This 2011 Christmas album was a collaboration between Tom Smith of the Editors and Andy Burrows, who was in Razorlight, We Are Scientists, and several other groups. They're still together and maintain a Facebook page that was updated as recently as June 2021, but it appears their debut album was this holiday collection. It's a modern pop-rock collection of originals and covers, although only opener "In the Bleak Midwinter" and closer "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," the latter with a guest vocal by Agnes Obel, are immediately recognizable holiday classics. The sound is a sort of grown-up version of 80s-90s British post-New Wave balladry, with midtempo songs ruling the playlist. The artists' own "When the Thames Froze," "As the Snowflakes Fall," "Rosslyn," and "This Ain't New Jersey" set the more-winter, less-Christmas tone, as do Black's "Wonderful Life," Longpigs' "On and On," the title tune that originated with the band Delta, and Yazoo's non-holiday hit "Only You." The title tune is the hit here, although "Thames" was also released back in the day as a single in the UK. An enjoyable collection.
Recently in 2010s Category
From 2019, this is quite the nice pop-rock number, combining old-school tunefulness with current production touches. Probably should give some props to producer Jon Levine, who played most of the instruments except for the strings and drums. Of course, it's Alessia who brings the personality to the lead vocal (and some of the backups as well.) Check this out. It's part of an EP that also includes "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)."
The late Salome Bey is widely known as a musical performer, actress, and promoter of the arts, particularly in Canada, which awarded her the Order of Canada for her career achievements. Born in the USA, she made her home in Toronto and was probably better known for her work in African American theatre than for her own musical performances. Nevertheless, she made a number of records, including this 2015 gospel/soul workout for the holidays. Her alto voice is strong, her use of it is very theatrical, and the arrangements of these songs are quite up-to-the-minute soulful. The title song is a midtempo musing on the "Christmas blues," and there are similar themes in "Why Can't the Christmas Spirit Be Always," "Christmastime Christmastime," and "It Is Time We Celebrate." There also are solid versions of "Joy To the World," "O Holy Night," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "What Child Is This," and a fine uptempo take on "Silent Night." Availability is spotty; it's not downloadable anywhere and Amazon only shows hardcopies at premium prices, although I did find it on Spotify. Bey died in 2020 at the age of 86.
I was aware of this earlier, but somehow forgot to weigh in on this until now. There's nothing necessarily wrong with these guys having overdubbed themselves over a bonafide Christmas classic so that it sounds 2010s instead of 1970s, but that's really the only thing they've managed to achieve here. If your genre playlist will fail utterly if any part of it sounds like it was made earlier than 2015, knock yourself out.
The hip-hop performer brings his style of music to Christmas for 2019. It's a mix of originals and covers, starting with Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas," and you could imagine that a 2019 Donny Hathaway playing this song for the first time would sound exactly like this. He brings in guest singers Candice Boyd to take lead on "Carol of the Bells" and RaVaughn to sing Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas," but takes back the mic on "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," "Merry Christmas Baby," and Marvin Gaye's "I Want to Come Home For Christmas." Originals include break-up song "Just Ain't Christmas," the explicit "Talk About It," "Open Mine Tonight," and the Caribbean-flavored "Christmas Vibez" with Satori & Dre Island. The tempos are mostly medium ballad to slow jam, with the outlier being "Merry Christmas Baby," which puts a modern spin on the original blues beat. I like this a lot, though I'd drop "Talk About It" from any office party playlists due to language, which includes use of the n-word.
Yes, this is them, or what's left of them, anyway, in the year of our funky selves 2018. This six-song EP isn't quite what we remember of these guys at their most exuberant ("San Francisco/Hollywood," "YMCA," "Macho Man"), but these are all original songs with that late-70s pop-funk sound. "Go Santa Go" and "Snowball Fight" are the ones you'll spot as their classic sound, "Happiest Day of the Year" is a slower-tempo number in the same vein, "If You Believe" and "A Very Merry Christmas To You" are holiday ballads, and "Jingle Everyday" is a straight funk repurposing of phrases from the classic carol. It's not bad, and I can see folks grabbing this just so they can say they have the Village People in their playlists.
