🎄 Holidays! 2021 holiday music round-up: What are you playing this year?

I usually do this every year or two. We all have our list of favorites, and some of us also find new recordings for the holiday season. We have also had new members join, and others rejoin us after a hiatus.

So...let us know what's spinning at your place, holiday-wise! Anything new? Plenty of old? Have you found any interesting streaming or radio programs you'll be listening to this year? (I know I'll be compiling my 2021 playlist on YouTube within the next day or two and posting it here--feel free to do the same!) I have a couple of programs to post below as well.



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I have absolutely nothing really new this year, so it's my usual batch of Christmas records with stuff like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como all the way down to the Chipmunks. Sure favorites and old stand-bys include:

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass CHRISTMAS ALBUM
Various A&M Artists SOMETHING SPECIAL
Carpenters CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT and AN OLD FASHIONED CHRISTMAS
Amy Grant HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Mannheim Steamroller - several Christmas albums.

Last year I obtained the Amy Grant HOME FOR CHRISTMAS on clear Coke-bottle vinyl, so I plan to give that a spin. Maybe I'll dig out the vinyl versions of all of the others as well, just for fun.
 
I have TJB Christmas Album and Something Special, both playing and both on lp. I also have a three cd set of artists from the 40's and 50's that I play as well.
 
I have absolutely nothing really new this year, so it's my usual batch of Christmas records with stuff like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como all the way down to the Chipmunks. Sure favorites and old stand-bys include:

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass CHRISTMAS ALBUM
Various A&M Artists SOMETHING SPECIAL
Carpenters CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT and AN OLD FASHIONED CHRISTMAS
Amy Grant HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Mannheim Steamroller - several Christmas albums.

Well, you can't get much better than THAT list! It's pretty much the same for me - Herb, Something Festive!, and all of the Carpenters and Amy Grant Christmas albums. (Amy's actually rather underrated when it comes to holiday records. She just has remarkable instincts for what makes a great Christmas album. I tend to skip over most Christmas albums from the '80s onwards, but hers and Buble's both rank right up there with any of the classics in my book. Natalie Cole is another one who made some very warm and tasteful holiday albums in the '90s.) The only other ones besides those that I listen to with any regularity are the first Johnny Mathis holiday album (Merry Christmas; his holiday releases after that don't seem nearly as warm and appealing to me for some reason), Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song, and on a much more obscure and left-field note, an album credited to Rita Ford) of holiday tunes played on antique music boxes. [My family used to play that all the time when I was young, and my sister and I were both enchanted by it and kept the tradition alive. Interestingly enough, I played that as background music at a pop-up gift shop I ran at the local library a few years back pre-COVID, and seemingly every other shopper that passed through came up to me to ask what we were playing and if we had any copies for sale. The music was as big a hit as the sale itself! :laugh:]
 
The Jack Jones Christmas album is a good one that I found a couple of years ago, but haven't really played it. That's the one which debuted "My Favorite Things" as a holiday song, and it's a good sounding CD.
 
rockdoctor, that Enya album is utterly enchanting. One of the most underrated holiday albums of the last two decades for sure. I never hear anything from it on the radio this time of year, sadly, but listen to it myself at home and am always mesmerized by it.
 
If you like Enya and Manheim Steamroller, then give Cusco “A Choral Christmas “ a listen. It’s beautiful and relaxing. We sold a lot of copies when playing it in store, back inn the 90’s. The Roches, We Three Kings is always on my playlist, as is Boney M. Christmas.
 
rockdoctor, that Enya album is utterly enchanting. One of the most underrated holiday albums of the last two decades for sure. I never hear anything from it on the radio this time of year, sadly, but listen to it myself at home and am always mesmerized by it.
Enya's version of Silent Night was played a lot at Christmas but I have not heard it on the radio for Quite a while. Same thing with the Mannheim Steamroller version.
 
I have a seven hour playlist running at the moment--don't know how to export it from Roon Player but it covers all the favorites. In the past 45 minutes it's been Dean Martin, Raul Malo, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Jack Jones, Manhattan Transfer, David Benoit, Vince Guaraldi, Nat King Cole and a few others. Burt's "The Bell That Couldn't Jingle" was one of the first that played in shuffle mode earlier today.

I usually give the entire Swingin' Nutcracker (Shorty Rogers) a spin later in the evening if I'm not totally tired of Xmas music by then. (I do have my limits. 😁 And the 25th is the only day I'll play it.)
 
For those that may be interested, the 3 CD Christmas set that I have is called The Merriest Christmas Album Essential Collection It is on Dynamic and the catalog number is DYN 3527. The artists range from the time of Bessie Smith to Petula Clark with the bulk from the 30's to 50's. It is a lot of fun to hear.
Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby is far superior to anyone else's version!!!
 
Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby is far superior to anyone else's version!!!
Yes!! I've never heard any version that tops hers. It's like Dusty Springfield's "The Look of Love." Only one version gets it right, and keeps the original intentions of the tune. 😉
 
Yes!! I've never heard any version that tops hers. It's like Dusty Springfield's "The Look of Love." Only one version gets it right, and keeps the original intentions of the tune. 😉
Even the one Christmas special based on “Santa Baby” couldn’t get it right! (4:25 in the video)
 
This year it was just Herb for my listening pleasure...

--Mr Bill
 
I lasted about six hours into my seven-hour Xmas playlist before I couldn't stand it anymore. 🤣
 
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