The Ventures' Christmas Album, The Ventures (Liberty)

All you "Pulp Fiction" fans out there looking for a way to get medieval on the holiday need only hook up with this one, full of reverb- and vibrato-drenched guitar versions of favorite holiday classics like "Jingle Bells" and "Sleigh Ride." There's lots of genre-swapping here too, with "Jingle Bells" meeting "What'd I Say," a few bars of "Wooly Bully" kicking off "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Jingle Bell Rock" incorporating a little "Memphis" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" riffing on "I Feel Fine." This instrumental combo imposes its trademark sound on everything it comes into contact with; I have other albums by them like The Ventures Play the Classics and The Ventures in Space. The group is still around and Big in Japan, and they took another crack at Christmas in 2002.