New entries to a hallowed catalogue: The holiday album

NEW YORK A holiday album offers musicians a chance to adopt or reinvent a classic format and show fans a different side of themselves. Here is a sampling of 2024’s releases, from singers exploring the standards to artistes rethinking the meaning of the holidays.

CLAY AIKEN'S CHRISTMAS BELLS ARE RINGING

This is Clay Aiken's second holiday album. The first arrived two decades ago, the year after he gawkily crooned his way to second place on the second season of American Idol (2002 to present). In the intervening time, he has been on Broadway, run for political office, and been on The Masked Singer (2019 to present).

But he never lost his voice. He still sings with a lovely flutter, and real punch too. His first holiday collection, Merry Christmas With Love, was overflowing with earned pomp - a singer who excelled at targeted bombast given free melodramatic reign.

His new one, a covers collection, is more polished, although he does convey true mischief on Magic Moments and, on Do You Hear What I Hear, accesses the kind of pyrotechnic fifth gear that is the stuff of Idol finales and Christmas morning celebrations.

CARPENTERS' CHRISTMAS ONCE MORE

The Carpenters' 1978 holiday release Christmas Portrait is not only one of the most enduringly enjoyable Yuletide pop albums of its era, but also one of the most ambitious works that Richard Carpenter arranged: a grandly orchestrated, elegantly realised suite that weaves together an extended medley of Christmas favourites as if they were a single song.

That fluidity is preserved on the new collection, Christmas Once More, even though it is a compilation that features remixed and remastered material culled from both Christmas Portrait and its 1984 sequel, An Old-Fashioned Christmas.

These 16 tracks represent most of the highlights from each release, including a festive take on (There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays and a rerecording of the American duo's own 1970 holiday hit Merry Christmas, Darling, featuring accompaniment from Britain's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.