Five new Christmas albums for the season
Various Canadian artists get into the holiday spirit
Nobody is going to argue the point. This holiday season is weird.
Most of us have been home for it for the past eight months. Rudolph's red nose is now a flag for COVID-19. And anyone kissing Santa Claus is completely ignoring keeping in their bubbles and social distancing.
But that isn't stopping the annual deluge of seasonal music releases. If anything, 2020 may exceed the usual avalanche of holiday-themed records. Not only are timeless classics such as Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas being restocked, but Canadian artists of all genres are joining in expressing seasonal spirit in song.
Here are five new releases worth putting under your tree:
ANNE MURRAY
The Ultimate Christmas Collection | Universal Music Canada Genre:
Pop vocal
Here's one that the family can gather around the hearth and reminisce over. The golden-voiced singer doesn't venture beyond the classics, bringing her brand of cool crooning to everything from No Room at the Inn to Winter Wonderland and Silver Bells. She's clearly having fun as Christmas in Killarney makes clear. All 22 songs were selected by Murray from the half-dozen chart-topping Christmas albums she has released since 1981.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS Various Artists | Arts & Crafts Genre:
Indie rock and pop The stable of artists signed to Toronto's Arts & Crafts label is one of the most robust of any Canadian indie label and this collection features such gems as Zeus sounding pretty Beatles-like on Marching Through Your Head (Christmas edition) to Hannah Georgas turning Let It Snow into a melancholic requiem to weather. Dan Mangan, Sloan, Said the Whale and many others appear on the 12-tune release.
JENN GRANT
Forever On Christmas Eve | JennGrant.com
Genre:
Roots rock Recorded last year, Grant's holiday album showcases her ability to give a delightful vintage country sheen to everything from White Christmas to the killer Downtown Christmas Eve. This Halifax-based singer has been on such a winning roll since releasing Love, Inevitable last year that everything she is involved in seems to sound like a classic you've been listening to for ages.
NORINE BRAUN
December Falls | norinebraun.com Genre:
Blues rock
The dirty guitar and fuzzed-out harmonica burning through Mistletoe Blues is about as far as can be from the bouncy Solstice (This Day the Sun Stands Still) with its cool saxophone and glistening flute, but both tracks are perfect holiday fare from this veteran Vancouver singer/songwriter. There are a few classics such as Silent Night and O Christmas Tree/o Tannenbaum as well as original gems such as The Winter After Elvis Died, recounting a near-death holiday illness. This is a seasonal album you can shake a tail feather to.
VARIOUS
2020 Fresh Versions of Classic Holiday Songs Along With Original New Songs For The Season! | 604shop. com Genre: Rock, pop, country
With 25 tracks, this is a lot of music to take in and it runs the gamut of the Sunset Kids electro-pulsing Runaway for Christmas to the delightful Snowed In by Dani & Lizzy. The mix of originals to classics is well balanced, with Kadooh's Let It Snow a bit of a standout on the holiday classics. Bummer that Carly Rae Jepsen's all-too-familiar It's Not Christmas Till Somebody Cries didn't make the record. Well worth getting a copy of.