New Christmas Music from Johnny Mathis, Jane Monheit, Anne Wilson, Future Islands, Jason Aldean and more...
Albums
A Merry Little Christmas
Johnny Mathis
How can Johnny Mathis sound this good after all these years and the millions of notes he's graced audiences with over the years? Sure, some accommodations in his delivery have been made for age but dang he sounds smooth. What a legend. It’s a blessing to have gotten more lovely Christmas tunes from one of the all-time greats
Recommended.
The Merriest
Jane Monheit
Monheit’s first festive collection since 2005’s The Season is another fabulous collection of jingle jazzy goodness. John Pizzarelli guests on a smooooth take on “That Holiday Feeling” but the whole album is a treat
Recommended
The Manger
Anne Wilson
Anne Wilson is a popular Christian artist, meaning a surprising number of “Christmas Influencers” will automatically hate this but it’s, as expected, a solid country-tinged E.P. with songs about this guy named Jesus and his extended family. So yeah, this is an actual Christmas record, not just a Holiday record.
Josh Turner guests on “The Manger” and Anne herself guests on Phil Wickham’s August released, but to me still a Christmas single, “Behold.”
Recommended
An Olivia Rox Christmas
An American Idol participant, apparently. Hits a few genres along the way but is mostly not my thing, though the song “Cold Toes” is catchier than a cold.
Lofi Christmas Time Is Here
Orange Roundabout
It does what it says on the tin, literally. So if that floats your holly then you are in luck. The three tracks clock in at a second over six minutes. A low effort production for a low effort listen.
Singles
Winter Flowers - The Hound + The Fox
Found this spring release in Guuz Hoogaert’s terrific New Christmas Songs 2022 playlist and, while it’s a “winter” song, it’s breathtakingly lovely and on my Christmas playlist as well.
Last Christmas - Future Islands
Straight forward Synth-wave take on the over covered Wham classic. Pretty good, as such things go, I guess I like it.
All I Want For Christmas is You - Herb Alpert
Christmas in Dixie - Jason Aldean
A solid cover of Alabama’s 1982 hit.
Home for Christmas - Smithfield
More country season’s greetings, this time from duo Smithfield. Nothing wrong with i, I’ve played it three or four times and it gets catchier each time, though the actual Christmas vibe isn’t amazing.
Hometown Christmas - NEEDTOBREATHE, JUDAH., Switchfoot
Trio of CCM heavyweights come together for an anthemic tribute to , well, a hometown Christmas. Taken from Switchfoot's "this is our Christmas album".
This Christmas - Donny and Lalah Hathaway
Nice posthumous father / daughter duet on dad’s classic holiday hit. I generally have mixed emotions about this sort of thing but it works fairly seamlessly here and it’s clearly a labor of love.
