Martina Mcbride - White Christmas
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CD Details
Artist: Martina McbrideEdition: Music CD
Format: Extra tracks
CD Release Date: 2007-10-02
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
- Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
- Silver Bells
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
- Do You What I Hear
- I'll Be Home For Christmas
- Winter Wonderland
- O Come All Ye Faithful
- Away In a Manger
- Baby, It's Cold Outside - Dean Martin
- Jingle Bells
- White Christmas
- Silent Night
- The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire)
- What Child Is This
- O Holy Night
Music reviews of White Christmas
Music Review: The Ghost of Christmas Past revisits 1998--and it's pretty dull...
Rating: 2 Stars
I'm not necessarily a country-music fan as a genre, but I do have a number of country-music artists that I truly love. Martina McBride is absolutely a member of that list. So it is with absolute bewilderment that I: a) find out I essentially bought a CD that was released in 1998 but was packaged throughout as "2007" with "extra tracks"; and b) am utterly disappointed with the results.
But since I didn't look at the "original release date" carefully enough and just went for the gusto because I couldn't contain my excitement, I won't fault Martina for a little creative repackaging and voila: a previously-released 12-track holiday CD from nine years prior gets another previously-recorded track from 2006 plus three truly "new" songs from 2007, and you have a super-sized 16-track CD for the 2007 Christmas season and thereafter.
Martina may be a "country" singer, but don't expect a "country" Christmas here. The treatment here is strictly traditional vanilla, designed to please the average American palate; if translated to radio terms, the material would fit crossover pop, adult contemporary, and country. In other words, the most bang for the buck.
McBride is blessed with a powerful, soulful voice, but rarely is she given the opportunity to display it. She does come alive on her reading of "O Come, All Ye Faithful," and also on "What Child Is This?" and "O Holy Night." (A piece of trivia: Did you know that the melody to "What Child Is This?"--which was originally called "Greensleeves"--was composed by England's King Henry VIII? Who knew he had time to compose music in between bedding, and beheading, all of those wives?)
One of the new tracks, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," begins with such promise. Dennis Burnside's arrangement commences with an exciting, bombastic, classical-sounding flourish that continues throughout Martina's vocals. Then, inexplicably, the flourish picks up again after her vocal and suddenly stops with nowhere to go--no resolution, no logical conclusion. As a professional musician, I literally sat there agape, waiting for the next musical "shoe" to drop. It was the most illogical ending of an arrangement I've ever heard. It was simply preposterous.
The opening track, "Let It Snow" (times three), doesn't stick around long. It's less than two minutes long. The requisite inclusion of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" is bland and uninspiring. Nat King Cole would definitely NOT approve.
Another complaint is that when second and third verses to carols are not only available but fairly well-known to the average listener, Martina and/or arranger Burnside (for both the 1998 and 2007 tracks) generally choose to either sing the verse and chorus through only once--making for a very short song--or repeat the one verse and chorus ad nauseam.
On popular holiday standards such as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the title track of "White Christmas," and "I'll Be Home for Christmas," there are lesser-known introductory verses that are sung by vocalists maybe a quarter of the time on average, but in each of these three tunes, these verses redefine or enhance the songs' meanings substantially. It is with profound sadness that each time, Martina just plows right into the blandly familiar chorus that everyone knows, when that touch of the special would have made these tracks something so very much more. Such a waste.
McBride is a singer so far above material this mediocre. It's mind-numbing when one thinks just how good the original 1998 CD and the new tracks could have been. To be fair, though, new track "Winter Wonderland" does have an enjoyable lilt to it, and original track "Away in a Manger" is deftly arranged so that both familiar melodies are worked into the track to fit the lyrics. That's the mark of a truly good arranger. The other 2007 track is "Jingle Bells" and works as much as you could expect "Jingle Bells" to work. (Please don't try to think of Barbra Streisand's landmark version in her 1967 masterpiece, Christmas Album; it'll only make your head hurt even more.)
This leaves the fully-orchestrated 2006 track, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," arranged by Patrick Williams, as the one gem on the CD. Using the magic of digital editing that first wowed us all in 1991 when Natalie Cole "dueted" with her late father, Nat King Cole, on "Unforgettable" from her CD Unforgettable: With Love, McBride "duets" with the original hitmaker of the song, ol' Dino himself, Dean Martin. (In fact, the liner notes list the track credits as "Dean Martin With Martina McBride.")
Most of the musicians that performed on the 1998 CD also play on the three new tracks (not counting the '06 Dean Martin duet), and the Nashville String Machine offers the production a pleasantly lush sound. But Martina is not given a lot to work with here. Yes, as her liner notes reveal, she was aiming for a "classic" and "nostalgic" Christmas album, but her voice is too beautiful and powerful to be put into the same category as "boring."
I fault Dennis Burnside's uninspired arrangements--then, and now. While the new tracks are slightly better than those of 1998, the asinine "cliffhanger" ending of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" trumps the good work done on "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells" collectively, and he ends up with a major "net loss" for the 2007 tracks. That means overall for the entire CD, it's just a plain old train-wreck.
I love Martina McBride with all my heart, but I have never given an artist such a low rating on [...] before. I hate to play Scrooge and do it at Christmastime, but I must. Therefore, Martina, I'm sorry to tell you that you get coal in your stocking thusly:
CD RATING: ** (out of 5) -- 30 Nov 07 -- BOB BOURBEAU
Description of White Christmas
The multi platinum country music star, Martina McBride, continues to amaze the masses with her incredible talent and undeniable talent and undeniable talent and undeniable presence. In 2007 alone, she made appearance on American Idol, the Early Show, Regis and Kelly, and the View. Martina also visited the Today Show multiple times, opened the NBC 4th of July Special and was the subject of a 2 hour primetime special, Six Degrees of Martina McBide, that aired summer 07 an ABC. In addition to her TV appearance, Martina was the 2007 top country female touring act, and in all genres, second only to Gwen Stefani.Looking for a straight-ahead Christmas record, no gimmicky seasonal songs or original songs trying to sound like classics? Look no further than Martina McBride's White Christmas. It's so completely straight and narrow that the music doesn't even sound country, country-rock, or anything but a very predictable slab of easy-listening pop--strings and all, safe as milk. McBride's not out to sell anything but the songs, all 10 of them, including such staples as "The Christmas Song," "Away in a Manger," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and... you get the idea. Deep? Not particularly. Surprising? You be the judge. McBride's not blessed with a terribly distinctive voice, and the arrangements are more faithful to the original versions than swans who mate for life. --Martin Keller
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