Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I think I’ve stated that I hate Christmas music, and generally hate Christmas CDs, with a couple of exceptions. I’ll add Darlene Love’s It's Christmas, Of Course, to my good list, simply because seasonal aspect notwithstanding, you could listen to this bad boy all year long.

Love is a relatively unheralded rock n’ roll talent, one of Phil Spector’s stable of singers who was more heard than known. A member of The Blossoms, she also sang (unaccredited) lead on the immortal “He’s A Rebel” by The Crystals, and had a huge hit of her own titled “Today I Met The Boy I’m Gonna Marry.” Of late, she’s done a number of Broadway shows, played Mrs. Murtaugh in the LETHAL WEAPON  movies, and sings Please Come Home For Christmas (included here) on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN each year. Love’s remained active, and It's Christmas, Of Course is infused with an energy that belies her age. Or mine, for that matter.

Anyway, It's Christmas Of Course is fabulous in its inspiration and execution. What Love has done here is taken a bunch of rock Christmas songs and made them each and all her own, from the aforementioned Please Come Home For Christmas by Charles Brown to Robbie Robertson’s Christmas Must Be Tonight to my own personal favorite, 2000 Miles by The Pretenders. The project could have been ruined by overblown production, but it isn’t; the arrangements for the most part are full but simple, with guitars, bass, keys, and drums, as well as some occasionally tastefully applied brass. And Love sounds absolutely fabulous. My first reaction upon seeing this disc was “Why?” when she could have recorded a pop or rock project. I quit asking why within the first minute of Christmas All Over Again. Love is one of the great voices that links 1950s’ pop to soul, and on It's Christmas, Of Course are twelve reasons why.