Customer Reviews

Elton John's Christmas Party

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The various artists compilation CD "Elton John's Christmas Party" was first released in 2005, but it was manufactured by the Hear Music imprint for Universal Music Enterprises. That means it was available for purchase mainly at Starbucks Coffee retail stores, with a retail price of $14.95 ($18.95 in Canada). Now you'd think Hip-O Records would be doing us a favor by re-releasing this set in 2006 on their label, thus making it widely available for purchase everywhere. But alas, that's not the case, because for the 2006 version of this set, a full six tracks have been removed from the original tracklist. Those six tracks are as follows:

- "Frosty The Snowman" by The Ronettes
- "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" by Bruce Springsteen
- "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by The Crystals
- "Playa's Ball" by OutKast
- "St. Patricks's Day" by John Mayer
- "Please Come Home For Christmas" by The Eagles

I'm not sure why Sir Elton wanted to include the OutKast and John Mayer tracks in the first place, and I don't consider those to be a great loss for a Christmas compilation. But here's what irks me that many people may not even notice: the Ronettes and Crystals tracks were both originally released on the classic 1963 Phil Spector holiday rock album "A Christmas Gift For You" (possibly the greatest holiday album of all time, if not one of the greatest). And if you look carefully at the cartoonish CD cover artwork, Sir Elton happens to be holding a vinyl copy of one of the old reissued versions of this album (when it was renamed "Phil Spector's Christmas Album" for reissues during the 1970s and 1980s). So not only has Hip-O yanked the two tracks that came from that classic Spector album, they didn't even bother changing the cover art for the new downsized version of the set.

Oh, and did I also mention that the suggested retail price of the new downsized version is $15.98. That's higher than the suggested retail price of the set when it had 21 tracks and was sold mainly at Starbucks Coffee stores in the U.S. This is yet another example of paying more and getting less, which is oh so woefully typical of corporate America these days. Personally, I can't understand why Sir Elton would go along with these changes (assuming he had a say in it), but I'm sure licensing fees had something to do with it.

So if you really wanna grab the better version of this compilation, my suggestion is to scan auction sites like eBay every so often, or buy a copy from a private seller here at amazon.com if one is available. Unfortunately, the original 21-track version of the set is now out of print.

If you like Christmas music, you should undoubtedly get plenty of enjoyable plays from this fifteen track disc. Was actually quite impressed by cuts provdided by artists like the Beach Boys, Flaming Lips, Chuck Berry, U2, The Pretenders and The Band. Only tunes here that I, personally didn't care for were the songs by El Vez and Jimmy Buffet. Musically speaking, Sir Elton can most certainly assemble a good holiday trail mix.

U2's "New Years Day" = a holiday song ?
I wouldn't bother except that the money goes to charity (hopefully).

This is something I purchased for myself before Christmas. I had been looking for an CD that had the Eagles Group singing their Christmas Song. It is on this CD. I love it with all the other great artist too! A must have for the music lover that likes to celebrate Christmas.

This album has some good songs on it, but it has some weird choices for a Christmas album and doesn't seem to be very well thought out. I would prefer to have something else. Seems like someone took Sir Elton's name slapped it onto a package and put together whatever songs were easiest to get the rights to use.

I was tempted to buy this CD last year when it was available from Starbucks directly, but having owned other - and better - versions of the songs listed, I decided not to. Once more I am making the same decision this year, skipping it even though I've recently heard Rufus Wainwright sing some memorable original - and both traditional and contemporary - Christmas songs at a holiday concert with his sister Martha, other members of their family and friends at Carnegie Hall (I will say that Rufus and Martha know how to have a great holiday concert!). The only good reason to buy this holiday mix of songs - which I presume were selected personally by Sir Elton John himself - is for the purpose of donating at least some of the CD's purchase price towards the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which is a most notable, laudable goal. Last, but not least, the final song on this CD, "Calling It Christmas", is a new, original song from Elton John with lyrics written by Bernie Taupin; if I'm not mistaken, it was recorded with Elton and the entire band playing at one of his favorite Atlanta, Georgia studios.

I bought this last year when it was on sale only through Starbucks. I really enjoyed it last christmas season.

I think it is the best christmas songs collection by different artists available.

Half of the songs I knew before and knew that I loved them. It was a very pleasant surprise to find out that the rest of the songs were on par with those i knew.

Go get it!

I did not like this at all. I expected Elton John to sing but even so I can not believe he likes this kind of music. I hated it.