I had the Amazon listing for this bookmarked but let it slip through my fingers until now because I had no idea what this was about. This is Alice Cooper's deal -- he runs a foundation that helps at-risk youth by providing organized music instruction for them, and the foundation organizes an annual Christmas concert. In the year from the album title, they also got to record an album. And it's pretty darn good. There's not a lot of originality in approach, as the performers derive their approaches from mainstream hard rock, and a lot of these tunes are familiar carols, like Britahn's "O Holy Night," Callie Young's "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," Thomas Muglia's "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," Ciara Cisneros' "Mary Did You Know," Lexy Lexy's thrash through "Poison of the Bells," Don't Tell Mom's pastiche of carols "Christmas Parfait," and Lauren Case's "O Come O Come Emanuel." But there are some pretty good originals, like Vintage Wednesday's "Santa's Watching," Innocent Elaine's "I Saw Santa," Jam Now's "A Gift in Every Moment," Evan Berg's "Christmas Miracle," The Sink or Swim's "Christmas Tree," and Ironkill's "We Stole Christmas." If you're not burdened by genre snobbery, you might just enjoy this.
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