"Christmas Time/Reggae Christmas," Bryan Adams (A&M)

Adams has a lot of fans, and just as many people who dismiss him as a watered-down Tom Petty. Needless to say, we won't dissuade the fans or change the minds of the nay-sayers with a single 45. "Christmas Time" is the A-side, and it's your basic Bryan Adams tune with a Christmas tilt from 1985. "Reggae Christmas" is a little bit more fun; you see the video for it on VH1 and MTV every year, with the five original MTV vee-jays and a crowd of others forming a conga line behind Bryan and his band. Let's see, they were J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn and .... drat, who was that dark-haired guy with the perm .... oh yeah, Mark Goodman. Adams did "Run Rudolph Run" for the first A Very Special Christmas, and he also appeared on a 2002 album called Christmas at the Vatican, singing the A-side here and "On Christmas Day." "Christmas Time" turns up on a number of compilations, but the B-side is pretty rare nowadays.