White Christmas

Bing Crosby | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 1, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mca Special Products
• ASIN: B000002QWD
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,415 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #2 in Music > Miscellaneous > Holiday > Pop Vocal
  • #7 in Music > Miscellaneous > Nostalgia
  • #10 in Music > Broadway & Vocalists > Classic Vocalists

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Christmas Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 7-OCT-1997

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rosetta Stone of Modern Holiday Music, October 13, 2004

By 

Jon Oye (IL, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Christmas (Audio CD)

It's a little annoying that so many people only associate Bing Crosby with Christmas music, given his monumental and pioneering achievements in the recording, movie, and radio industries. But let's face it, nobody does Christmas better than Bing. Admit it - the Holidays just don't feel complete unless you've heard Bing croon "White Christmas" at least once. The fact is, anyone who's ever recorded a secular Holiday song since World War II owes a debt to Mr. Crosby. And this is the album that started it all.

"Merry Christmas" (its original title) was first released in the form of a multiple 10-inch 78-rpm record set in 1945, later making the transition to 33 1/3-rpm LP, and eventually becoming the very first million-selling Christmas album.

Bing's 1935 recording of "Silent Night" (the '47 version is included in this collection) was, in fact, the very first Christmas record to become a huge hit. Ironically, Bing had been reluctant to record a religious song for the purpose of commercial gain, and he only agreed to do it if the proceeds went to charity.

Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", on the other hand, was not only the first secular Holiday tune to do well, it ultimately became the biggest selling record of all time (current estimates have it at over 50 million), and it opened the floodgates to an onslaught of annual postwar Holiday recordings by major artists that continues to this day. Its initial success was attributed to its striking a chord with homesick GI's in the Pacific Theatre of Operations during the Second World War, but that somehow spilled over onto the Home Front, and it continued long after the troops returned. So much so that it cracked the Top 40 in an amazing sixteen different years!

For my money, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" is the real gem of this set. Could the troops have been any less pensive and wistful upon hearing this breathtaking recording in the winter of 1943 than they had been with "White Christmas" the year before? Bing's voice floats hauntingly over the opening guitar strains as we're drawn for a brief moment into a parallel, yet more reflective and somewhat melancholy realm . . . until we're finally lulled gently back to our own time and place with the exquisitely sustained final note. This is artistry of the highest order, and the perfect marriage of singer and song. Anyone who only remembers the aging Bing Crosby of the leisurely TV Christmas Specials of the 1960's and `70's should give this performance a serious listen.

Holiday novelty tunes are certainly still a part of our world, and "Christmas In Killarney" and "Mele Kalikimaka" have to be categorized as such, but they're so darned warm and infectious one can't imagine this collection without them. Besides, once upon a time Bing was as well known for singing Irish and Hawaiian songs as he was for Christmas ones.

Another one of my favorites is "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas", which unfailingly elicits an almost Pavlovian reaction of childlike anticipation of the Yuletide season every time I hear it.

There's a lot more to enjoy here, particularly Bing's workout with the inimitable Andrews Sisters on the jazzed-up "Jingle Bells" (recently ripped off, note for note, harmony for harmony, and pause for pause, by Barry Manilow), but I'll leave the rest for you to discover. Or rediscover, since these songs and carols are all practically a part of our collective unconscious. If they're not, if you're too young to have heard this collection before - well, trust me, it's essential Holiday listening.

And it is, as they say, the perfect stocking stuffer!

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best $5 Investment You'll Ever Make!, December 25, 2004

By 

Tad Ulrich (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Christmas (Audio CD)

I'm a kinda old dude, I guess. I remember in '49 as a little boy when My mom & dad went Christmas shopping and bought the 10 inch LP version of this Crosby classic. I've played it every year since for all those decades, even though it is now worn out.

Every time I play the current cd version, I am stunned by the feelings and memories it conjures up of times that, in many ways, were much more wholesome and meaningful than they are now. Memories of the smell of a christmas tree, the sight of the bubble lights twinkling away and of a Santa soon to be here. And these songs just bring it all to life. Really indescribable, but oh, so wonderful! To this day, it's the one album that will rekindle that old Christmas spirit.

Bing was an absolute master of his craft back when this album was made and John Scott Trotter's orchestrations were to Bing what Nelson Riddle was to Sinatra - perfect!

There's no point in reiterating the performances of these superb songs. That's been done a million times already. I just wish they'd remaster the songs so that they are sonically what they were in '49 rather than the somewhat harsh electronic enhancements they have embellished them with for so many years now.

But ultimately, it makes no difference because it is the music that is important and, for my money, this is the finest Christmas album ever made and will be the best $5 investment you will ever make!

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'll Cherish This Album All My Life, December 5, 2004

By 

Andrew Kruczek (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Christmas (Audio CD)

This is the only Christmas album that would make my "Top 10 Albums of All-Time" list. I am currently 24 years old and I found this record in my parents stack of vinyl years ago. There is something amazing about this album that is hard to put into words. I've recently bought it on cd. Strangely, the cd is called "White Christmas" while the original album is titled "Merry Christmas." Exact same cover and content. I play the vinyl a few times a week during the Christmas holiday. I prefer how it sounds to the cd. The cd is one of those $5 bargain bin releases. It doesn't sound very good. Hopefully one day it will be given the remastered treatment it deserves.

I often tear up when I listen to this album. Yet I keep going back to it. It sounds very old and the mood it puts you in is quite unexplainable. It transports you back in time. When there was snow at Christmas. When actors sang. When the world was much different, more wholesome about Christmas, family, and the holidays. I've recently lost two grandparents in the last two years. This album makes me fantasize about how my dad's Christmas's might have been. With all our family together, in the house that is now abandoned, in the old decaying polish neighborhood in the suburbs of Buffalo, NY I used to go to for holidays when I was younger. It just reminds me of my grandparents and all those wonderful Christmas celebrations that don't seem to be as big a part of the world anymore.

The first half of this album are the slower, more introspective, Christmas songs. I was going to list my favorites but I love them all. The background vocals on some of these are so errie and haunting. Sung by people long passed. "Faith of Our Fathers," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Adeste Fideles." The music by the John Scott Trotter Orchestra makes you feel things you just can't find in other Christmas music. The second half of the album have more upbeat numbers: "Jingle Bells," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas" to name a few. Songs ilke "Christmas in Killarney" paints a wonderful picture of Christmas's of the time. Friends, family, Fr. John blessing the house, department store shopping, love.

This album is just fantastic. You are transported back to a time when it seemed Christmas still had more of it's religious background and was not as commercial as it is now. It is prefectly of it's time. It's dated and thats when it works best. You are put back into those old pictures of your early Christmas's or Christmas's celebrated by your family before you were around. Back to those times when my grandparents were still alive. When the world was much more innocent. All of this swirls through my mind everytime I play this album and I love revisiting it, and staying there, time and time again.