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Year-round Christmas stores survive on the premise that people can never have too many ornaments for their tree.
Four months of the year, the music industry operates with the same logic. From late August to early December, music outlets let loose with a steady stream of sparkly and earthy new albums of holiday musical cheer. Which dazzling sonic delight(s) will you add to your permanent collection this year?
Classic carols, sentimental ballads, kiddie fables and funny novelty tunes are always staples of the seasonal music scene, and practically the only “standards” that everyone still has to share and sing in common.
What keeps things interesting are the varied stylistic spins—the unique craftsmanship that contemporary performers put on tried-and-true tunes—plus the fresh originals that the most ambitious performers contribute to the repertoire.
Novelty kings:
The wooziest, weirdest Christmas album this year is Bootsy Collins’ impish, elfish “Christmas Is 4 Ever” (Shout! Factory, A-minus), introduced with the pre-emptive warning, “I’m sure there’s going to be more than one unpleasant surprise before we’re done.”
Decorating with free-style rap and spunky singing, trippy scratching and bouncy rubber horns, Collins lets loose with a “colorized” audio ... movie about the holiday, “N-You City” and celebrates a highly intoxicated “Happy Holidaze” with help from Snoop Dogg.
Classic Christmas tunes are stomped on and changed up, too, like the big-band/hip-hop rewrite of Rudolph, now a “funky soul reindeer.” Composer Johnny Marks may be rolling in his grave, but you’ll be rolling on the floor with laughter.
Also good for some perverse holiday cheer is comic swinger Richard Cheese’s collection, “Silent Nightclub” (Surfdog, B).
The (intentionally) worst lounge act ever, Cheese makes unlikely holiday connections to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” pays homage to the Barking Dogs’ rendering of “Jingle Bells,” and hopes that Santa won’t let him crap out at the tables on “Christmas in Las Vegas,” a ruthlessly sardonic piece of special material.
Souled out:
Hall and Oates’ classic, creamy R&B stylings are applied with exceedingly good care to “Home for Christmas” (DKE, A), a distinctive and hearth-warming package of Philly-style cheer.
Standouts include the first-rate original, “No Children Should Ever Cry on Christmas” and the rousing, gospel-flavored read of “Children Go Where I Send Thee.”
Old-school street corner harmony rings loud and clear as the Mighty Echoes “Doo Wop Around the Christmas Tree” (Brooklyn International Records, A-minus). It’s all natural, with no instrumental additives!
Or go for the more progressive, jazz-inflected but still warmly organic vocal sound of the Manhattan Transfer, offering their version of “A Capella Christmas” (Rhino, B-plus).
Seasoned singer and keyboardist Oleta Adams put lots of care into “Christmas Time With Oleta” (Koch, B-plus), a sophisticated, adult-soul treatment accented with light jazz, reggae and funk flavors.
“Mary Mary Christmas” (Sony, B) finds the gospel duo in a more subdued than usual mood, though the jumping “I Call Him Jesus,” Motown-ish ” ‘Tis the Season” and African-flavored “O Come All Ye Faithful” rouse the spirits.
While often tagged a blue-eyed soul singer, Robin Gibb (of the Bee Gees) hardly stirred mine with the wimpy “My Favorite Carols” (Koch, C-minus).
Twangin’ around the Christmas tree:
Country music folks don’t have far to travel to embrace and embellish holiday standards. But I’m afraid a couple of big stars are resting on their laurels this season.
George Strait plays ‘em way too straight (sorry) on “Fresh Cut Christmas” (Hallmark, C). It’s only available at Hallmark stores, but why bother?
Even more boring is Wynonna’s assembly-line production, “A Classic Christmas” (Curb, C-minus), hardly salvaged by a show-closing original.
Bluegrass lass Rhonda Vincent and her jumping little acoustic band do achieve liftoff, though, with their frisky “Beautiful Star: A Christmas Collection” (Rounder, B-plus).
And really jumping out of this pack is “Brad Paisley Christmas” (Arista, A-minus). What makes this set are clever Paisley originals, including the instant legend of Santa’s high-tech, secret-agent snoop, “Penguin, James Penguin”; the morning-after, wishful thinking of “364 Days to Go”; the flashback to a 13-year-old Brad (on the “Jamboree USA” radio show) debuting his very own “Born on Christmas Day”; and the political-correctness-slamming skit and song, “Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday,” which bleeps “Christ” out of all yer favorite tunes.
