Searching for artistic merit in most Christmas albums is a bit like looking for allegory in a Cliff Richard calendar. Under the sheen of one-size-fits-all production that’s necessary to compete in as wide a market as possible come the annual bunfight for plastic tat, pretty much everything is reduced to sounding like a nicely wrapped fancy box of nothing.
That said, expectations are there to be confounded, so lets open Kylie Christmas and see what we’ve got…
We’re covering disappointment straight from the off. As we smile sweetly and say “Thanks”, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” practically limps out of the speakers. Having a pop at it feels like putting Tiny Tim through a work capability assessment. Still, let’s push on – there might be surprises in store.
And indeed there are – the duets. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” featuring Frank Sinatra (who seems to have gamely rallied himself from death), a cover of The Waitresses’ 1981 hit “Christmas Wrapping” with Iggy Pop, and “Only You” with James Corden. Yep. You read that right. James Corden. “Only You”, of course, isn’t a Christmas song and features here, I suspect, because it could easily be the soundtrack to a tear-jerking John Lewis advert about a lonely child who has lost a favourite toy. Iggy Pop, meanwhile, mumbles his way through proceedings with all the natural cadence of someone trying to dub a Japanese animated film.
It doesn’t ever pick up from there to be honest, not even with “Every Day’s Like Christmas”, which was written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Now, you know how, when you’re cycling or (I imagine) driving, there are those occasions when you suddenly pull up short and think, “I have no idea what just happened for those last two miles”? This song is those two miles. A bit of your life that happened, but is lost to you for ever.
I don’t want to sound churlish, it’s a Christmas album. I want to be full of good cheer. However I can’t escape the fact that the only bit of the festive spirit Kylie’s successfully encompassed here is the ad breaks during Downton.