below) contain both versions, one on each CD. From my years of sourcing and listening to any copies of these songs that I could find, I have never found more than those 21 songs or any other alternate versions of any of the songs, making the track listing and information here presumably complete.

Major known historical releases

The following is a list of the major historical releases of these songs worldwide:

Definitive CD releases

There are only three definitive CD releases of this material that you can buy that I am aware of. That could possibly be expanded to four, as two releases are presumed to be identical. They are:

  1. The Roller Disco Orchestra's Non Stop Xmas Disco, barcode 5038375302776 or 5030073053523. I can only verify the release with barcode 5038375302776. This CD contains every song except for "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" with the less common (presumably alternate) version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".
  2. LDMI's Christmas Party Dancing, barcode 056775992620. This contains every song except for "Good King Wenceslas" with the regular version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".
    3. If you choose to purchase this CD, please be careful! I had to purchase four separate copies of this CD before I received one that played and ripped through without any issues. The other three copies all contained varying amounts of disc rot, exhibited by small "pinholes" that appear when holding the CD up to a light. These indicate that the audio data normally stored on the disc in those spots is permanently gone, which causes the CD to skip when playing and contain audible errors when ripped. Due to this failure rate, there was most likely a manufacturing defect at the pressing plant when this disc was pressed.
  3. Rainbow's Switched on Christmas. This contains the complete 21 songs, only leaving out the alternate version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". There are technically barcodes for (and multiple versions of) this CD, but Rainbow, the record company, sloppily reused them between different CDs that they released, so providing them would not help.
  4. The Strobes' Xmas Disco Party, barcode 5038456111327. Information available online points to this being a copy of Non Stop Xmas Disco, but please note that I have not verified this.

Listen online

Click here to listen to the complete 22 Christmas disco recordings online. If the video is deleted, I will delete this section of the webpage, and the video will not be reposted.

Contact me

If you have other information that contradicts or expands what I've written here, or releases of these songs that I have not listed on this webpage, please let me know. My contact information is available on the homepage.

Page written on 9 September 2018 and last updated on 2 May 2019.