Kosher for the holidays:
Speaking of which, please to note how that nice Jewish lady Bette Midler neatly segues out of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” just before the zinger affirmation, “Christ our Lord,” on her new album “Cool Yule” (Columbia, A-minus).
Midler’s entertaining variety show mix of swinging seasonals (“I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” “Mele Kalikimaka”) and poignant ballads (including a slightly rewritten and heart-rending “From a Distance”) is so ecumenical it could play on Shalom TV. Special guest Johnny Mathis joins on a classic counterpoint medley of “Winter Wonderland” and “Let It Snow!”
Threatening to set back Judeo-Christian relations, by contrast, is Dee Snider’s heavy-metal assault on the seasonal fare, fronting Twisted Sister on “A Twisted Christmas” (Razor & Tie, D). Not because “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” manages to integrate “Hava Nagila” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Nah, just because the disc’s basically stoopid. And ugly. Though “Silver Bells” rocks pretty good, dude.
For a true-to-their-own-school holiday treat, the Klezmatics are dishing “Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah” (JMG, B-plus). Guthrie wasn’t of the faith, but he married a Jewish woman, lived in her ethnic Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood and wrote a bunch of lyrics for the holiday season that the klez group has now pumped up with festive, Eastern European-flavored tunes.
The biblical history lesson “The Many and the Few” is the set’s spiritual center. Going the ecumenical route, “Happy Joyous Hanukah” alludes to both “Children Go Where I Send Thee” and “12 Days of Christmas,” and please to note the jingling all the way subtext in “Hannukah Bell.”
Jazzin’ up the season:
The splashy, sassy sampler “New Orleans Christmas” (Putumayo, A-minus) is a spicy treat, strongest on trad jazz performances by the likes of keyboardist Ellis Marsalis, the second-line-strutting New Birth Brass Band and talented young trumpeter James Andrews, making like Louis Armstrong on “Christmas in New Orleans.”
Smooth jazz fave Brian Culbertson serves a surprisingly funky, non-syrupy set, “A Soulful Christmas” (GRP, B), including a Buddy Rich-inspired treatment of “Jingle Bells” and a poppish original, “All Through the Christmas Night,” featuring guest vocalist Michael McDonald.
Santa’s bag also holds some worthy mainstream jazz goodies, including the standout “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by the David Leonhardt Jazz Group (Big Bang Records, A), with cool-school treatments in the Bill Evans/Stan Getz vein.
A crunchy granola Christmas:
Sarah McLachlan evokes a snowy, north country holiday with the wispy, atmospheric “Wintersong” (Arista, B-plus).
Smoky, sorrowful stylist Aimee Mann’s “One More Drifter in the Snow” (Super Ego, B) is not what you need to hear if you’re already in a holiday-spawned depression. On the upside: the relatively obscure Jimmy Webb song, “Whatever Happened to Christmas,” and Mann’s wonderful original, “Calling on Mary,” are important additions to the oeuvre.
A standout last year as a Hallmark stores exclusive, the charming “James Taylor at Christmas” (Columbia, A) now warrants a mainstream label release in slightly altered form.
Taylor’s ex, Carly Simon, pops up (and stands out) on three tracks of new-age harpist Andreas Vollenweider’s otherwise yawn-i “Midnight Clear” (Kinkou Music, B-minus).
Classical violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg & Friendsoffer “A Holiday Journey” (NSS Music, A) that’s absolutely delightful. The Chopin-style “12 Days of Christmas” alone is worth the price of admission.
While exotic in the abstract, the lyric translations of Jana’s “American Indian Christmas” (Standing Stone, C) and infusions of Afro-beat rhythms on “African Christmas” (EMI, C) ain’t enough to warrant a purchase.
Show-stoppers:
The name suggests only the kids will appreciate it. But “The Berenstain Bears Save Christmas” (Good Mood, B-plus) has a Broadway-style musical score that adults would relish equally. The fine tunes by Philly natives Elliot Lawrence and Jamie Broza hint of past glories by Leonard Bernstein and Frank Loesser.
As this title very aptly implies, “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” (Walt Disney, C) is not a festive filmic romp in the snow. Halloween goblins discover that other holiday and kidnap “Sandy Claws.” Dark and spooky music by Danny Elfman prevails.