The modern hip-hop singer dropped this EP fairly late in the season, and the title song is really interesting, if a bit long at 5:29. It starts as a medium-tempo ballad and swings into a rap, but picks up with the singing again at a more upbeat tempo. This is definitely good for the more eclectic playlists out there. She fills out the EP with versions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" that are both straight contemporary jazz readings of these standard tunes, although 'Christmas' has a lengthy overblown improvised intro. I'd stick with the A-side for sure.
This collection is actually from 2017, but Chicago singer KRBY added three songs and reissued this collection for 2018. It's modern R'nB done with synths and computers, and it's actually fairly mellow, although KRBY's distinctive voice does grab your attention. It's all familiar carols as well, which makes for a fairly laid-back listening experience, although you can crank the volume and dance to many of these songs. Added for 2018 is an instrumental of "Silver Bells," a unique take on "Merry Christmas Baby," and a reggae version of "What Christmas Means To Me." Also on hand is an upbeat "Do You Hear What I Hear," a lilting "White Christmas," slow-jam arrangements of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," a spacey "Silent Night," a soulful "Carol of the Bells," a conventional take on "Please Come Home For Christmas," and an instrumental of "Auld Lang Syne." Most of these songs include guest artists, but for brevity's sake I'll let you guys prowl the credits for their names. A little samey taken all at once, but there are plenty of candidates for your mixes here.
John Legend's new Christmas album got all the buzz in the entertainment press, but we must give it up for Aloe Blacc, who also joined the Christmas party in 2018 with a full album of holiday tunes, all but two written by him. And this album is excellent, solid modern R'nB with a light sprinkling of hip-hop touches. In terms of accurate advertising, you can take this album's title to the bank. Album opener "Tell Your Mama" gets the funk rolling, "I Got Your Christmas Right Here" takes the gospel approach, "I Can't Wait For Christmas" is a holiday "beef" song in which the singer calls out a lover, "The Mrs Saved Christmas" is a rap tribute to Santa's wife, "All I Have is Love" is a ballad about lack of money for Christmas gifts, "At Christmas" has a light Caribbean rhythm, "Love Comes Home" is a holiday love ballad, and I'm sure you can figure out what "Funky Ass Christmas" is all about. Blacc also gives Wham's "Last Christmas" a soulful reading and puts a bit of slow jam into Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas." If you opt for this over Legend's album, I'll definitely understand, it's that good.
I had somehow not noticed this came out in 2015, but it's been reissued for 2018 with one new song, a medley of "Silent Night/Away in a Manger" that could have been done by anybody. If you're going to spend good money on Christmas music featuring a classic 70s disco act, then you're going to want something that carries something of the sound of that particular act. Keep in mind that KC and the Sunshine Band, in its original incarnation, was something of an art concept in that its best known tunes, like "Get Down Tonight," "That's the Way I Like It," "Shake Your Booty" and others, were stripped-down and repetitive dance-floor anthems, which was a reaction to the earnestness of classic and progressive rock of the early 70s. So the tunes you really want to hear from this collection are the ones that hearken back to their original era, like the title song, "Let's Go Dancing With Santa," "Jingle Bell Boogie," and "After Christmas Song." The version of "Carol of the Bells" also manages to have some of that 70s flair, but the other songs, all classic tunes like "Last Christmas," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," "Little Drummer Boy," "Do You Hear What I Hear," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "Go Tell It On the Mountain," are pretty much professional cover band renditions.
