By GINA VIVINETTO
© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 2, 2001

Sugarplums, a few lumps of coal, one serving of Hanukkah and a recipe for stuffing: All tastes are served in this year's holiday CD smorgasbord.

In what has become an annual tradition, members of the Team Pop posse recently gathered at a festive dinner party to listen to this year's batch of holiday music.

Why?

So you don't have to.

Yep, seems every year there are some real doozies, by artists you wouldn't immediately associate with holiday cheer. 38 Special? Destiny's Child?

And what's with Barbra Streisand recording another Christmas disc, a follow-up to her 1967 smash Christmas Album? Isn't Babs Jewish? (Well, so was Irving Berlin, and he wrote White Christmas.) But, we'll take what we can get, since every year we note the lack of discs featuring music about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or any other seasonal holiday.

Anyway, we laughed, we cried, we ate a lot and heard dozens of discs that ranged from laughably bad to wonderful. Because that's what Team Pop is all about, folks: togetherness, food, catty comments, bad jokes.

It's a service we'll continue to provide every holiday season. Heck, we'll do anything for a home-cooked meal.

RECOMMENDED:

We adored SWINGIN' CHRISTMAS (RHINO), with the fabulous Louis Prima doing a swingy Shake Hands With Santa. You can't go wrong with the big band sound of Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman, and Lionel Hampton. Kay Starr sings (Everybody's Waiting For) The Man With the Bag. Vic Damone croons the quirky It's a Marshamallow World. Yum!

We also loved BENNETT, CHURCH, DOMINGO, WILLIAMS, OUR FAVORITE THINGS (SONY CLASSICAL) Sure, sticking Tony Bennett, Charlotte Church, Placido Domingo and Vanessa Williams together seems like the sort of hodgepodge guest spots found on The Love Boat or Fantasy Island, but the disc really works. And it's all recorded live from a Vienna concert. Highlight: Bennett and Williams doing Winter Wonderland.

Also grand: SEASON'S GREETINGS: THE MILLENNIUM COLLECTION (HIP-O), a terrific collection of holiday favorites including Bing Crosby's White Christmas, Burl Ives' A Holly Jolly Christmas, and a peppy Jimmy Durante's Frosty The Snowman.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL CHRISTMAS! (SONY) features classics from Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and all our favorite standards singers. The Beach Boys do their Little Saint Nick, John and Yoko sing Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and on disc 2, the younger folks get Britney Spears and 'N Sync.

THE STINKERS:

Oh, wow, could DESTINY'S CHILD, 8 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS (COLUMBIA) be any worse? You'd never know these synth-and-syncopation dance songs were Christmas tunes. Yuck!

38 SPECIAL, A WILD-EYED CHRISTMAS NIGHT (BMG) didn't get us in the holiday spirit either, especially the thudding bass on Here Comes Santa Claus.

MTV TRL CHRISTMAS (LAVA/ATLANTIC), featuring holiday travesties from Willa Ford, P.O.D., Christina Aguilera, TLC and other MTV favorites, was terrible, but it inspired Team Pop to our own "Christmas" ditty:

Santa better bring us some bling bling
Or we'll spoil the holiday and sing sing
We'll do "Silent Night" with a big, fat beat
Unless little elves bring us Prada for our feet

AT LEAST WE DIDN'T GUFFAW

We could tolerate Christian pop star JACI VELASQUEZ, CHRISTMAS (WORD), but the "bonus" cut of the singer's duet with Alvin & the Chipmunks isn't such a great freebie.

A COUNTRY SUPERSTAR CHRISTMAS: VOLUME 4 (HIP-O) was also pleasant. Christmas tunes, so rich in sentiment and story telling, lend themselves well to country music. Stars such as George Strait, Toby Keith and Dolly Parton are on this. But beware of Dwight Yoakam's Come On Christmas. We love Dwight, but, come on, buddy, have a cup of coffee or something: Wake up!

A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS: VOLUME 2 (MOTOWN) offers some holiday fare, with mixed results, from the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5 and the Temptations.

Certain members of the Team Pop posse were wowed by VH1: THE BIG 80S CHRISTMAS (RHINO) and its holiday hits from 1980s superstars, including Billy Squier's Christmas Is the Time to Say "I Love You," and Pat Benatar's Please Come Home for Christmas. The rest of us, with better taste, loved 2000 Miles by the Pretenders and the Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth duet by the unlikely duo of Bing Crosby and David Bowie.

VERY ARTSY FARTSY:

FUTURE PERFECT, SONGS OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE (WWW.HAZARDFACTOR.COM) One of the best discs we heard was from a local act: We all flipped over the arty holiday tunes by Tampa's Future Perfect. Dave Eichenberger's effect-laden guitar accompanies delicious, ethereal vocals courtesy of Misha Penton on reworked standards such as Do You Hear What I Hear? and Joy to the World. Penton also plays flute.

STRICTLY FOR FANS

Only loyalists will want the two-disc ANNE MURRAY, WHAT A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS (STRAIGHTWAY). It's a lot of Anne. And it inspires flashbacks of the singer collaborating with the Muppets on their show in the 1970s.

Power diva BARBRA STREISAND'S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES (COLUMBIA) is also stictly for her enthusiasts. The album never seems to get its pep on.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION (HIP-O) is notable only for its dorky duets with Kenny Loggins and Vince Gill. (And Team Pop -- at least, the tasteful members -- love Livvy!)

FOR THE HIGHBROWS

The more cultured among us dug CHRISTMAS AT TRINITY (NAXOS) for all its pretty, religious favorites sung by the Choir of Trinity Church on Wall Street.

TODD WILSON, A JOYOUS CELEBRATION! won raves for its soothing, elegant holiday music performed on the Norton Memorial Organ.

MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER CHRISTMAS EXTRAORDINAIRE (AMERICAN GRAMMAPHONE) is really the product of one guy, New Age classical composer Chip Davis, and he gives his synthy, neo-classical spin to holiday favorites such as Away in a Manger and The First Noel. In other words, a lot of this sounds like Vangelis' Chariots of Fire, but O Tannenbaum features singing by Johnny Mathis.

THE ONE HANUKKAH CD

CHANUKKAH IN STORY AND SONG (NPR CLASSICS) features classic Hanukkah songs such as Chanukkah, Oy Chanukkah sung by the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, with narration by actor Leonard Nimoy.

BEST AND WORST, ALL IN ONE:

A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS: VOLUME 5 (A&M) We loved the raucous blues duet Back Door Santa by B.B. King and John Popper, but hate hate hated Wyclef Jean's rendition of Little Drummer Boy, which oddly segues into Hot Hot Hot.

ODDLY CREEPY

A CLASSICAL KIDS CHRISTMAS (ATLANTIC): We all were spooked by the children's chanting and the solemn strings of A Classical Kid's Christmas. We thought it sounded like the soundtrack from a horror movie involving a bad-seed demon child (think Damien in The Omen). But that may say more about us than the album.

INCLUDES A STUFFING RECIPE:

CANDI STATION, CHRISTMAS IN MY HEART (BERACAH): R&B powerhouse Candy Station sings standards and originals. The ecstatic Joy to the World blew us away. We were most impressed with Station's inclusion of her homemade stuffing recipe in the liner notes.

- Team Pop members Pamela Davis, Eric Deggans, John Fleming, Shannon McMahon, Charlotte Sutton, Kate Zucco and her dad, Tom Zucco, participated in the listening festivities.

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