I recently was at Sam Goody in Gurnee Mills, and picked up
\nA Very Special Christmas 3<\/i> at an incredible price. Looking
\nover my new toy, I read in the liner notes that they found it hard
\nto believe the first volume of this charitable series (which
\nbenefits Special Olympics) came out back in 1987. Honestly, it
\ndoesn’t seem like that long – that is, until you listen to this
\nrelease.<\/p>\n
The artists who contributed to
\nA Very Special Christmas<\/i> meant well, I’m sure, but many of
\nthese versions have not aged well in a mere 13 years, and the
\noverall album suffers as a result.<\/p>\n
There are some outstanding performances that still shine today.
\nAlison Moyet’s loving rendition of “The Coventry Carol” is
\nabsolutely beautiful, and remains a favorite of mine to this day.
\nLikewise, Sting turns in a touching performance on “Gabriel’s
\nMessage,” though he could have dropped the synthesized beats behind
\nhim which seem to serve no purpose in the track.<\/p>\n
The list goes on. Bryan Adams’s rendition of “Run Rudolph Run”
\nis so powerful, when I listened to my cassette copy of this album
\nrecently, I thought I was listening to Bruce Springsteen And The E
\nStreet Band. (Springsteen and crew also turn in a nice performance
\non “Merry Christmas Baby” — I’d much rather hear this than “Santa
\nClaus Is Coming To Town”.) And let’s not forget Stevie Nicks with
\n“Silent Night,” even if I wish she hadn’t changed the last line of
\neach verse so that they all went “Sleep in heavenly peace.”<\/p>\n
But
\nA Very Special Christmas<\/i> has some duds as well — and I know
\nthis will make me sound like Scrooge, but hey,
\nsomeone’s<\/i> got to dole out the fruitcake each year. The
\nPointer Sisters try to sound like giddy schoolgirls on “Santa Claus
\nIs Coming To Town,” and miss the target completely. Bon Jovi’s
\nrendition of “Back Door Santa” almost reminds me why this band had
\na publicity backlash in the late ’80s. John Mellencamp just doesn’t
\nclick with “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” — and is it me, or
\ndoes it seem like everything U2 releases sound like it’s meant for
\ncommercial purposes? (They do, however, capture the Phil Spector
\n“wall of sound” approach on “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”,
\neven if that sound is as outdated as a Nehru jacket.)<\/p>\n
There are also performances which the listener might find
\nthemselves indifferent to — and that’s not the ultimate goal of
\nholiday music. Annie Lennox and Eurythmics do a passable job on
\n“Winter Wonderland,” even if it does sound stale; Madonna gives us
\nher best Cyndi Lauper impression on “Santa Baby”. Why Bob Seger
\nremoves the religious references from “The Little Drummer Boy” is
\nbeyond me, though the version he turns in is pretty good. And The
\nPretenders doing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” — well,
\nit wouldn’t hurt if Cryssie Hynde tried to sing on key
\noccasionally.<\/p>\n
There’s still things on
\nA Very Special Christmas<\/i> that I enjoy, and it’s nice to pick
\nthis up, even if only because it benefits Special Olympics. But
\nmost Christmas albums shouldn’t sound like they’ve aged this soon
\nafter their release — and it places this in a bad light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5827],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36917","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-various-artists","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36917"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36917"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}