PJ's a modern R'nB and gospel singer and keyboardist who might be best known as a member of Maroon 5, and he's got several solo albums to his credit along with work alongside Stevie Wonder, Jermaine Dupri and India.arie. Based in New Orleans, where he digs into the bounce scene, he's also the proprietor of his self-named record label. For 2018 he steps up to the holidays with this eight-song album of mostly familiar material from the classic carols as well as past R'nB holiday tunes and a pair of originals, the gospel duet "Do You Believe" featuring Yolanda Adams and the string-laden ballad "Peyton's Lullaby (Right Away)" with Stokley. Also on offer are faithful renditions of "This Christmas" and Smokey's "Give Love on Christmas Day," a less-faithful but still enjoyable take on Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You," a soulful "I'll Be Home For Christmas," and he brings a little reggae and bounce to "Winter Wonderland" and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)." A fine addition to the Christmas soul music repertoire.
Arguably one of the leading soul singers of the current musical era, John Legend pulls out all the stops for this 2018 Christmas album, which he's also supporting with live holiday-themed concerts this year. No doubt that's why this album has 14 tracks, in an era where many artists are constraining new albums to 30-40 minute lengths, the better to squeeze them onto a single vinyl disc. (The vinyl version of this one is a double-disc set.) Raphael Saadiq produces and contributes songwriting to several of the new songs composed for this album. Of the originals, "Bring Me Love" is an obvious single with its classic Motown style, "No Place Like Home" offers a jazzy feel in this ode to staying in for the holiday, "Waiting For Christmas" and "By Christmas Eve" are piano ballads of the kind Legend is known for, "Wrap Me Up in Your Love" has the sound of a 70s funk ballad, and "Merry Merry Christmas" has a fun New Orleans-influenced rhythm. The album kicks off with assistance from Stevie Wonder on his "What Christmas Means to Me," and Esperanza Spaulding duets on a jazzed-up "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Legend gives a full-orchestra funk backing to his version of "Silver Bells," and there's a touch of New Orleans on the "Peanuts" classic "Christmas Time Is Here." "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)" gets a straight Mel Torme-style reading, and Legend pulls two Charles Brown classics, "Merry Christmas Baby" medleyed with "Give Love on Christmas Day," and "Please Come Home For Christmas." There's also a version of Marvin Gaye's seldom-covered "Purple Snowflakes." I like this, although I have a sense of it being just a little too calculated to please, but that's always a factor when you're dealing with the most popular artists.
Smokey of course did the Christmas thing as a songwriter and also with the Miracles during his Motown days. This is new for 2017, however, and I'm always wary when historical artists like him make a latter-day lunge for the Christmas market. Smokey leans more to adult contemporary than R'nB in his old age, but he leans right back again too, making this a very listenable album. He does credible takes of "Please Come Home For Christmas" and "This Christmas," a peppy "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" with the help of Trombone Shorty, a very nice upbeat Motown/Latin take on "White Christmas," and a cool original "You're My Present" in which he's backed by the Dap-Kings. Another original, "The Night That Baby Was Born," is a solid performance you could almost hear the E Street Band perform, and he brings Us The Duo along on a remake of his classic "Christmas Everyday." That leaves a very gospel version of "Silent Night" featuring Mindi Abair and set-ender "O Holy Night," done a capella with the help of Take 6. For lovers of classic R'nB, this is definitely worth your while. Oh, it looks like this is an Amazon exclusive, btw.
This Toronto group knocked out a cover of the Boyz II Men classic (not the better-known carol of the same name) for the holiday, and this video is the only way to hear it. Solid performance and enjoyable visuals.
