Perhaps you’ve just ventured to the darkest part of the attic or basement, plucked out those dusty boxes from under the bags of horded, hideous sweaters, checked the boxes for holiday-hating raccoons and hauled the whole lot to the living room. Or perhaps you’ve gathered all your holiday stash from their secret hiding places, found the one roll of tape that doesn’t have cat hair stuck to it and piled the new rolls of wrapping paper along with the remnants from years past onto the dining table. Or maybe you’re just biding your time in between trips to the oven as Christmas cookies bake. What you really need now is some music. Well, maybe you need a little bourbon too, but what you really need some holiday music to build up your morale. Good thing we here at World Music Central have got you covered with our annual Christmas music guide. So, brush the cobwebs from your hair, get someone to grab the “good” scissors, pop a few chocolate chips and let’s get you some holiday tunes.
You know how just about every musician and singer puts out at least one Christmas album? Yeah, well, this year Neil Diamond has put out Acoustic Christmas (ASIN: B01MAZIGZQ ), Jimmy Buffett has ‘Tis the SeaSon available and Frankie Valli has put out his own tribute to Christmas this year with ‘Tis the Seasons (ASIN: B01LYUABCJ) . Unless you are a big fan of Diamond, Buffett or Valli, I think it’s safe to take a pass on these offerings because none really are all that likely to wrap you in holiday warmth. I’d be interested in having a list of popular artists who haven’t done a Christmas song or album.
Of course, if you’d like to experience a diabetic coma you might want to download a copy of Friendship Is Magic: It’s a Pony Kind of Christmas by My Little Pony (ASIN: B01LQC4UPG). My advice? Run, run away quickly because there’s not enough bourbon, vodka or a round of ayahuasca with an Amazonian shaman and an out of body experience that’s ever going to erase this from your mind once you’ve heard it. I guess you could give it to folks who have kids, but you’d really have to hate them or desire to completely cut ties with these people. I don’t think the International Criminal Court has heard this particular recording, but I’m fairly certain it should be classified as a crime against humanity.
Gene Autry – A Melody Ranch Christmas Party
If you are feeling particularly nostalgic and miss those ole time classics, there’s A Melody Ranch Christmas Party by Gene Autry with standards “Jingle Bells,” “Here Comes Santa Claus & Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer Medley” and “Cowboy Santa Claus” to round out this tribute to the cowboy crooner. This offering means that you can put the 2013 Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas from Captain Kangaroo by Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans and give the track “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” a rest this year.
If you’re looking to jazz up your holidays Verve has Joyful Jazz! Christmas With Verve, Vol. 1: The Vocalists with tracks by Nora Jones, Diana Krall and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as Joyful Jazz! Christmas With Verve, Vol. 2: The Instrumentals with tracks by Mark Whitfield, Oscar Peterson Quartet and The John Coltrane Quartet.
Warner Brothers/Buskin has on tap this year Merry Christmas from Andra Day with “Someday at Christmas” with Stevie Wonder, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Winter Wonderland.” Holiday Soul on the Prestige label by the jazz pianist and composer Bobby Timmons is all cool Christmas with goodies like “Deck the Halls,” “White Christmas” and “You’re All I Want for Christmas.” Okeh/Sony Masterworks kicks the holiday humdrum with The Beautiful Day with goodies like “Star of Wonder,” “The Michigan Farm (Cradle Song, Op. 41/1)” and “Little Drummer Boy.”
Those hoping to burrow into a little country Christmas have plenty to choose from with offerings like Sarah McLachlan’s Wonderland with tracks “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in a Manger” and “Go Tell It On the Mountain” or Trisha Yearwood’s Icon Christmas on the MCA Nashville label or Jennifer Nettles’s sassy To Celebrate Christmas with her own version of “Go Tell It On the Mountain,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” with Andra Day and “Little Drummer Boy” with Idina Menzel. Atlantic Nashville has this year Brett Eldredge’s Glow with a big band backing the singer. Rascal Flatts has put out The Greatest Gift of All, while Mercury Nashville has on offer A Very Kacey Christmas by Kacey Musgraves with tracks like “Let It Snow” with the Quebe Sisters, “Christmas Don’t Be Late” and “Present Without a Bow” with Leon Bridges.
Classic Christmas songs are fine idea for drowning out those political warthogs at your parties and there’s some goodies out there like The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings by Ray Conniff. Two CDs, 31 tracks and freshly remastered, you won’t have to hear about the 2016 election for a good while with classics like “Sleigh Ride,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” “My Favorite Things” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” There’s also NOW That’s What I Call Merry Christmas. Ignore the cheesy cover and the Justin Bieber track, because there are some legitimate lovelies on this like “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Frank Sinatra, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” by Johnny Mathis and “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” by Dean Martin.
Whipping a bit of world music mystery this holiday season, fans might want to take a listen to tracks like “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Medley” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” on A Celtic Family Christmas by Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy. This year there is also Winter Fantasy by Charlee Brooks and David Arkenstone with goodies like “The First Noel,” “Noel Nouvelet” and “The Darkest Midnight In December.” The Steel Tropics have put out the Caribbean sounding collection Christmas Paradise with offerings like “White Christmas,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Some other goodies include Putumayo Presents Latin Christmas with tracks like Bobby Rodriguez’s “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” Juan Carlos Quintero’s “Jingle Bells” and Nossa Bossa Nova’s “Joy to the World.” Irish folk singer Cara Dillon has a lovely CD out called Upon a Winter’s Night with some yummy tracks like “Upon a Winter’s Night,” “The Holly and the Ivy” and “Rug Muire Mac Do Dhia,”
Please remember to be respectful this holiday season and those of you playing 2012’s A Heavy Metal Christmas (ASIN: B0189CFLWW) with Christopher Lee (yes, that Christopher Lee) or any of the selections from 2015’s Goth Christmas (ASIN: B017BNCXNU) to please try to not scare the native too much.
Happy Listening.
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
