The yuletide brings parties, tree trimmings and present-wrapping time. What will want to hear while engaging in this year’s yuletide rituals? If you’re tired of Alvin and the Chipmunks, had it with barking “Jingle Bells” and consider Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” played out, this list of new prospects may take you to your festive happy place.
Merry Christmas, Darling
Broadway star Longoria returns with a selection of his personal Christmas favorites. Billed as a romantic holiday album with a throwback ’60s vibe, Merry Christmas Darling “will make you want to hang up your stocking, snuggle up by the fireplace, and get into the Christmas spirit.” The collection includes standards like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”, interwoven with modern day classics such as “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and “Last Christmas”. The album also introduces an original gay Christmas romance tune co-written by Longoria and Rona Siddiqui called “Merry Me This Christmas”.
“At a time when we all need a little Christmas, I wanted to share my heart on songs written about being in love during the holiday season and the beauty of giving your heart away at Christmas time” says the tunesmith. In celebration of the album’s release, Longoria makes his Birdland concert debut on December 10 at the Birdland Theatre.
This Christmas Day
On her fifth studio effort and first yuletide album, This Christmas Day includes such standards as “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Let it Snow” and features collaborations from producers Babyface, David Foster, and Janet Jackson’s masterminds Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Babyface, who takes a share of the spotlight on “The Christmas Song,” while Boyz II Men lend their vocals to “Winter Wonderland.”
Christmas is Here!
No strangers to the genre, Pentatonix provide yet a fourth installment of Christmas classics interspersed with a host of new tracks. Among this year’s fare: “It’s Beginning to look a Lot Like Christmas,” the Stevie Wonder chestnut “That’s What Christmas Means to Me” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” as well as “Making Christmas” and the medieval evergreen “Greensleeves.”
A Legendary Christmas
Singer/songwriter John Legend, who has become part of the great American soundtrack of the last dozen years, is ramping up for the holidays with a new tour and a new record celebrating the season at hand. The album offers up Legendary versions of “The Christmas Song” (better known by Nat “King” Cole fans by its opening line, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”), “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and the Charlie Brown Christmas favorite, “Christmas Time is Here.”
Happy Xmas
Blues legend Eric Clapton has assembled his very first Christmas album, Happy Xmas, an assortment of 14 tracks interspersing standards (“White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” and “Away in a Manger” all make the cut) with lesser known Yuletide fare, including a new original, “For Love On Christmas Day.” Incidentally, Clapton’s take on “Jingle Bells” is dedicated to the memory of the the late DJ Avicii.
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