Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8190 in Digital Music Album
• Published on: 2009-08-25
• Released on: 2009-08-25
• Running time: 2143 seconds

Customer Reviews

Fabulous Music, Disappointing Presentation . . . . .
Every song in this collection is a gem, but the presentation was a HUGE let down. I cannot fathom why Capitol Records chose to use many of the original monophonic recordings of the 1960s material when every holiday track the Beach Boys ever did is now available in glorious stereo. A decade ago, "Ultimate Christmas" gave us superbly remastered stereo versions of everything and the previously unheard lushness only added to the band's incredibly layered vocal arrangements. Why anyone with two functioning ears would choose to hear these works of art in mono at this point is beyond me and I'm puzzled by Capitol's choice to use them. They didn't even bother to "throw the listener a bone" with some previously unreleased holiday bonus track as bait. On top of all that, the packaging leaves much to be desired. While "Ultimate Christmas" provided a beautiful booklet, "Christmas Harmonies" only included a minimal single fold sheet with little information beyond the song titles and their origins. Finally, it's pretty hard to get excited about a fifteen song Beach Boys holiday collection when their own record label once produced one with twenty-six tracks! Seems like we're going backwards on the holiday stuff. Hopefully, the band's fiftieth anniversary will prompt Capitol to show a tad more holiday cheer in December of 2011!

Beach Boys with four freshman influence
I loved the four freshman years and Brian Wilson takes it up from them. A great album. Best WE 3KINGS,WHITE CHRISTMAS, CHILD OF WINTER and AULD LANG SYNE.Of course Santa's Beard, Little St Nick and Merry Christmas Baby are the Beach Boys own songs and are as expected, the best. You'll love this if you love the voices in harmony at Christmas.

Still those heavenly harmonies!!!
If you already have the Beach Boys "Ultimate Christmas", then you don't really need this CD...But, then again, this is THE BEACH BOYS!!! What would Christmas be without their heavenly harmonies? Most of these songs originate from their original 1964 Christmas album, with a few from their "second" Christmas album, which was never really released, and there are no "new" surprises here, but I bought it because it is THE BEACH BOYS, and the cover does look "cool" sitting there amongst my many other rock-n-roll Christmas CDs, so I did give it FIVE stars; it is a worthwhile investment, and some day they will quit making it, so give yourself an early Christmas present and BUY IT!!!