Christmas has become commericial. I know this. Anyone who’s
\ngrown up on A Charlie Brown Christmas knows this. ‘Tis the season
\nto be jolly – unless that overweight woman ahead of you tries to
\ngrab the last set of leg cozies you were going to buy for your Aunt
\nAgnes. (Is it me, or is Christmastime the only time you see
\ntelevision ads for crap like Chia-Pets and The Clapper?)<\/p>\n
What bothers me more than the commercialization of the hoildays
\nis when Christmas albums are released, and though they may have
\ngood intentions by donating proceeds to charity, the albums seem to
\nbe concocted just to sell. And as I sit here holding Christmas Of
\nHope, a disc I bought a few years back (and appears to be out of
\nprint), I can’t help thinking that this is one of those
\nexamples.<\/p>\n
I know I should encourage people to seek this disc out and buy
\nit, simply because all profits, according to the record label, are
\ndonated to City Of Hope, and I don’t want to discourage people from
\ngiving to charity. But sometimes, I think you’d be better off
\nwhipping out your checkbook and writing a $20 check to the charity
\nthan picking up this disc.<\/p>\n
Why am I being grinchy about Christmas Of Hope? For one thing,
\nwill someone explain to me how the hell “New Year’s Day” from U2 is
\na CHRISTMAS SONG?!? Cripes, using that logic, I could successfully
\nargue that Venom’s “Welcome To Hell” quailfies as well. This track
\nshould have been deep-sixed.<\/p>\n
The other thing that bothers me is the track selection, and the
\nsometimes stone cold renditions of these holiday favorites. Elton
\nJohn’s “Step Into Christmas” could well qualify as one of the worst
\nholiday songs out there, simply put. Mariah Carey sounds good on
\n“Silent Night,” but there is emotion lacking in her performance.
\nAnd while I admire Wynton Marsalis’s talent, I don’t know if a jazz
\nrendition of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” quite fits
\nthe mood. (It could well be also that, as I wrote this review,
\nChicago was about to be hit by its third significant snowfall in 10
\ndays, and I’m absolutely sick of the white stuff.)<\/p>\n
That all said, there are some performances on Christmas Of Hope
\nthat don’t make me lose hope. The Eagles’s rendition of “Please
\nCome Home For Christmas” might be a little stale, but I grew up
\nhearing it, and I still like listening to it from time to time.
\nAaron Neville (“Bells Of St. Mary’s”), Aretha Franklin (“Joy To The
\nWorld”) and James Brown (“Merry Christmas, Baby”) all get things
\nright. And even John Mellencamp turns in a respectable performance
\nwith “Teddi’s Song (When Christmas Comes).”<\/p>\n
Christmas albums, I realize, have to be somewhat commercial, or
\nthey would sell as well as space heaters on the equator. But there
\nhas to be some real emotion in the performances as well; otherwise,
\nit sounds like the artists are just going through the motions.
\nThere are some good songs on Christmas Of Hope, but for the most
\npart, this disc shows what happens when that emotion is
\nmissing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5827],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36921","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-various-artists","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36921","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=36921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36921"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36921"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}