Olivia Newton-John’s Christmas Wish a Saccharine Mixed Bag at Best
By
Kristin Battestella
Australian
songstress Olivia Newton-John’s 2007 Christmas
Wish is a solid hour of familiar seasonal instrumentals and new uplifting
merriment. Unfortunately, the safe, syrupy sentiment comes on too thick and
hampers what should be a peaceful, inspiring listen.
Rather
than an over the top bombastic, Christmas
Wish opens with soft notes, expected mellow and breathless reverence for a
fine O Come All Ye Faithful full of pleasing
humility. We’re knocking on the door, whispering Adeste Fideles, and requesting
an audience with the Babe. Angels We
Have Heard on High follows, the first of ten so-called interludes between
tracks. These instrumental, minute plus transitions are a neat way to keep subtle
carol melodies both familiar and rare within the set, and of course, their
short treatment makes room for new secular fair such as the Every Time It Snows duet with Jon
Secada. His Spanish interweavings add a delightful accent for the rest of the
year, but despite holiday lyrics and winter mentions, this romantic ballad
doesn’t really have much of a December feeling.
A lovely
violin Away in the Manger interlude
leads to the somber We Three Kings, complete
with room to hold notes for some medieval, mystical oomph before the carols
continue thanks to a charming The First
Noel snippet. A Mother’s Christmas
Wish next adds more seasonal love and spirit by combining familial feelings
with a peaceful lesson. As the eponymous track, this might have been meant as Christmas Wish’s big hit ode. However,
this tune is instead indicative of the album’s main problem: an overload of similar
sentimentality. The less heard Jesu, Joy
of Man’s Desiring interlude is prettier than the seemingly try hard, very special songs, but Angels in the Snow repeats more of the
tender, touching, universal but generic holiday magic of A Mother’s Christmas
Wish. Maybe it takes having kids at Christmas to appreciate these two near
identical tracks, but they are simply too much of the same too close together.
A listener could step away, miss the interlude, and think the same song was
still playing.
A
slightly longer guitar What Child is This
interlude segues to a wispy Silent
Night lullaby with foreign verses from Jann Arden, but the lengthy, full
treatment carols also ultimately remain as uninspired as the redundant secular
standards on Christmas Wish. The brooding
piano moment of O Come, O Come Emmanuel leads
to distinctive guest star Michael McDonald
and All Through the Night, which
is also somehow derivative of the same general holiday malaise of Christmas Wish. For such a super sized
Christmas session, this all sounds like one long sleepy set, and ironically, it
doesn’t feel like Olivia really sings that much here. Likewise, the
instrumental Little Drummer Boy interlude
doesn’t standout, either – probably because it is lacking in, you know, the
drums.
Fortunately,
Underneath the Same Sky wakes Christmas Wish up from the doze fest
with some of Olivia’s overdue country upbeat. The Down Under, nostalgic lyrics
are fun, the titular sentiment is nice – really it is true whatever you’re
celebrating this December. Of course, the only knock here is that this is a
sweet tooth on top of an album already serving up too many other saccharine
Disney ditties. The interludes change up as well, trading brief carols for old-fashioned
traditional flair – although the O
Christmas Tree segment is a near unrecognizable tannenbaum. Little Star of Bethlehem also becomes
too insipid, running together to the point where you can’t hear its peaceful
message. Deck the Halls is the shortest
interlude on Christmas Wish, and by
this point, these instrumental arrangements become somewhat frustrating, even
deceiving because the audience looks at the track listings and expects a
complete Christmas session but instead receives a contemporary album that is
going for a bare minimum Christian theme and just happens to have a few holiday
songs.
This
laying it on banal tone overflowing on Christmas
Wish is surprising considering Olivia’s other spiritual releases, and Instrument of Peace previously appeared
on her Grace and Gratitude Christian album.
This should be a powerful, personal, testimonial thanks to some kicked up
orchestration not found elsewhere on Christmas
Wish, but it’s still too darn slow and jars up against an oddly placed We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which
sends the album off with a piano exit two songs early. Mercifully, Christmas on My Radio is one great
little number steeped in a fifties via Grease
style and reflection. Surely, it is understandable if Olivia is reluctant to revisit
what is probably an expected design. However, this is the only time on Christmas Wish that she truly breaks
out, kicks it up, and does something fun and – gasp!–different. The lyrics
recall and old time Christmas with feel good dancing sway, her voice is great, and
I would have loved to hear a shorter album in this style. This is the only song
trying not to be the unnecessary global
peace and love hit, yet it is the only one perking you up and giving Christmas Wish notice. Barry Manilow joins Olivia and starts A Gift of Love in what could be
something special, too, but at two and a half minutes, this encore ends Christmas Wish just when it was getting
good.
There’s
a lot of new seasonal material on Christmas
Wish – this second holiday release from Newton-John is probably trying to
stand out from the perhaps bigger carols on her 2000 Tis the Season album with Vince Gill. The guest stars and unique listing
here should make Christmas Wish feel
like a concert, but the visiting vocalists are hardly there and the orchestration
barely flinches for the entire hour. Unlike the all secular and iffy celeb
laden kitschy of her later This Christmas
set with John Travolta, there’s nothing extreme or all that spectacular
about Christmas Wish. It’s a
tolerable, pleasant listen for December office background music, but it should
be better than it is. With so many similar notes, it’s easy to zone out or find
most of the tunes forgettable. I want to like Christmas Wish and am probably being generous in calling it a mixed
bag – there will certainly be too much syrupy here for most audiences. Longtime
Olivia fans or country and contemporary Christian households, however, can take
small doses of the mellow merriment on Christmas
Wish for a tame, seasonal playlist.
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