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New Christmas Music 2022
Albums
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Winterlicious
Debbie Gibson
Includes her 2021 single Christmas Star and 1992’s Sleigh Ride from the A Very Special Christmas Compilation. Highlight (?) of the new stuff is Heartbreak Holiday, a duet with Joey McIntyre. Not likely to revisit this one any time soon.
Holidays Around the World
Pentatonix
Top purveyors of modern elevator music 3000th Christmas release of the last decade goes the “World Music” route with predictably bland and poppy results. It’s not badly done but, to my ears at least, it seems very safe, generic and rather insincere, despite a decent cast of appropriately diverse guests. It’s not a good sign when the biggest problem with a Pentatonix song is when Pentatonix turns up.
That said, if your already a fan, as I was in their early years, then this should be a real treat.
Estefan Family Christmas
A truly charming and tuneful holiday gift from pop legend Gloria Estefan and family. Not surprisingly Gloria and hubby. Miami Sound Machine founder (and winner of 19 Grammy awards!), Emilio, lead the way with superb performances while the younger generation do a creditable job as well.
Recommended.
A Family Christmas
Andrea, Matteo, and Virginia Bocelli
The Estefan’s aren’t the only famous family dropping Christmas tracks this year.la famiglia Bocelli offer A Family Christmas, and it’s as lovely as you would expect. First rate classical crossover with bits of jazz, the great American Songbook and even lite pop in tasteful doses.
Recommended
Everybody Knows it's Christmas
Chris Isaak
My favorite of the season so far. A terrific collection of familiar favorites and solid originals with a nice balance of straight and novelty holiday tunes. I'm particularly grateful that Isaak chose not to go the ersatz crooner route and simply made a Chris Isaak Christmas record.
Highly Recommended
Bluegrass Christmas 2
Craig Duncan
Perfectly nice Bluegrass background music, the sort of thing you'd happily hum along to while browsing the gift store section of Cracker Barrel. A good choice for Bluegrass fans or anyone throwing a country theme holiday soiree.
Singles
Santa Claus was my Uber Driver
Lee Brice
Not as cheesy as the title suggests but nothing amazing either. We'll see if it grows on me or ages as poorly as most seasonal novelties.
Maybe This Year.
Steve Perry
More of the same as last year's Christmas effort. Senior citizen Perry's main problem releasing new music is his own awesome pedigree, so hearing his understandably time ravaged voice at first feels like a sad letdown but once you separate the man from who he was and concentrate on who he is now as an artist there's a lot to like here.
And while I complimented Chris Isaak for eschewing the crooner route Perry wisely takes the same path as other vocal legends like Rod Stewart and Bryan Ferry in embracing the more intimate side of the style which so well suites his well seasoned voice..
A Spaceman Came Travelling
Chris DeBurgh, Aled Jones, Russell Watson
A lovely new version of DeBurgh's seasonal gem. From Jones’ and Russell’s upcoming duo album.
