12 Nights of Christmas, R. Kelly (RCA)

Given this artist's notoriety, the quick take is that a Christmas album from him is roughly equivalent in appropriateness to a reality TV star becoming president. But even though R. Kelly hasn't managed to stay out of the gossip columns, if you had this 2016 holiday collection played to you without any advance fanfare, you'd peg it for what it is -- a strong 21st century era R'nB inflected holiday album, all mid-tempos and slow jams and mostly original tunes. Completists will be annoyed that his Christmas song from "The Best Man Holiday" soundtrack, "Christmas I'll Be Steppin," is missing from this collection, but this is the download/streaming era, so create your own playlist however you see fit. I like "Christmas Lovin'," "Snowman," "Home For Christmas" and "Flyin' On My Sleigh," the latter of which takes us all the way back to 70s soul.