Christian

These are all wonderful Christmas songs from primarily Christian or Gospel artists.  Not knowing the artists that well, I recognize many names.  This Christmas compilation comes from Word Entertainment in partnership with Curb Records.

This is one double CD set in a series of five Christmas compilation CDs released by the WOW Christmas label, a subset of the WOW label.  Sets were released in 2002, 2005, 2011, 2013 and 2017.  All but the last one are 2 CD sets.  There are anywhere from 30 to 32 songs on each of the 2 CD sets.

The thing I like the most about these 2 CD sets is there are no repeat artists within a set.  The same artists appear throughout the series, but with each 2 CD set you get 30 + individual Christian artists.  Also, taking a quick look through all the sets, it doesn’t look like the same song is repeated within a single 2 CD set.  Each CD is almost 60 minutes long, making each set close to 2 hours of familiar Christmas songs.

The song selection for this set is almost all familiar Christmas songs, both traditional Christmas hymns and carols and secular Christmas songs from the 20^th century.  There are about five unique, original Christmas songs in the set.  Most songs were taken from existing Christmas CDs released by the artists that perform them.  Some were released only as singles and don’t appear on any of their own CDs.

The CD cover shows a traditionally decorated holly wreath that takes up the whole space.  The WOW Christmas logo appears in the center of the wreath.  The subtitle, “32 Top Christian Artists And Holiday Songs” appears below.  All is presented against a white background.

The back of the CD features a numerical track listing with performing artist credits.  Each CD is listed separately and they sit side by side.  The track titles are in red, and the artist names are in green.  There is a small endorsement of the CD at the top and the web address for the WOW Christmas website is given.  To the far right are typical copywrite notices.

The CD cover comes out and opens into a six-page, stapled booklet.  Each song and artist is given considerable space to display the song title, artist name, the record label the artist was contracted with when the song was written and the artist’s web address.  All this information sits under a picture of the CD the song comes from, or in some cases, an artist’s publicity photo is used.  This is done for all 32 songs on here.  Those are nice notations.  Eventually, I see myself owning each of the CDs referenced and having the pictures of the CD will help me get what I’m looking for.

The back of the booklet shows other WOW CDs available.  Typical copywrite notices appear at the bottom.

I usually don’t talk about the inside of the back cover.  On most CDs, it is covered by the CD tray.  But WOW Christmas has gone the extra mile with additional liner notes.  Since this is a 2 CD set, the CD tray swings open to access the second CD, leaving the inside of the back cover exposed.  It is here where we find detailed information for each song.  The song title is listed followed by performing artist, the name of the album the song comes from, (which makes putting years on the songs a lot easier since that is one thing WOW Christmas forgot to include), writer, producer and publishing credits are all given.  The 2 CDs are listed separately and sit side by side.

Because that’s a lot of information, the print is really small, and I need a magnifying glass to read it.  Also, each CD’s information is given in sentence form which makes it even a little harder.  But this is all great information.  The kind of information I wish every CD had, so I’ll take it.

As far as the artists go, I name recognize almost all the artists on here.

Casting Crowns, (Joy To The World), MercyMe, (Joseph’s Lullaby), Third Day, (Born In Bethlehem), TobyMac, (Christmas This Year), Steve Curtis Chapman, (O Little Town Of Bethlehem), Natalie Grant, (Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!), Jars Of Clay, (It Came Upon The Midnight Clear), Point Of Grace, (Little Drummer Boy), Sidewalk Prophets, (Hope Was Born This Night), Amy Grant (I Need A Silent Night), Michael W. Smith (Gloria) are names I was familiar with before I opened this CD.

Many different genres are represented here, not just Christian Rock.  There are a lot of Country sounding Christmas songs.  Chris August, (Come Now Our King), Newsboys, (Jingle Bell Rock), Matt Maher, (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing), Needtobreathe, (Go Tell It On The Mountain).

There are a couple of songs that sound just like what a lot of traditional Christmas music sounds like.  BarlowGirl, (It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year) and Kerrie Roberts, (O Holy Night) rely on orchestral arrangements for their Christmas songs.

R&B is well represented with Mandisa, (Angels We Have Heard On High).  It is a great contemporary R&B arrangement for a Christmas song.  TobyMac combines Country, R&B and traditional orchestral elements with his Christmas song, (Christmas This Year).

Natalie Grant channels the Big Band sound of the 1960s with Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!  It sounds just like the Tonight Show Orchestra.

Modern Rock has a heavy influence on Tenth Avenue North’s Deck The Halls.  Kutless, (Mary Did You Know) and Big Daddy Weave, (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel) both rely on Modern Rock influences.

At first this CD scared me.  The whole set does.  This is the second time I picked one of these up to listen to and review, but I chickened out the first time.  I don’t know anything about Christian Rock and don’t know anything about most of the artists on here outside of name recognition.  Perhaps you don’t either.  But I’m not scared anymore.

What I have discovered is that I have a gold mine here.  I have all the sets so far, I think.  Discogs shows the last one came out in 2017 and I have that one.  So, I have discovered 140 great Christmas songs.  When you listen to as much Christmas music as I do, you learn to look at each song and artist for what it is.  I try to take it on evidence and not supposition.  These are all terrific Christmas songs.  Many titles are familiar, so there’s no surprise there.  I know what the song should sound like.  Just because I am not familiar with a lot of the artists and I don’t keep up well with 21^st century music, I still try to look at the quality of the music.

I know a lot of people who would rather listen to 21^st century Contemporary Christmas music than the songs from the Classic Christmas Music Era, and they would love this.  You don’t have to be a fan of Christian music to appreciate this, you just need to be a fan of Christmas music.

I give this CD :

*****