If you’ve got a tenner to blow on a CD you’ll play for a couple of days and then put in a drawer for a year, this is as good as any.
It opens with a lavish theatrical/ big band production of It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, followed by a lower key cover of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, a duet with Frank Sinatra, for whom being dead is no bar.
Of the rest, Winter Wonderland is a more theatric big band, while Christmas Wrapping adds some guitar and a talking section with insurance salesman Iggy Pop; its knowing naffness and would have suited Top of the Pops. Vince Clarke’s Only You is a bit out of place, a nice song done nicely, with James Corden guesting on vox. Chrissie Hynde’s 2000 Miles is less effective. You get the picture.
Also featured is a straight cover of Let It Snow, a jokey Santa Baby and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. There’s a deluxe version with bonus tracks, including 100 Degrees, with Dannii Minogue.
A new song, White December, is not as good. But hey, it’s Kylie, which after all is the main selling point of the album, and only The Grinch could really fi nd fault.
It’s a Christmas album. Sung by Kylie. What do you expect?