Christmas, Rockapella (J-Bird)

The popular a cappella group best known for their work helping to track down Carmen Sandiego give us a holiday album for 2000. A couple of years ago, they put an original Christmas tune, "Hold Out for Christmas," on a non-holiday album, and that one's here, along with two more originals, "The Hope We Hold" and "Christmas Without You." The rest are well-known chestnuts like "Silver Bells," "White Christmas," "The Christmas Song," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and so on. An homage to the Mills Brothers, "Glow Worm," segues into "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." And they pull out all the stops for a very contemporary version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Overall, there's a kind of samey feeling to the whole album that is the group's downfall, although I suspect they sell this material a lot better live.