My wholly subjective snap judgements on some of this season's new holiday releases. "Rotations" refer to my likely 2020 holiday listening frequencies.
The Dollyrots - Christmas / All I Want For Christmas
Favorite new single of the year, so far. Even the b-side kills it with the best modern cover of All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) I’ve yet to hear.
Heavy rotation
The Goo Goo Dolls - It's Christmas All Over
As classic rock Christmas albums go (and I think at this point the Goo Goo Dolls have aged into classic rock territory) this is a solid effort. Not too strained, not too campy, it’s really good. I had pretty much fallen away from the modern rock scene during their heyday but I would imagine fans of the band will be pretty stoked with the result. There are a few songs that are instant skips but overall this one’s been growing on me over the last few days.
Medium Rotation
Rend Collective - A Jolly Irish Christmas Vol. 2
Not familiar with Rend Collective but this is a pretty good album. They’re an Irish Folk Worship band, apparently, and they have a few other Christmas releases in their back catalog that I’ll be checking out. A few tracks will definitely make it into this year’s library. A pleasant surprise.
Chris Tomlin - Miracle of Love
More worship music and it’s very good, for the genre. I don’t know that anything here replaces anything similar that I already have though
Light Rotation.
Warren Wolf - Christmas Vibes
I was so relieved to find the Christmas Vibes in the title referred to the Vibraphone and not hippie / new agey style vibes.
Terrific jazzy, vibecentric, album of holiday standards. Recommended!
Medium rotation.
Pentatonix - We Need a Little Christmas
We need a lotta Christmas but we need a heckuva lot less of whatever this is. The Pop A Capella novelty has long worn off at this point and I couldn’t even make it through this album while merely sampling it.
Mandy Moore - How Could This Be Christmas
Decent single.
Ingrid Andress - “Christmas Always Finds Me”
Another decent single.
Liam Payne feat. Dixie D’Amelio - “Naughty List”
And just like like the decent pop single streak ends with a song that has me pining for the subtle nuances of Pentatonix.
Dan + Shay - “Take Me Home For Christmas”
Modern country meh. Not awful but not worth hearing again.
Florida Georgia Line - “Lit This Year”
A better country single, not sure I’ll add it but it’s not bad.
Shaggy - Christmas in the Islands
This isn’t my style of Christmas music, for the most part, but if it’s yours this is a fun album for the holidays. Not as good as his album with Sting but enjoyable, with a bunch of solid guests.
Annie Lennox - A Christmas Cornucopia (10th Anniversary)
One bonus track on this remastered anniversary edition. I remember being a bit disappointed with the original release, being a huge Eurythmics / Lennox fan. Only a couple of tracks have stayed with me over the years and I’m not sure the remastering is going to change that.
The “previously unheard” track Dido’s Lament is lovely but not likely to become a Christmas standard around here.
Jamie Cullum – The Pianoman At Christmas
There’s some really good stuff here. I’ll need a couple of more listens to sort out the best of it but, yeah, this is good modern crooner stuff.
