Reviews: The Christmas Collection

by: Amy Grant






Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 5099921378126
Label: Sparrow
Manufacturer: Sparrow
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Sparrow
Release Date: September 30, 2008
Studio: Sparrow


Rating: - Amy Grant, The Christmas Collection
This is Amy at her best. This beautifully done, inspirational CD sets the mood for the holiday season.

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Rating: - Amy Grant is Amazing!
Spectacular Christmas CD by Amy Grant. I love it (almost) as much as her first one!!! Her version of Jingle Bells is so fun!

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Rating: - Awesome!
Amy Grant is great but she is the perfect person to sing Christmas songs. We enjoyed her unique styling of each of the songs. Great Christmas collection

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Rating: - Amy Grant's Christmas CD
We bought this CD in Branson Missouri and thought it would be pleasant to hear on the way back home. We were greatly dissappointed. We were ready to hear traditional Christmas songs, not modified ones. I would not buy it again! I am going to pick Faith Hill's Christmas CD over this one.

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Rating: - Disappointing
When it comes to creating Christmas albums, Amy Grant has produced a decidedly mixed bag. Her first and third albums (A Christmas Album & A Christmas to Remember) were muddled and largely forgettable. But sandwiched in between was 1992's stunningly beautiful Home for Christmas, which has not been surpassed by any Christmas album since. Grant's genius on that album was to make the kind of classic acoustic and orchestral album that Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole might make if they were still around. With few exceptions, new Christmas songs have a hard time breaking through what is, for most people, a time to reflect on the glories of days gone by. Grant understood this and made an album which immediately sounded timeless. It has been a staple around our house since it came out.

For The Christmas Collection, Grant has produced a "greatest hits" Christmas compellation with a few new songs for good measure. Unfortunately, the result is less than satisfying. Omitted are two of Home's strongest songs -- "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "The Night Before Christmas" -- but the maudlin "Grown-Up Christmas List" gets picked up for the retread. Yes, Grant makes this insipid number more listenable than anyone else who has recorded it, but her delivery cannot completely suppress the gag reflex. Also included is the insufferable "Breath of Heaven", a song that combines equal parts saccharine, vinegar, and arrogance. My ego is not sufficient to believe that I can divine Mary's innermost thoughts, but Grant plunged in undeterred. The result is a s-l-o-w, melodically boring song that portrays Mary as a dark worrywart in serious need of Prozac. Silent Night this ain't.

For a Christian singer -- albeit one who ditched her husband and kids to marry Vince Gill -- it is strange that Grant's best Christmas songs are the secular classics, not the hymns. As well-done as "O Come All Ye Faithful" may be in many ways, it is more notable for how tedious and boring it is than anything else. It is ironic that secular singer Jewel (Joy - A Holiday Collection) does a much better job of capturing the spiritual essence of the classic hymns than does the Christian Grant.

There is also an inexplicable oddity in terms of song placement. While Grant's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a lush gem which fully brings out the song's achingly melancholy tenor, this also makes it a bit of a downer to end the album with. Was there not a more hopeful song with which to close things out?

These mistakes aside, The Christmas Collection still contains some stunningly good seasonal music, from the starkly beautiful "Winter Wonderland" to the honey-dripped "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", the delightfully happy "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", and the sublime, mainly instrumental "Joy to the World/For Unto Us a Child Is Born". Compared to the warbling Christmas disasters inflicted on us annually by the likes of Mariah Carey and Faith Hill, this Amy Grant album has enough keepers to make it worth a place in your holiday CD collection.

The Christmas Collection Reviews

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