Christina Aguilera Album: “My Kind of Christmas”

Much as I really adore Christina Aguilera's startling vocal abilities, I have to comment that this christmas album of hers doesn't cut it as one to instil holiday spirit.

Her voice, indeed, is greater than ever. She sings with better control and more elaborate stylisations - but at times she overdoes it, gorging an entire track with the maximum amount of her vocal callisthenics possible. Jazz appears to be Aguilera's best platform for displaying that talent of hers to best effect - hear "Merry Xmas Baby".

However, amid the impressive melismatic curls, where is the tenderness in her music, voice? The uptempo tracks are best guilty of the latter flaw - Arresting in the audio makeup, but nevertheless overproduced and devoid of the simplicity best rendered in christmas songs. (Track 11, "Christina's Xmas", a meaningless, hip hop interlude that does no good to the album at all.)

This 11-track album will be remembered for the vocal showmanship, but for the holiday spirit, there are better CDs out there.

I've been very impressed with Ms. Aguilera's vocal talents since I first heard them on The Mickey Mouse Club years ago, however this CD is ridiculously overdone. While I am all for artists making song their own, this just seems a way for her and her producers to show off vocal talents while butchering classic Christmas songs. After listening to the first five tracks in complete disapointment I had hoped Oh Holy Night would be of some quality. The beginning was lovely. Using her wondrous voice to accent this songs wonderful writing. Then ruining this beautifully haunting piece with what seems to be becomming her trademark 5 million unneccesary vocal slides. Hopefully she will grow out of this need as Mariah Carey has seemed to do since her first three Albums or so. Bottom line is I would return this CD if the store would let me.

Christmas music should be many things: happy, simple, somber, reflective, beautiful, and above all, singable. Every song has its own character. But I found her renditions of the songs on this CD nothing short of a root canal without anesthesia. The music was so irritating to me that I turned it off and gave the CD to my niece. Christina Aguilera definitely has a great vocal talent, but it increasingly seems that artists like this are constantly trying to see who can hit more notes in a three-second sequence than they are interested in trying to put their heart into the music they're singing. I call it "vocal gymnastics." Another reviewer mentions "less is more" and in this case, I wholeheartedly agree.

THis has to be the first CHristmas album which won't put anyone in the Christmas spirit. If this is Christina's kind of CHristmas, I want no part in it. Christmas is supposed to be about nice, warm, cozy feelings, which she butchers with her vocal over-emoting, Mariah-Carey screeching, and over-extending of syllables in every possible part of a song (and in some impossible parts too). Unfortunately from everything I have seen, this is her trend, so I am sure her next English album will be as heavy as a 10-ton brick because of her oversinging. Christina, ever heard of the saying "Less is more"? You haven't have you?

This album is a big disappointment, as if somebody set the switch on "Whitney" and just left it there, results be damned.

It's one thing when vocal flourishes add to the emotion of a song; it's another when they're just there. There are so many vocal gymnastics on this record that I'd guess Christina had to visit a chiropractor when the recording sessions were finished.

That said, there are three songs on this album that turned out reasonably well. "Merry Christmas, Baby" has some of the gymnastics, but it does have the benefit of Dr. John, so it is an entertaining reading of the song. "This Christmas" is given a relatively straightforward reading, though Alexander O'Neal's 1988 version (from his "My Gift To You" album) is still the best. "The Christmas Song" appears in two versions - a straight rendering of the song, and a remix featuring a pleasing 70's-style disco groove.

The rest of the album is superfluous; it really would have made a better EP.