And here's another Amazon playlist, which you can listen to as an Amazon Prime or Amazon Music customer with no further adieu, or you can graze the tracks and download them for your own mixes. As you've probably already guessed, this 2017 playlist hews toward the R'nB side of the street, and the majority of these tracks were commissioned by Amazon, so they're not available elsewhere, at least for now. Many are familiar R'nB holiday tunes, like the Soul Rebels' "What Christmas Means To Me," which is a boisterous take highlighted by the use of tuba instead of bass guitar; JC Brooks Band's solid cover of "Back Door Santa"; Marc Broussard's version of "Please Come Home For Christmas"; Dawn Richard's Prince tribute, "Another Lonely Christmas"; a hip-hop/chill take on the O'Jays' "Christmas Just Ain't Christmas" by Demo Taped; Don Bryant's tribute to the Otis Redding version of "White Christmas"; and Davie's cover of Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas." Other tunes are familiar but get reimagined for this collection, like Ruth B's slow-jam version of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," Nicole Atkins' funky version of "O Holy Night," and MAJOR's martial take on "Little Drummer Boy." Other tunes include Jungle Fire's funky instrumental "Jingle Fire," Robert Finley's fine blues "Merry Christmas, I Love You," Liz Brasher's 60s tribute "Only Gift I Need," and Diane Coffee skips to the 70s with the belting ballad "Let's Skip Christmas This Year." Hip-hop represents with Blu & Exile's hip-hop "Christmas Missed Us," Open Mike Eagle's "Snowsuit," and Buscabulla puts a Latin twist on with "Cantares." There's more, almost an hour and a half of holiday music, new or new to you, so check it out. 
Can't say I'm familiar with Bloom or Bozeman, but here they are with an R'nB holiday EP for 2017. (Bozeman has a role on the music industry soap opera "Empire," as I discovered while writing this.) After a couple false starts with the brief "Chopin Nocture Interlude" and the mostly spoken "Sugar Plum Ghetto," they launch into a slow jam called "Mistletune Hanging," which is pretty much what you'd expect from the title. "Funky Christmas" picks up the tempo just a bit, narrating holiday preparations and running down some holiday verities. The song their label is pushing is their version of "Baby It's Cold Outside," which throws a few R'nB touches over what is otherwise a familiar way to perform the song. Things wrap up with another slow jam, "Ghetto Christmas," telling the story of a tragic holiday. Well produced and performed, but I'm not hearing a breakout tune from this collection other than "Baby."
Just encountered this R'nB singer/rapper for the first time because of this 2017 EP. Two classics and one original, the version of "Silver Bells" features his mother, BigBabyMom as rendered here, and "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)" is just him and electric piano with a spoken interlude; canned strings sneak in near the end. The title song is a smooth slow jam built out of samples that's all about the holiday verities, and all about that sweet lovemaking as well. Cool stuff.
We had this artist a couple years ago with "The Angel Gabriel," and this time around he gives us this slow funk groove with lyrics inspired by a sermon by the Rev. A.W. Nix, one of those early 20th century preachers who put their sermons on vinyl records, the podcasts of their day. Very cool and distressingly short, I could listen to this for a good while longer. Grab it from Bandcamp. Oh, and a little history lesson is attached below.
This is from last year's It's a Holiday Soul Party album, but they just made this video for it this year. I'm posting it because the late Sharon Jones is a talent who should never be forgotten.
Old-school soul star Bunny had a Christmas album out in 2012, and at the time it struck us here as being just a bit too much adult contemporary/easy listening for visitors to the site. But for 2016, they plucked Bunny's version of Der Bingle's song from the album, remixed it, juiced up the arrangement and cut nearly two minutes off the run time, and I like it a lot better now. Grab it from Amazon and iTunes, or just check it out below.
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.
The reclusive solo star and ex-Fugee dropped an admittedly unfinished cover of Nat King Cole on Soundcloud this week, so have at it, folks.
Never heard of this young lady before, but she's got some music up on Soundcloud similar to this pop-R'nB number, and this one's a hopping little holiday love song, as you can tell by clicking play. So far, it's only on YouTube, and ESPN has a basketball-themed version of it cued up to play during holiday games, according to Paste magazine. I'll update if independent audio turns up.
- Jordan Lee of Mutual Benefit got into the holiday spirit with this video of "Have Yourself a Merry Lil Christmas," which you can check out here.
- I guess I'm the last to point out that not only did Bruce Springsteen perform "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" on "Saturday Night Live," but Paul McCartney crashed the stage to sing along.
- Just stumbled across Seal doing "This Christmas," released in 2015. Nothing really remarkable given the thousands of covers, but if you dig Seal, you'll want this.
- And finally, this year's Mistletunes mix disc has been added to the sidebar.
