Features Disc of the day
Various
The Ultimate Motown Christmas Collection
(Motown/Universal, 2009)
Don your gay apparel! Here are 2CDs and 51 Motown Christmas recordings.
There are some in the MOJO office who feel a bit stuffed after just one CD of this, but that's the beauty of the digital of course; if you don't want Boyz II Men featuring Brian McKnight doing Let It Snow (on CD2), you can simply uncheck the box and instead download the bits you know will be great. Such as The Jackson 5's rightly celebrated Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - showcasing the natural speed of Michael's beat-perfect lead vocal; Stevie Wonder's 1967 weepy, Someday At Christmas or Marvin Gaye's moving 1972 Vietnam war petition, I Want To Come Home For Christmas. And if Diana Ross is a tad shrill on The Supremes' Joy To The World she makes up for it by ring-a-linging beautifully through their refined take on Silver Bells. And hark! Here are The Supremes themselves trilling down the years to wish us "a merry Christmas and a happy new year!" on one of 16 recorded messages from the Motown stable's seasonal finest including Marvin, Smokey, Thelma Houston, Eddie Kendricks ("Your singing Santa") and David Ruffin rapping at march-tempo to usher in The Temptations' atmospheric Little Drummer Boy. A bonus 'stripped version' of them singing Silent Night is also rather lovely, shorn its '70s gospel ding-dong.
Personally, I could listen to a whole album of Funk Brothers Christmas instrumentals and here we get their Normal Whitfield-produced Winter Wonderland. And if there were one note left to leave for Santa, it would be to ask for the addition of the Jacksons' Frosty The Snowman. But then they had to save something for the Jackson 5's Ultimate Christmas Collection (also reissued this year).
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 22/12/2009
Further Listening
Jackson 5 - Ultimate Christmas Collection (Universal/Motown, 2009)
Stevie Wonder - Merry Christmas (Universal/Motown, 2009)
Standing In The Shadows Of Motown (Momentum DVD, 2004)
Previous Disc of the day
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Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
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2:32 PM GMT 12/03/2010
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The Pop Group - Y
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
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St Vitus Dance - Glypotheque
Belfast combo return unannounced, go sardonic pop-folk.
6:00 AM GMT 09/03/2010
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