Once of Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley, more recently solo ("Forget You") and now a big old TV star thanks to his role as a judge on "The Voice," one would assume Cee-Lo's first Christmas album in 2012 would be a move for the mainstream rather than something more hip-hop informed, and one would be right. Nevertheless, this disc is a solid modern soul/R'nB production, augmented with guest stars who contribute but don't take the spotlight off the star of the show. Good covers of Stevie Wonder's "What Christmas Means to Me" and Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" are two of the three first songs, broken up by a duet with fellow "Voice" judge Christina Aguilera on "Baby It's Cold Outside," in the usual jazz ballad arrangement this song typically gets. Straight No Chaser helps CeeLo ham it up on "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," and Rod Stewart and Trombone Shorty step in on an uptempo version of the classic "Merry Christmas, Baby." (Which appears on Rod's new Christmas disc as well.) An original, "All I Need Is Love," is a bit of theater featuring The Muppets, "Run Rudolph Run" is a big band take that is otherwise fairly faithful to the Chuck Berry version, and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)" appears in a modern slow-jam arrangement. Other ballads on the disc include "Mary Did You Know" and Joni Mitchell's "River," ending with a bombastic "Silent Night." It's entirely possible this will get crammed in your ear by TV and radio between now and Christmas, but that doesn't interfere with the fact that this is a good soul record, and that reducing the playlist by a few of the more show-bizzy sounding songs would transform this into a great soul record.
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