by Camera Obscura
(4AD)
If it’s not yet a music-biz truism that everyone in it eventually
makes a holiday record, this year you could be forgiven for thinking it
is one. Right now there are new Christmas discs by a motley assortment
of performers—Tori Amos, Sugarland, David Archuleta, REO
Speedwagon, and Rob Halford, as well as the ones here.
“The Blizzard” was first cut by velvety country baritone Jim Reeves
in 1961. It’s a softly sung disaster ballad about a man stuck on a
sleigh with a lame horse trying to make his way back to his wife during
a snowstorm. Naturally, he perishes: “His hands froze to the reins/He
was just a hundred yards from Mary Anne.” Its hushed strum translates
nicely to Scottish twee-poppers Camera Obscura’s muted chamber-indie
arrangement, and singer Tracyanne Campbell neatly remakes it into a
holiday tune by changing “You can bet we’re on her mind/For it’s nearly
suppertime” into “nearly Christmastime.” Since romantic disaster is
CO’s MO anyway, it fits perfectly.
by Bob Dylan
(Columbia)
Bob Dylan, on the other hand, is out for a raucous good time. His
Christmas in the Heart is a wild swing at the seasonal
market—play his “O Come All Ye Faithful” for the kids and they
may never forgive you—but this blast through a standard he first
learned off a Sing Along with Mitch LP is one of his most
vigorous recordings ever, with a video to match, in which a wild house
party climaxes with someone leaping through a closed window as Dylan
and Kriss Kringle look on with matched shrugs. The accordion-led polka
arrangement was derived from Texas hotheads Brave Combo, with Dylan
racing through the lines “Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen/Eisenhower,
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon/Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen/Carter, Reagan,
Bush, and Clinton” like he’s been doing it all his life, which in a
sense he has. Try it yourself sometime. Then go drink some spiked
eggnog—you’re going to need it.
by Neil Diamond
(Columbia)
Neil Diamond will have some of that eggnog, too—or, for this
priceless climax of his own new Christmas disc, some Baron Herzog. You
guessed it: Adam Sandler’s greatest hit has been claimed by the Jewish
Elvis himself, who sinks his teeth into his material as a matter of
course and gets to chew the scenery good here, from “the late Dinah
Shore-ah” to “don’t smoke your marijuanica.” L’chaim! 