Jingle something else
Music gifts for procrastinators.

By Kimberly Chun

YOU CAN ALWAYS pick up CD gifts literally minutes before your holidays begin, but sometimes the prospect of buying Christmas music inspires more than a little trepidation. So it was with mixed emotions that I cracked open some recent holiday music releases and reissues: there were some pleasant surprises, a few plunges into the depths of despair (I'll spare you), and a CD or two for just about everyone on your list.

For that naughty and nice club kid

This year's most noticeable trend is the electronic holiday CD. My favorite is the comp Christmas Remixed (Six Degrees), which puts a new spin on everything from Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby" to more unusual suspects like Kay Starr's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm." Shrift gets things off to a spacey start with a dubby take on Andy Williams's "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," and Dan the Automator sketches out a scratched-up version of Dean Martin's "Jingle Bells." Perhaps the producers were inspired by the strength of the source material; in any case their remixes manage to do justice to the original songs and then some. It's upbeat and maddening in the way only the holidays can be.

Also likely to rizzle your funk-o-phile's chizzle is the locals-heavy Home for the Holidays (Om), which finds Kaskade tackling "Peace on Earth," Rithma drop-kicking "Psycho Jungle Funk," and Colossus slashing away in "Charlie Brown Cut Up." Me, I'm partial to eggnog lattes and J Boogie's sleigh bell-doused slice-a-rama "Under the Christmas Tree" and King Kooba's almost horribly wrong but thoroughly beat-happy "Christmas Eve." Last on my list is Christmas Eclectic (Media Creature Music), but that's only because I prefer to take the chill off my Xmas selections – so 'tis the season to be light on the techno, please. Nonetheless there's funk in these icy grooves, including Bugz in the Attic crew member Daz-I-Kue's bass 'n' bells broken beat "Midnight Clear," Josh One's somehow thuggy, loping, and Hammond B3-stewn "We Three Kings," and techno guru Juan Atkins's rubbery "Snowflakes Falling."

For Mom, who stopped buying music in 1983

Keep your ole Old Blue Eyes comparisons. Harry Connick Jr.'s Harry for the Holidays (Sony) sells the vocalist as a jazz-singer hottie, but it's his Bobby Darrin-esque delivery that I find winning, especially on soulful renditions of "Mary's Little Boy Child" and Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas." Too bad some of the arrangements never rise above the mannered – they're all by the good Harry, and at moments the second line stiffens up and goes into rigor mortis. Still, give Connick credit for even attempting a Gil Evans-style orchestration of Eden Ahbez's beatnik opus "Nature Boy." A strained George Jones also mysteriously surfaces on the album's sole C&W number, Connick's "Nothin' New for New Year."

For Dad, who thinks Katie Couric is damned sexy

Pops will get a kick out of the slinky red boots on Carly Simon, curled up on the cover of her Christmas Is Almost Here (Rhino). Just as important: Simon's solid singing, guest turns by artists like, guess who, Willie Nelson, and a pleasingly intimate production courtesy of Simon and Don Was, who speed-recorded the album in the Peninsula Hotel's Room 139 in Beverly Hills. For poppas who want more drama, check Whitney Houston's One Wish: The Holiday Album (Arista) for the excess, the melismata, the scatting, the way overwrought and zanily inclusive "Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" and a turn by diva-in-the-making Bobbi Kristina Brown.

For your wannabe cowpoke

This year's sleigh-load of electronic releases is rivaled in number only by the country Christmas CDs. In addition to a reissue of Merle Haggard's 1978 Goin' Home for Christmas (Sony) and Gene Autry's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Other Christmas Classics (Sony), there's A Very Special Acoustic Christmas (Lost Highway), the latest installment in the Very Special Christmas series and a fundraiser for the Special Olympics. It isn't purely acoustic – judging from the offerings by a blatantly pop Alison Krauss and the rightfully popular Willie Nelson (who seems to be everyone's favorite guest artist nowadays). It is heavy on the bluegrass artists and lays it on thick with the melodrama and sentimentality (Reba McEntire, Wynonna, and Alan Jackson, who wastes his oaky George Jones-y tone on junk like "Just Put a Ribbon in Your Hair"). But then the disc also boasts bluegrass and alt-grass types such as the crag-erific Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs, Dan Tyminski, and Rhonda Vincent, as well as crossover kids like Nelson, Tift Merritt, and Norah Jones. So what more do you want? Tradition? Chestnuts? Newgrass roasting on an open fire? Then you probably want Classic Country Christmas (Time Life/BMG), which hits the ground kicking with Tammy Wynette's killer version of "White Christmas" and continues through Buck Owens's "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy," Dwight Yoakam's "Here Comes Santa Claus," Bobby Helms's "Jingle Bell Rock," while occasionally slamming into speed bumps of lousiness like Alabama's "Christmas in Dixie," a brain-dead rip-off of the Hag's "If We Make It Through December." Why not get the real thing, resurrected and rerecorded on Goin' Home for Christmas?

For that pop fan

Pop fiends will be yammering for one of two 2003 collections that include that unsung pillar of '80s kitsch pop, Wham!'s "Last Christmas." There's the obnoxiously titled Now That's What I Call Christmas! The Signature Collection (Capitol), for the smug creeps who like to rub your nose in their bad taste and Clay Aiken CDs. And then there's The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas – Evergreen (Time Life Music/Sony) for moss-covered middle-of-the-roadies who dig Michael Bolton, here found doing an overwrought number on "Joy to the World." What to do? Both discs include our guilty pleasure, Destiny's Child, as well as Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Vince Gill, Gloria Estefan, and Luther Vandross – all doing a different song on each disc, making the rounds and spreading the seasonal love, I suppose. Kind of like carolers. Essentially Evergreen skews toward the AARP crew with cuts by Neil Diamond and John Denver, while Now That's What I Call Christmas! tilts toward teen pop survivors like Kylie Minogue, 'NSYNC, and B2K and includes an additional disc of Xmas moldies by artists such as Tom Jones and Chuck Berry. Hell, why not give up while you're ahead and just get that pop tart Maybe This Christmas Too? (Nettwerk), the sequel to the half-indie, half-mainstream comp that included songs by Bright Eyes, Coldplay, Jimmy Eat World, and Vanessa Carlton. This year's outing has alties Rufus Wainwright, Rilo Kiley, the Be Good Tanyas, Badly Drawn Boy, and the Flaming Lips up against the mainstream forces of Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dave Matthews Band, and Sixpence None the Richer. Guess who wins?

For your Tennessee Twin or friendly neighborhood Elvis impersonator

Collectors will want to get their mitts on Christmas with Johnny Cash (Columbia Legacy), a collection of songs recorded between 1962 and 1980 of varying quality, as well as Elvis: Christmas Peace (RCA), which includes the 20 tracks off 1957's Elvis' Christmas Album and 1971's Wonderful World of Christmas as well as a selection of sacred songs, lest we forget that Christmas is all about the birth of the sweet baby Jesus, not about getting our shopping freak on. What more is there to say other than both Cash and Elvis are geniuses, if not personal Jesuses? Just that the little, white bichon frise hound dog on the inside sleeve of Christmas Peace is all I want for Christmas – besides world peace.