As much as I'm a sucker for old-school soul records, you'd think I would have known about this series of albums based on flea-market rescues of seriously obscure soul Christmas records before this. So I'm indebted to friend of the site Sean Delany, who broke his skein of painstakingly compiled and art-directed holiday mix discs in 2015 because he was busy curating this third collection in the series for Tramp Records. Sean's detailed liner notes indicate that at least some of these records were vanity releases, on a level with all those indie punk rock singles that never got beyond 1,000 copies and were probably only heard regionally in their day. Cleveland Robinson's "Xmas Time Is Here Again," for example, was released on Nosnibor Records, and you don't need to be a fan of word games to work out how the label got its name. Despite the low-budget origins of these songs and the herculean effort to make decent quality reproductions of these ancient vinyl artifacts, there's enthusiasm and spirit in all these recordings. My favorites are "Dear Santa" by Syng McGowan & the Fanettes, "Sock It To 'Em Santa" by Joe Shinall, "Happy Birthday Jesus" by Sam Sweetsinger Bell, the smoking instrumental "Santa Soul" by Rocki Lane and The Gross Group, the synth-bass-led funk workouts "Black (Soul) Christmas" by Timi Terrific & the Redheads and "Disco Claus" by The Bionic I, and the almost garage-soul "Santa's New Bag" by Rudi and the Rain Dearz. Definitely the best historical collection I've encountered this year, even if the Grammy Award voters haven't seen fit to nominate it. 
You all know Toni Braxton, the hit R'nB singer, and some of you probably know she didn't become big until she went solo from her family-based vocal group. A few years back, Toni and the family reunited not for music but for the reality show "Braxton Family Values." And now you know where the album title comes from. There's no lack of talent on display, as the a capella version of "O Holy Night" should spell out for you. It's a short album, just eight songs (two versions of Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" pump it up to nine), and there aren't really any surprises here, just a modern R'nB Christmas album bordering on adult contemporary. There are three originals, one of which is "Every Day Is Christmas" with Babyface and Toni as two of the writers, and it's a catchy little number. "Blessed New Year" is also a Toni co-write, and "Under My Christmas Tree" is a standard ballad written by Michael Braxton. They also perform "Mary, Did You Know?," the above-mentioned two takes of "This Christmas" (the album opener is the better version), and a listenable soul version of the ubiquitous "Last Christmas." Hate to encourage anything connected with a reality show franchise, but talent will out. Toni previously had a solo Christmas album, as did Tamar.
The Drag Racer had a Christmas album before, and he's back with another one for 2015. The difference this time around is more than a decade of reality-show celebrity, to the point that the numerous spoken-word interludes are mainly comprehensible only to those who follow the various RuPaul broadcasts. And there's one of those for every song on this album, exhausting my patience. Apparently this album is the soundtrack for a Christmas special airing on Logo TV this season, so it's possible the spoken word clips are actually from the show. We're more about the songs though, and there's 10 of them, created in a dance/pop/R'nB style that on some tunes almost evokes the 80s, and it appears that they're all originals, other than a cover of "Deck the Halls" and a short throwaway rendition of "Joy to the World." Things start out promisingly with "Merry Christmas Mary," an ode to being "loud and proud," and "Christmas Is About Love," which could be a single very easily if hit radio would be caught dead playing songs by people over 50. "You're the Star (On My Christmas Tree)" starts out nicely retro but bolts for the modern day quickly, "Christmas Cookies" lays on the 50's "doo-bops" behind the double-entendres, and "My Favorite Holiday" could have been done by Dead Or Alive back in their heyday. "From Your Heart" is a duet with Michelle Visage, Ellis Miah and Big Freedia join in on the hip-hop "Jingle Dem Bells," "Nothing For Christmas" plays on everybody's holiday nightmare, and the obligatory nod to New Year's is the dance-out processional "Brand New Year" with Siedah Garrett. If you like modern R'nB/pop, this is actually a decent album, although I'd make a playlist with the "interludes" removed, myself. It's definitely an improvement over RuPaul's previous Christmas album, which was mostly covers and parodies, with at least a few candidates for playlists and mixtapes.
