Strictly Country - Martina McBride - It's The Holiday Season

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Martina McBride Christmas Photograph used with permission.

Photograph used with permission.

It’s The Holiday Season

Martina McBride

2018 - Vinyl Recordings. When it comes to Christmas music, no one can truly beat Bing Crosby, nonetheless, Martina McBride comes mighty close. It was twenty years ago when Martina released her album White Christmas too much acclaim. This year she teams up with Patrick Williams to create nine of the most incredible arrangements on time-honored classic Christmas carols. This project features standards such as “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year,” “Winter Wonderland,” “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas,” “My Favorite Things,” “Frosty The Snowman,” “Home For The Holidays,” “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” and a medley of “Happy Holiday” and “It’s The Holiday Season.” Each song contains an extraordinary arrangement that will transport you back to the musical days of Bing Crosby. Personally, I thought that Martina would have the vocal talents to embrace such artistically defined melodies. I am surprised of the result! Ms. McBride’s style has wanned since her previous Christmas album. Her performance, on this project, gives the impression that her heart is not in it and she is struggling to meet the vocal dexterity that we have come to know. In several instances, she lacks enunciation with in her crooning which reduces the overall performance of the song. With incredible arrangements such as these, I pray that they were recorded separately from Martina’s vocals. If the engineers were to take the arrangements from this album and mix them with the timeless vocals of Bing Crosby, I wonder what the end result would be? This album is quite the disappointment for this Martina McBride fan. $$

(This review was printed in the November / December 2018 issue.)