With every year I add to my age, I have to keep reminding myself
that every generation has their own holiday music. Our parents had
Bing Crosby, Nat “King” Cole and the Harry Simeone Chorale —
groups I still relate the Christmas season to. My generation had
the original Band Aid, Elmo & Patsy and a host of teeny-bop
groups doing throwaway albums.
Today’s generation also has their own style of holiday music,
and who better to represent them than Hilary Duff, star of
Lizzie McGuire and fixture on Disney Channel. Her debut
album,
Santa Claus Lane, does show there is a voice behind the
pretty young face, even if this is a strange place to start one’s
recording career.
This release — the original 10-track disc came out a year prior
— features an additional track, “What Christmas Should Be”. And
while it is a pretty track, starting out the disc with a morality
play is a little off-putting, especially coming from a teenager.
Still, the message of the song is appropriate — especially as the
holiday season becomes more and more about material possessions
than any religious significance.
Duff is able to breathe some life into some slightly stale
chestnuts, such as her cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” — in
retrospect, this is a song that should have been sung by a female
in the first place. And you have to give Duff and her band credit
for trying to do something to “Wonderful Christmastime,” even if
the source material isn’t the strongest cup of tea on the table. It
doesn’t totally succeed, but there is some level of joy in the
track that I don’t hear in Paul McCartney’s original.
The bulk of
Santa Claus Lane, admittedly, isn’t designed for those of us
in our mid-30s; rather, kids 13 and under will appreciate this disc
more. That doesn’t mean that parents will roll their eyes and groan
when this disc is played — indeed, Duff does show she has a strong
(if slightly understated) voice that she is still growing into. On
classics like “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” and “Sleigh Ride,”
Duff puts an interesting spin on the songs without disturbing the
ghosts of the originals. Duff also introduces some tracks which —
believe it or not — could someday become classics, such as the
title track and “Same Old Christmas.”
The only real mis-step comes on “Tell Me A Story,” a duet with
rapper Lil’ Romeo which feels as out of place here as bringing a
cat to a dog show. (Sorry, but it’s a kids’ music review, and
that’s the cleanest simile I could come up with.) Granted, hip-hop
and rap is still popular, and I don’t want to take anything away
from Lil’ Romeo or Duff, but this track just never takes off, nor
does it live up to the standards of the other songs on this
disc.
Duff is, at this writing, still not even old enough to vote, so
her recording history has a long way to go. As a first effort,
Santa Claus Lane is respectable, even as we wonder where
she’ll take things. As a Christmas album, it has the possibility of
having longer legs than, say, Hanson’s
Snowed In.
