Has Kylie made a cracker...
Or is her Xmas CD a turkey?
CHRISTMAS albums have enjoyed a revival since Michael Bublé gave the genre a makeover five years ago. With more festive fare to deck the halls this year — and even the British women’s hockey team donning Santa hats while carolling — ADRIAN THRILLS reveals which should find a place under your tree...
KYLIE MINOGUE: Kylie Christmas — Snow Queen Edition (Parlophone)
Having spread the seasonal spirit for the first time last year, Kylie returns with an expanded version of her Christmas album.
High on festive kitsch, with the australian disco diva (right) decked out in purple tinsel and silver stilettos on the sleeve, it features a throaty cameo from iggy Pop and a beyond-the-grave duet with Frank Sinatra.
The mood is playful, although the six new numbers don’t add much in terms of originality. Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime (sung here with Mika) and Wizzard’s i Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday are blunted by familiarity.
East 17’s Stay another Day and Rozalla’s dance hit Everybody’s Free (To Feel good) aren’t even Christmas songs.
THE KILLERS: Don’t Waste Your Wishes (iTunes)
THE KillERS have made a charity single every Christmas since 2006, and Don’t Waste Your Wishes gathers all 11 together.
With Elton John and neil Tennant contributing, and singer Brandon Flowers’s mischievous sense of humour to the fore, the outcome is impressive. Feel it in My Bones forms the centrepiece of a song trilogy that cast the band’s road manager as a murderous Santa with sinister plans for those on his naughty list.
The sole cover is a real tearjerker, as Flowers hooks up with his former las vegas school teacher Mr Hansen, now 86, on i’ll Be Home For Christmas.
available to download, Don’t Waste Your Wishes is out on CD today thekillersmusic.com.
KACEY MUSGRAVES: A Very Kacey Christmas (Decca)
SPORTING white, fluffy ear muffs on the sleeve and singing in a studio with a snowflake station, Kacey Musgraves embodies country music’s love of a good Christmas record.
The Texan cowgirl has ruffled feathers in nashville with her forthright style, but she reverts to tradition as she tackles let it Snow with the help of Texan fiddlers and imbues What are You Doing new Year’s Eve? with smouldering charm.
in striving for a whimsical feel, she augments eight nostalgic standards with some lively originals. Willie nelson guests on the hazy a Willie nice Christmas, while Present Without a Bow is a country-soul gem featuring fellow Texan leon Bridges.
NEIL DIAMOND: Acoustic Christmas (Capitol)
THE veteran new Yorker, 75, ventures into the snow on the sleeve of this stripped-down affair that promotes Christmas music as a ‘perfect salve’ to the world’s problems.
it’s a noble thought, and only Diamond’s rich, weighty baritone could bring such gravitas to simple versions of Do You Hear What i Hear and o Holy night.
There’s little festive frivolity here, although Rolling Stones sidekick Don Was and U2 producer Jacknife lee do well in recreating the nuances of Diamond’s early days on the greenwich village folk circuit during the Sixties.
acoustic Christmas certainly lives up to its billing — but the singer’s broad, Brooklyn accent sounds incongruous against the Celtic fiddle and bodhran drums of Christmas in Killarney.
GARTH BROOKS & TRISHA YEARWOOD: Christmas Together (Sony)
HUSBAND-AND-WIFE duo garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood have already made three Yuletide albums between them, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the un-Christmassy photo that adorns the sleeve of their first duets collection.
Brooks’s Ugly Christmas Sweater details a dangerous liaison at the office party. Country weepie Hard Candy Christmas finds Trish getting drunk alone on apple wine.
With laid-back arrangements and lots of festive cheese, Christmas Together plays it safe and is redeemed only by the sheer splendour of the singing, with Yearwood adding class and guest James Taylor a typically sweet presence on The Thanksgiving Song.
GARETH MALONE: A Great British Christmas (Decca)
THE nation’s favourite choirmaster pooled musicians and singers from around the UK for this lofty concept album. Choirs from london, Birmingham and Belfast appear, and Team GB’s gold medal-winning hockey girls sing o Come all Ye Faithful.
There’s a cameo from astronaut Tim Peake on a Spaceman Came Travelling, and another from Kaiser Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson, joined by a Yorkshire brass band on Paradise Street.
With a Welsh harpist, Scottish piper and Cornish bell ringers all joining in, this British Christmas could easily have collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. it is to Malone’s credit that it doesn’t — but only just.