This is all the Christmas music you should ever need, unless you are as obsessed with collecting Christmas music as I am, or you seek out an individual artist’s Christmas CD.  This is a five CD set of wonderful Christmas music.  This terrific set comes from GSC Music.  They are a small record label that specializes in releasing compilation CDs of singular artists or compilation CDs of mixed artists, such as this one.  This is probably their largest single collection.  Many of their multiple CD sets are three discs.  This is five.  That’s a lot for any Christmas compilation set.  This is probably the largest single box set I have in my collection.  The Time-Life Music sets are usually two CDs and the Readers Digest sets are usually three, but to offer five is incredible.

The set comes in a box that is the same size as is used for three CD sets.  They put in another tray which allows the box to hold two more discs.  The cover of the box features a 1950’s style suburban house all lit up with Christmas lights.  At the top of the CD cover, in small letters, are the words “All Time” and below, in very large yellow-green letters is the word “Christmas” and directly below, “Favorites!”  The bottom corner features a small list of the artists featured throughout all five CDs.

The back of the CD is mostly a numerical track listing with performing artist credits listed in sentence form for each CD.  This five CD set is actually five separate CD releases packaged into one set.  Each CD has its own title and copywrite year of release.  Each CD features its own numerical track listing.  All are compilations of mixed artists and styles of Christmas music except the fifth CD.  The fifth CD is all The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker.

The CD title appears at the top of the back of the CD in bold lettering.  At the bottom are label and copywrite notices.  Also, the letters AAD.  As familiar readers know, I love AAD.  AAD stands for Analog – Analog – Digital.  And I assume it applies to all the songs.  That means that these are all the original, label release Christmas songs from albums or singles.  That’s want you want to look for.  No re-recordings here.  All are great Christmas songs recorded during the Classic Christmas Music Era (1946 – 1976)

Unfortunately, this budget CD set doesn’t contain a multiple page booklet with artist, orchestra or recording information.  That would have been a super deluxe bonus. (And another ½ *).  I have some three CD sets that have small books of information included, but alas, not this one.

Not to worry too much.  These are all popular artists performing familiar Christmas songs that are easily traceable to their individual Christmas albums and with some cross referencing in my library, I can pretty much put years, orchestras and backup singers to most of these.

The individual CD titles are :

CD 1 : Do You Hear What I Hear?                                                                                                                      (P) © 1985, 1988 Sony Music Special Products                                                               

CD 2 : We Wish You A Merry Christmas                                                                                                              (P) © 1987 Capitol Records, Inc.

CD 3 : A Treasury Of Christmas Music                                                                                                              (P) © 1981 Sony Music Special Products

CD : 4 All Time Christmas Favorites                                                                                                                  (P) © 1988 MCA Records, Inc.

CD 5 : Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker                                                                                                                (P) 1986 The Special Music Company

Four different record companies are represented here.  That means we are getting a broad spectrum of Christmas artists.  There is little repeat of artists spread throughout the collection.  Bing Crosby has the most, around six, Barbra Streisand, Liberace, Pat Boone and Mahalia Jackson each have two.  With that said, practically everyone who was known for their Christmas records is represented here with at least one song.

There are Pop Vocalists such as Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Robert Goulet, John Davidson, Doris Day and Peggy Lee.  There are Classic Country artists such as Tammy Wynette, Ray Price, Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash.  There are Symphonic Christmas songs performed by Andre Kostelanetz, Percy Faith and Carmen Dragon And The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra.

There are Christmas songs from artists that are not really known for their Christmas albums.  These include Anita Bryant, Jimmy Dean and Tennessee Ernie Ford.  Vocal groups such as The Lettermen, The Brothers Four and The Beach Boys are here as well.

Choral groups known primarily for their Christmas music include The Ray Conniff Singers, The Pennsylvanians, Mitch Miller & The Gang and The Percy Faith Chorus.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, James McCracken, Jackie Gleason and The Do-Re-Mi Sing Along Children’s Chorus are all here as well.

The fifth CD is dedicated to The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker.  I have many single and double CDs of known symphony’s (and some not so well known) performing Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.  (I kind of collect those too.  You can find a list of all my Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker CDs under the Lists tab.)

As would be expected, it is almost a full hour of a beautiful performance of The Nutcracker spread over 15 titles.  The instrumentation is just magnificent!  The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was started in 1946 by Thomas Beecham. And through a lot of disharmonies through the years and perseverance, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra still performs around the world today.

For most people, if you can track this CD set down, this is all the Christmas music you should need.  70 selections of familiar Christmas songs spread out over more than 3 ½ hours.  When the last CD has played, start it over again.  If it’s an active group where guests are coming and going and not really paying attention, they’re not going to remember if they already heard it or not.

If you are looking for a small collection for your own enjoyment around the house while getting ready for the Holidays, this will put you and keep you in the spirit for many hours.

But you won’t hear any Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Jim Brickman or Josh Groban.  All these are from between the years 1942 and 1973.  If your tastes run more to today’s music, or if you’ve never heard these songs before because you’re only accustomed to Christmas music on the radio, you may find this boring.  But you probably won’t.

Anyone who enjoys all kinds of Christmas music will love this.

I give this CD :

*****