I know I said I'd post the last album in this series on Christmas Day, but really, who's going to be working then? I certainly hope not to be, and I don't expect any mods to be either, so here then are the last two, just before the big day.
Christmas at home --- Donny Osmond --- 1997 (Sony)
Another suave, insincerely-friendly face stares out at you from yet another album cover for a Christmas collection. This time it's the darling of the seventies, America's most blue-eyed boy at the time, the star of the Osmonds, Donny. He's cooked up a concoction of Christmas favourites sure to brighten any Christmas. Er, yeah. With expected songs like "God rest ye merry gentlemen", "I'll be home for Christmas" and "The most wonderful time of the year", you also get more eclectic, perhaps lesser-known fare such as "After December slips away", "Who took the merry out of Christmas" and "A soldier's king", so at least you have to give him points for a certain amount of originality. But how original can you be on a Christmas album?
Donny looks well, standing in unconvincing snow in his expensive black suit, under an unconvincing sky and with one very unconvincing Christmas tree in the background, grinning at the camera, no doubt thinking of how much money this record is going to make off gullible fans, but you have to say at least he looks the part. However, I do wonder why so many of the reviews of albums like this on the likes of Amazon and CD Universe are so universally gushing. Guess they only select the good ones: don't want someone saying "This album is crap! Don't buy it!" now do they?
It's from one of these reviews that I find the one sentence that sums up this album, and also acts as a warning, though it's not meant to. These are the actual words of a fan:
"It is one of the very best Christmas cd, right next to Clay Aiken, The Osmonds, and the Carpenters' Christmas cds." Nothing more need be said.
TRACKLISTING
1. Angels We Have Heard On High
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
3. I've Been Looking For Christmas
4. After December Slips Away
5. It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
6. Baby, What You Goin' To Be
7. Deck The Halls/ Hark The Harold Angels Sing
8. I'll Be Home For Christmas
9. Who Took The Merry Out OF Christmas
10. O Holy Night/ Divine
11. A Soldier's King
12. The Kid In Me
13. My Grown-Up Christmas List
14. Mary, Did You Know?
15. Come To The Manger