Christmas discs
and put on display on the South Lawn of the White House? That sounds about right, but the guys in Alabama might have different ideas. If you like your country music maudlin and depressing, “First Christmas Without Daddy” and “Sure Could Use Some Christmas Around Here” are Alabama’s gifts to you. And if you don’t, there’s always “Ain’t Santa Cool” or “(I Wanna) Rock N Roll Guitar”, which are as convincing as you’d expect them to be. > JL
FANTASIA Christmas After Midnight Just gonna get this out of the way right off the top: three years ago Ceelo Green was charged with slipping ecstasy into a woman’s drink, news of which was followed by a since-redacted tweetstorm in which the singer essentially said it’s not rape if one party is unconscious. This makes it extremely discomfiting to hear Green sing the male part in “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—a duet in which the female half jestingly accuses the man of putting something illicit in her cocktail in order to coerce her into staying. Um, gross! Let’s give former American Idol contestant Fantasia Taylor points for having a jaw-dropping voice, however, and for delivering a suitably greasy take on James Brown’s funktastic chestnut “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto”. > JL
CELTIC WOMAN The Best of Christmas Oh, Celtic Woman. Less a band than a licence to print Shamrock Bucks, or whatever currency they use in Ireland. With an ever-changing lineup, currently featuring exactly zero original members, Celtic Woman has something like 18 albums out (each featuring truly dreadful graphic design), and about half of them seem to be some sort of Christmas thing. All cynicism aside, the music is more than decent as far as these things go. If you’re looking for a seasonal soundtrack that straddles the line between pop-classical and new age and boasts pretty harmonies and the odd flourish of fiddle and uilleann pipes, The Best of Christmas lives up to its billing. > JL
O’HOOLEY & TIDOW Winterfolk, Volume 1 Here’s something that takes a supersized set of balls: trying to do justice to the Pogues’ inarguably flawless “Fairytale of New York”. The highly decorated English duo O’hooley & Tidow manages the almost impossible on Winterfolk, reimagining a modern Christmas classic as a downbeat meditation, the orchestral brashness of the original replaced by black-hearted cello and violin. Billed as a collection that focuses on “the darker hued aspects of yuletide”, the rest of this 12-song outing is indeed best enjoyed by candlelight at 2 a.m. with a bottle of Ardbeg Kildalton. So get set for some serious reflection on songs
like the piano-adorned “The Last Polar Bear” and the powerful ballad “One More Xmas” (including devastating lines like “I just want to be little and spend Christmas with my mum”). > MU
TARJA From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas) To determine if you’re in the target audience for this pop-operatic exercise by Tarja Turunen—known best as one of the founders of the unintentionally hilarious symphonic-metal outfit Nightwish—ask yourself the following question: do I want my festive fare to evoke images of orcs bidding their heads a gory farewell? The pounding martial drums of “O Tannenbaum” turn the celebration of the simple pleasure of the Christmas tree into something that sounds as if it should be underscoring an epic battle scene in a Lord of the Rings movie, and the rest of the album is just as melodramatically dreary. Or, depending on how many 20-sided dice you own, you might find it breathtakingly awesome. > JL
CHEAP TRICK Christmas Christmas For a band that’s done almost nothing of value since 1979’s Dream Police, Cheap Trick isn’t exactly set up for an epic fail with the unimaginatively titled Christmas Christmas. How unexpected, then, that the kickoff original, “Merry Christmas Darlings”, delivers
tinsel-draped glam at its most potent, and the closing title track suggests the Beatles headlining a holiday matinee at CBGB. Those of the opinion that the last thing Jesus H. Christ wants to hear around his birthday is distorted guitars and galloping drums will enjoy Cheap Trick’s first holiday album about as much as Cheap Trick fans cared about Woke Up With a Monster. And let’s be honest: the only thing the world needs less than another version of “Run Rudolph Run” is a rendition that throws overdriven Blueshammer harmonica into the mix. Still, for no other reason than no one saw it coming, this late-career triumph somehow makes a fourdecade-old act seem shiny and new. > MU
VARIOUS ARTISTS Small Talk With Scarecrow Apparently, Christmas is a big deal in South Korea, but this compilation from the Masan-based label Heosuabi Record is still inexplicable. Why does a shotgun-brandishing Santa Claus appear to be terrorizing Elvis Presley, Jesus, and Macauley Culkin on the cover? Unless you understand Korean, you’ll likely find yourself wondering exactly what a song like Kim Tae Chun’s “Night of the Living Scarecrow”—all jaunty ragtime piano and musical saw—has to do with Christmas. Ditto Yamagata Tweakster’s bedroomtechno number “Suck You Asshole”, which at least has the benefit of bearing an awesomely translated title. > JL