Sounds of the season --- Lionel Ritchie --- 2006 (Island)
Well, let's at least credit the ex-Commodore with one thing: his album is short. Well, two things actually, as our Lionel goes for the path of least resistance and just records a bunch of Christmas songs, giving them the old soul treatment, rather than try to reinterpret, rewrite or (God help us!) write some original material for this short album. Picking liberally from the tree of obvious songs he takes the likes of "Little drummer boy", "Come all ye faithful", "Joy to the world" and "Silent night", and adds his own rich baritone to the arrangements, making the songs at least pleasant to listen to, in smooth, soulful way.
Mostly carols, with a few others like "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" and "Winter wonderland" thrown in, and only eight songs in total, you'd have to say the album would be poor value for money were you to go mad and buy it, and not too much of a present were you to receive it, but for review purposes here it does at least get marks for keeping it short and simple, and not tampering too much with an extremely tried-and-tested formula that stretches all the way back to the greats like Como, Crosby and Williams.
TRACKLISTING
1. Little drummer boy
2. Silent night
3. The first Noel
4. Joy to the world
5. The Christmas song
6. Come all ye faithful
7. Have yourself a merry little Christmas
8. Winter wonderland