The Christmas Album

When you ask yourself, "What would I expect from a Neil Diamond Christmas album?", what you're thinking is almost EXACTLY what you're going to get in this case. True, Neil really murders the hell out of some tunes by "soft-rocking" them to death...and I mean murder in the first. That being said, Diamond's emmotional delivery proves absolutely stunning when paired with "Oh Holy Night", "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel", and more. The record is incredibly strong in the strong points and highly skip-able at its low. I would highly encourage you to buy this record. It's Neil. As a 22 year-old Radiohead fanatic, I still bust this record out for all occasions, ironic or otherwise.

this cd isn't a gift its an award, kinda like the nobel peace prize. only given the people who are deemed worthy of such an honor. the diamond realy feels chirstmas like know one else can. his passion for the season is showing though with such classics as "little drumer boy". the way he sings it, he must have been there for that experence, or "you make it feel like christmas", after listening to that one i feel like chirstmas, if you know what i mean. so don't give this to friend, award it to them and then celebrate chistmas everyday the diamond way!

It's almost impossible to find a low point on this cd, and that's because they're all low points. This one is a travesty; an album so bad, so melodically vacuous, so uninspired and derivative, it deserves a special place in the pantheon of bad Christmas music (or the trash can, take your choice). Hear Neil "Three Note" Diamond savagely butcher such standards as Silent Night and The Christmas Song. Hear John Lennon spin in his grave as Neil treats Happy Christmas (War is Over) with all the delicacy and grace of a charging rhinocerous. And let's not forget the virtual note-for-note rip-off of Bruce Springsteen's Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. And to think, this guy put out another collection of anti-holidy cheer only a few years later. Play this one on Halloween instead and scare all the kids away.

Dating probably back to when Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas," there's been a tradition of popular Jewish artists recording Christmas songs. Having seen his contemporary New Yorkers Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow record Christmas songs at various stages in their careers, in 1992 Neil Diamond interrupted his decade-long descent into irrelevant schmaltz by producing this somewhat uneven but overall entertaining collection of holiday music. He wisely begins with "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," with an arrangement a bit reminiscent of "Kol Nidre" from "The Jazz Singer, but that's about the only concession to his Jewish tradition Neil makes on this album. He employs choirs on several of the most spiritual Christmas songs ("We Three Kings," "Silent Night," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Holy Night"), and for the most part he offers an enthusiastic if not exactly soulful interpretation. He does a really nice number on "Little Drummer Boy," making it sound unlike any other interpretation.

He hits a rough patch with several songs that already have definitive versions and would've been better left alone. Neil comes nowhere remotely close to the raw power of Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," and it would've been a much better idea to just have done the traditional Sinatraesque rendition instead. Neil's "Christmas Song" isn't likely to make anybody forget Nat King Cole's classic interpretation. For reasons which boggle the imagination, he then launches into "Morning Has Broken," which isn't even a Christmas song and which was definitively done by Cat Stevens years ago, and then even more amazingly, he tackles John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)."

Neil redeems himself handsomely, though, with a "doo-wop" version of "White Christmas," followed by a barbershop quartet take on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." His "Jingle Bell Rock" is okay, too. He launches into a "Crying In Your Pretzels" country twang on "Silver Bells," which if nothing else offers up that classic Neil Diamond cheese we all love, where he stops in the middle of a song to reminisce about those Brooklyn roads he grew up on. The only song on the album, though, that ever gets any airplay these days is the one he'd previously recorded on the "Primitive" album in 1984, "You Make It Feel Like Christmas."

All in all, a decent enough effort, and popular enough that it led to a second volume in 1994, which is not only a much better showcase for Neil's talent, but in fact is one of the best Christmas CDs of the past 20 years.

Yes Neil is Jewish, and that matters how?
He has a terrific voice and he sings these songs GREAT!
If you dont like Neil Diamond or you dont like the fact a "jewish" person is singing them THEN DONT BUY IT!
Everyone else, this is a GREAT CD... gets me in the xmas spirit every year. Even my kids like it!