December's Album of the Month: A Very Special Christmas

This is probably my favorite Christmas album next to that one Disney album where Goofy consistently fumbles the "Five Golden Rings!" line in "12 Days of Christmas."  It's such a weird relic of the late 80's.  The compilation album is such an oddity these days anyway; why would someone wanting to hear a Lil' Wayne song also purchase a Miley Cyrus song, a Nickelback song and a half dozen other songs they don't care about?  However, at the time, these were some of the biggest names in music: Run DMC, U2, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, John Cougar (yes, he was still using 'Cougar' at the time) Mellencamp, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and Whitney Houston.  There were also a few who had been big earlier in the decade but were on their way out (The Pointer Sisters, The Eurythmics).

I bought the album for the U2 song: a cover of Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)" (the original version has since become my favorite Christmas song--- more on that in a later post) but the other songs quickly became part of my Christmas tradition.  I had the song on cassette and, from High School through college, you could count on its presence in my car stereo from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas.

There was something here for everyone: Bruce Springsteen's "Merry Christmas Baby" (his far superior performance of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is not contained here) and Bob Seger's soulful take of "Little Drummer Boy" (which might be the best thing to happen to the song since the Bowie/Crosby duet) were there for the classic rock fans, Madonna and Eurythmics for pop fans, Whitney Houston and the Pointer Sisters for the R & B/Soul crowd, heck, even rap and hard rock fans were catered to with Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" and Bon Jovi's "Backdoor Santa".  Some songs were done with tongue planted firmly in cheek (Madonna's "Santa Baby"), some with complete  and utter sincerity (The Pretender's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"), and some you desperately wish were a joke (Stevie Knick's "Silent Night"). By no means is it a work of art and my attachment to it is based more on sentimentality more so than an intrinsic artistic value that it might have but, at the end of the day, it's a fun little album.

Oh, and it also benefits the Special Olympics and the series (there have been about 7 collections released over the years) has raised over 100 million dollars for the charity.  In a way, each collection was a snapshot of its era (1997's A Very Special Christmas 3 contained tracks from the Smashing Pumpkins, Sheryl Crow, and the Dave Matthews Band) but the original will always be the best one.