CD Reviews

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Mistletoe and Merriment
(Hear Music)

This year's holiday compilation from Starbucks has got some gems, some oddballs, and an amusingly schizo personality. It's mostly Christmas music, but not entirely; it's mostly from a jazz tradition, except the Beach Boys are included; and it's mostly devoted to unusual versions of well-known tunes, except for closing with a completely obscure Thelonious Monk composition. And be aware (as you no doubt are), these discs aren't exactly meant for the serious music lover: There's no information provided about the origin of the 14 tracks (when recorded? personnel?)except, of course, in the couple cases where that info is provided. Strange. Leaving all thatand the fact that $12.95 is no bargain for under 40 minutes of musicaside, and getting into the spirit of the thing, there's lots to enjoy here. Nat King Cole takes a piece of disposable tripe like "All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)" and, assisted by the swoopy vocals of the Starlighters, turns it into something buoyant and alive. Dean Martin does a suitably silly, orchestrated-to-excess "Jingle Bells." Frank Sinatra gives a slow, heartfelt take on the only Christmas song that's ever been worth hearing ("Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"), and Louis Armstrong is irreplaceable as ever with the Benny Carter Orchestra on "Christmas Night in Harlem." The very first note that you hear from Peggy Lee is her proving her genius on "Winter Wonderland." "Baby It's Cold Outside" is done by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting with a gentler, less-salacious style than the Ray Charles-Betty Carter classic; it's one of several wintry tunes that save this disc from all-Christmas perdition. MARK D. FEFER

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Christmas Remixed: Holiday Classics Re-Grooved
(Six Degrees)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
hOMe for the Holidays
(Om)

I could go on for hours about how Christmas remixes can go terribly wrong, but I'm going to skip over all the turkeys on Christmas Remixed and hOMe for the Holidays. Let's just say there was too much Hennessy in the eggnog. Slice up some Bing Crosby loops and throw in some clip-art beats, and you get something that basically sounds like someone's mind coming apart. But in the hands of capable producers, a modern take on Christmas classics can be cute, funny, and almost heartwarming. On Christmas Remixed, subtle police sirens add some depth and humor to Baz Kutz's remix of "The Nutcracker Suite," while the light and well-constructed Stuhr version of Kay Starr's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" works nicely by the fire. Meanwhile, hOMe for the Holidays takes a more adventurous route and delivers a compilation with some staying powerRithma had some fun cutting up novel and obscure holiday records for the bizarre "Psycho Jingle Funk," Colossus slices his way through some Charlie Brown samples to hilarious effect, and you could safely play J-Boogie's "Under the Christmas Tree" or King Kooba's "O Christmas Tree" at your Fourth of July barbecue. Neither disc hits the mark completelya truly great Christmas record comes but once a quarter- century, and we already have Run-D.M.C.'s "Christmas in Hollis"but these two forward-thinking dance labels come reasonably close. MATT CORWINE

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Maybe This Christmas Too?
(Nettwerk)

An unholy holiday hodgepodge if ever there was one, this compilation mixes songs from WB-friendly has-beens (Chantal Kreviazuk, Barenaked Ladies, Sixpence None the Richer, Guster) with a few genuinely vital, moving Christmas tunes. Among these sonic sweetmeats: Rufus Wainwright dissects the yuletide with typical Wainwright bite on the self-penned "Spotlight on Christmas." The singer-songwriter's cutting sarcasm ("People say they love the maid/Who sweats and toils just like a slave/But don't forget, all the diamonds and pearls/Never could fix the poor little rich girls") finds a nice counterpoint in his funny, warmhearted view of the Holy Family ("And they were, each one, quite odd/A mensch, a virgin, and a god"). Rilo Kiley's "Xmas Cake" is an epic in miniature, and much like the Pogues' indelible "Fairytale of New York" (another darkly funny Christmas song), it's a marvel of storytelling. Starting with an offbeat metaphor for a failed relationship ("Our love's become selling secrets to the Russians they don't need"), the speaker describes Christmastime as a bottomless nightmare of credit-card debt, "wrapping presents in the dark," and taking caroling jobs at shopping malls. Another breakup song provides Too? with its crowning achievement: Lisa Hannigan reimagines "Silent Night" as a tired, bitter lament for lost love. Sounding like a ghost still stunned by the suddenness of her own death, she muses: "I should be stronger than weeping alone/You should be weaker than sending me home." In a dozen simple lines set to a spare, beautiful old melody, Hannigan captures the compromised nature of love and need. Christmas may mean mistletoe and angel chimes to some, but portions of Too? remind us that yuletide is as often cruel as kind. NEAL SCHINDLER