This old-school soul orchestra was already on the Christmas tip with "Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects" and a swinging take of "White Christmas" that has been on YouTube for a couple of seasons. Both songs are here on this 2015 album, the title of which will never in a million years get them in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive packaging. They get into it almost from the start with "8 Days of Hanukkah," and you will be dancing all eight of those days to this song. "Just Another Christmas Song," which was on a vinyl single last year, has a nice slinky beat. Their "Silent Night" is an after-midnight blues take on the song, and "Big Bulbs" is about those holiday lights in the window. That's their story, anyway. "Funky Little Drummer Boy" is, again, exactly as advertised, and they put everything into what is a standard arrangement for "Please Come Home For Christmas." Sharon sits out for a few songs here to feature the Dap-Kings on the instrumentals "God Rest Ye Merry Gents" and "Silver Bells," and "World of Love" features one of the Dap-Kings on vocals, couldn't track down any info but I'm guessing it's Binky Griptite at the mic. Vinyl freaks act fast, as there's colored vinyl versions of this along with CD and downloads. So far, this is the top of my 2015 Christmas playlist.
This 2010 two-disc collection of James Brown's 1960s holiday music released on King Records is the perfect historical document for the Godfather's classic Christmas sides, three albums and a couple of non-LP singles, plus single versions of album cuts. (CD's are out of print, but a full download remains available. You can distill all of this into a single-disc collection, James Brown's Funky Christmas. Also, word has it that the original albums will be out on vinyl for the 2015 holidays.) The first album was 1966's James Brown and His Famous Flames Sing Christmas Songs, with James credited as co-writer on the majority of songs, including "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year," "Sweet Little Baby Boy (Parts 1 & 2)," "This Is My Lonely Christmas (Parts 1 & 2)," "Signs of Christmas" and "Merry Christmas I Love You." James also did two versions of "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)," "Please Come Home For Christmas," Billy Ward's "Christmas In Heaven" and "Merry Christmas Baby." In 1968 A Soulful Christmas introduced James' all-time classic "Santa Claus Go Straight To the Ghetto" and also featured the title song, "Santa Claus Santa Claus," "Santa Claus Gave Me a Brand New Start," "Christmas Is Coming," "Let's Unite the Whole World at Christmas," "Tit For Tat (Ain't No Taking Back,)" and the instrumentals "In the Middle," "You Know It," and "Believers Shall Enjoy (Non Believers Shall Suffer)." Oddly, "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" was on this album as well. The third album, 1970's Hey America, was written almost entirely by Brown associate Nat Jones, and the title song was a kind of holiday-themed protest number with an almost rock-styled rhythm. Also here are the ballads "Merry Christmas My Baby and a Very Happy New Year," "A Lonely Little Boy Around One Christmas Toy" and "Santa Claus Is Defiinitely Here To Stay," the driving "Go Power At Christmas Time," the funk-styled "Christmas Is Love," and the oddity "My Rapp," a letter to an estranged lover. For 1969 James released a single, "It's Christmas Time (Parts 1 & 2)," a ballad on which James also played organ, and the other singles included here were alternate versions of album cuts. The title of this complete album is misleading, however, as James released Merry Christmas Album in 1999, with 11 more songs, none repeated from the past.
Had heard there was a new Dap-Kings holiday single for 2014, and there was, "Just Another Christmas Song," but only on vinyl, and only 100 copies, so it's gone now. No download so far this year, but it's likely to become available that way eventually, as that's what happened with "Ain't No Chimneys In the Projects." Meanwhile, this ad placement for Cole Haan is so far the only way you get to hear this turbocharged rendition of "White Christmas." UPDATE: There were only 100 copies of the green vinyl version of "Just Another Christmas Song," the main run of the single is on black vinyl and the size of the press run isn't known, so you might be able to get it after all. Thanks, Stubby.
