Dream a dream --- Charlotte Church --- 2000 (Sony Classical)
I suppose the best thing you can say about this album is that at least there's a picture of a pretty girl to look at on the cover! To be fair to Charlotte Church, if anyone was going to release a Christmas album you would probably expect it to have been her. She did after all start her career in classical and operatic singing, and has been closely identified with hymns and carols and so forth. Even at that though, her soprano voice does tend to grate after a while.
It's a relatively decent collection, with the title track familiar to me from some classical album I have, and a rather nice version of "Far over Bethlehem" in, presumably, her native Welsh. It's quite long though, nineteen tracks in all, and though somewhat atypical fare like "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire (The Christmas Song)" and the rather nice "Lo! A rose e'er blooming", not to mention "Coventry carol (Lully lullay)" pull you a little away from the usual expected songs about Jesus, Santa and toys, it's still one of those albums you'd be unlikely to make it all the way through, unless you're one of her fans.
Not the worst ever, but certainly not a present I want to see coming my way anytime soon!
TRACKLISTING
1. Dream a dream
2. O come all ye faithful
3. Little drummer boy
4. Mary's boy child
5. Ding Dong! Merrily on high
6. Winter wonderland
7. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire)
8. Hark! the Herald Angels sing
9. The Coventry Carol (Lully Lullay)
10. Joy to the world
11. When a child is born
12. What child is this
13. God rest ye merry gentlemen
14. Draw tua Bethlehem (Far over Bethlehem)
15. Ave Maria
16. Gabriel's message
17. O holy night
18. Lo! How a rose e'er blooming
19. Silent night