So This Is Christmas

We have entered the best part of the holiday season. You most like finished your shopping about a week ago or won’t start for another week (I’m the latter) so this week is just sit back and enjoy the various parties. And best of all we are about a week out until the radio stations switch to the all Christmas music all the time format so this week you can still enjoy them when they occasionally come on. It’s surprising with her angelic voice Sarah McLachlan has yet to release a Christmas album until now with the recent release of Wintersong.

She doesn’t pull any punches and breaks out the big guns to open up the album by coving the John Lennon classic Happy Xmas (War Is Over) complete with children’s choir. (For a different version of the song check out the iTunes exclusive live version by The Fray.) And for anyone who caught McLachlan perform the song at the lighting of the Rockefeller tree did you find it interesting that they had her perform the song right after an interview with Billy Bush, George W’s nephew? But anyway.

Sarah doesn’t fall into the pitfall that some artists makes and only has one original song on the album, the title track. The album switches back and forth between secular (What Child Is This?) and non-secular (I’ll Be Home for Christmas) that should satisfy both the people that are in the pews every Sunday and those that only show up for Christmas and Easter. The album is highlighted by a moving version of Joni Mitchell’s River, not your traditional Christmas song, but it’s winter’s theme can hit close to anyone away from a loved one this holiday season.

If there were a negative remark about the album is that it didn’t include the great collaboration between Sarah and the Barenaked Ladies two years ago on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. But one Lady did make an appearance as Jim Creeggan and his double bass shows up throughout the album giving the album a jazzier feel than Sarah’s other work. Adding to the jazziness is Diana Krall who adds some piano to Christmas Time Is Here, a song you may remember from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Now it’s not really right to impose a Terror Alert tag to a Christmas album and nor really right to declare a Song to Download because you know most of the song already, but much like James Taylor last week one of Sarah McLaughlin’s Christmas songs is the Free Single of the Week. So if the banner at the bottom of the page still features her, you can click it ro open iTunes and pick up Silent Night for free.