I’ve been vaguely aware of Canadian crooner Michael Bublé for several years, but it wasn’t until I discovered his exuberant Haven’t Met You Yet
last year that I really became a fan. When I heard he was releasing a
solo album, I was quite excited to hear what he would come up with, and
the David Foster-produced Christmas is just as fun as I hoped it would be.
The album includes plenty of classic standards, starting off with It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,
which isn’t recognizable as such until half a minute in because of the
lush instrumental introduction. From there on, it’s a smooth,
straightforward rendition that sounds like it could have been recorded
in the 1950s. The most interesting variation here is the slight uplift
on the second syllable in “Christmas” toward the end of the song. Holly Jolly Christmas
is similarly traditional and upbeat with a fun guitar solo in the
middle making me feel like getting up and dancing like the kids in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
The Puppini Sisters join Michael for a rather annoying version of Jingle Bells.
It’s similar to the Bing Crosby / Andrews Sisters rendition that always
makes me cringe a little when it comes on the radio. I’m not sure why
it bugs me so much; I just find some of the women’s harmonic
contributions grating, and that’s the same here. Lots of scatting that
just starts to sound cacophonous. It’s a very energetic track, and some
will probably find it very entertaining, but I’m not a big fan. Michael
has another guest on Mis Deseos/Feliz Navidad, with Thalía
joining him for a mostly-Spanish song. This guitar-heavy track is a lot
of fun, even when I have no idea what they are saying. The chorus of
joyful voices that joining toward the end adds to an already harmonious
merger.
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town is nice and jazzy
with a brassy, big band-style instrumental break partway through. The
steady percussion and bass gives the remainder of the song a lounge
quality that is enjoyable and distinct. His spoken line toward the end
about “the big fat man with the long white beard” is especially fun.
Speaking of the big guy with the beard, he’s the addressee in Santa Baby,
one of my least favorite songs this time of year because of the
unbridled avarice that is Christmas materialism at its most galling.
That said, Michael’s version is a lot less irritating than, say,
Madonna’s, which always makes me roll my eyes. This one is so slow and
quiet, with few of the obnoxious inflections typical to this song. I
also like some of the lyrical changes, such as calling Santa “buddy” and
“dude” and requesting Canucks tickets.
Michael’s rendition of White Christmas seems to have been modeled after the Drifters version, which was featured in Home Alone.
Shania Twain joins him for this peppy, doo-woppy track. This is a song
that usually comes across as sentimental and rather woebegone, but
there’s none of that sense here until perhaps the very end. The brass
and pounding drums make it sound like this is a parade coming through
town to announce that snow is on the way just because the majority
demands it. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, on the other
hand, sounds just as wistful as when Judy Garland sang it. Violins are
particularly prominent here, while guitar is just as effective at
conveying heartache in I'll Be Home for Christmas, which starts off drenched in despairing homesickness but sounds much more optimistic on the second repetition.
It’s
no surprise that Michael would tap into the subgenre of romantic
Christmas songs here, and I really like his mostly low-key take on All I Want for Christmas Is You.
Backed by piano, he sounds quiet and sincere, and the outburst late in
the song feels genuinely emotional. In most versions of this song, I’m a
bit worn out by the exuberance by this point, especially since the
lyrics are so plaintive. He really does sound mildly melancholy – lonely
without the one he loves but optimistic that she will appear soon. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
has the typical mix of anguish and pep. The jingle bells, electric
guitar and backing vocals add to the energy of the track, which he sings
the heck out of. I also find it fun that the backers echo the Beatles’
“love, love, love” chorus that Michael used in Haven’t Met You Yet. Blue Christmas
sounds a bit odd with the clanging tambourine and the ostentatious
brass section, and with him whooping and hollering in the background
during the instrumental portions, he sure doesn’t sound blue to me.
Maybe he’s trying to sound sarcastic? An interesting track, but it
doesn’t quite do it for me.
My favorite Christmas albums tend to
be those with a hearty mix of sacred and secular songs. This album
features only two spiritual songs, and as the first one doesn’t show up
until the tenth track, by the time I got to it the first time around, I
figured that Michael must have decided to stick with the Santa side of
Christmas, along with the cozy domestic end of it. Perhaps the album
would feel a bit more balanced if Silent Night had been a few
tracks earlier. It’s a lovely, reverent version, mostly because of the
children’s choir, but it seems very strange to encounter it after nine
tracks that don’t mention Jesus at all. The other track is Ave Maria,
which is mostly about Mary and is in Latin. This song seems to be best
tackled by those with operatic voices, but Michael does a nice job with
it, and the austere chorus in the background is especially nice. While
the fact that there are only two makes them seem a tad perfunctory, he
does pull out all the stops with the production here.
Cold December Night is the only original track on the album, and it’s along the lines of All I Want for Christmas
and all those other songs about romantic Yuletide proposals. It’s an
upbeat song, so the implication I get is that he thinks he has a pretty
decent shot of being accepted, though “fall in love with me” suggests
that at this point, he is probably more invested in the possibility of
romance than she is. In any case, it’s a chipper way to put his personal
stamp on the album, which he also does at the very end with a
five-second-long spoken “Merry Christmas” message.
While there
are a couple tracks that haven’t entirely won me over yet, this is a
nice album and precisely the sort of thing I would expect to hear from
Michael Bublé. In the acknowledgments, he talks about how Christmas is
his favorite time of year and how he wanted this album to be a throwback
to the days of the crooners, particularly Bing Crosby, whose Christmas
music so inspired him as a kid. Although this album includes a few
fairly contemporary songs, it has a very old-school feel, so it should
be warmly welcomed by those who fill their Christmas turntables with the
likes of Bing, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis. With
Michael Bublé’s Christmas, it feels like we’ve stepped back in time, and it’s a very pleasant trip.
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