Track Listing

1. Step into Christmas - Elton John
2. I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas - Jon Bon Jovi
3. Sock It to Me Santa - Bob Seger,
4. What Child Is This? - The Moody Blues
5. Rock & Roll Christmas - George Thorogood & the Destroyers
6. I Believe in Father Christmas - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
7. Silent Night - Elvin Bishop
8. Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
9. Christmas Is the Time to Say "I Love You" - Billy Squier
10. Merry Christmas, Baby - Chuck Berry
11. Father Christmas - The Kinks

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46223 in Music
• Released on: 1995-04-16
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Hip Tunes At A Budget Price
I bought this collection initially to get the '80s new wave classic Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses. I was pleasantly surprised that this relatively inexpensive holiday set had quite a few other treasures on it as well, especially the efforts by the Brits like the classical sounding I Believe In Father Christmas by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the punkish Father Christmas (Santa gets beat up!) by The Kinks, and a modern What Child Is This by the Moody Blues. The leadoff track Step Into Christmas by Elton John is a delight, but it has been available on several compilations for years so it wasn't a big deal to get it here as well. There are a few duds enclosed, most notably an unrecognizable Bob Seger on the noisy Sock It To Me Santa, but for what you're paying, this is a great deal.

A small but decent collection of Christmas rock songs
"Rock N' Roll Christmas" is not a bad little collection given the asking price for these eleven songs. As soon as you look over the play list you realize that these are almost all original songs, with The Moody Blues simple version "What Child Is This?" and Elvin Bishop's cover of "Silent Night" as the exceptions. For me the one must have track is "I Believe in Father Christmas" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, which is my all time in this particular crossbred category. But Elton John's "Step into Christmas" is another classic well worth the having, and Jon Bon Jovi's "I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas" is almost as good. Beyond that the question is how much tolerance you have for Christmas songs with a rock beat, because that is what you get from Bob Seger, George Thorogood, Chuck Berry, and most of the rest of this crew. The final endorsement I can give for this collection is that except for the ELP song none of the other ten tracks duplicates what I already have in my Christmas music library, which I would have said was rather difficult to do. There is a second volume following this one, but the original is at least a full star better.

Good holiday rock & roll
Okay, growing up in Atlanta, GA in the 1980's afforded one the opportunity to hear some really cool Christmas tunes on AOR stations. I picked this one mainly for the ELP track "I Believe In Father Christmas" (which is different from the recording that 96 Rock always plays...their version is credited only to Greg Lake and doesn't include the choral arrangement that is found on this CD's version), which I still love even though these days I'm nowhere near as cynical I was when I first heard it.
>
But the truth is there are a lot of fun tunes on here...Billy Squier will always be relevant for a few weeks each year when you crank up "Christmas Is The Time To Say 'I Love You'" (remember seeing the video for this? Shot in the original MTV studios, it was...tres festive, mes amis). And Chuck Berry's version of "Merry Christmas Baby" beats Elvis Presley's, I'm sorry to say...though it does have something of a hangover groove to it. The Kinks' "Father Christmas" is both serious and silly at the same time (much like the 80's, though I believe it was recorded a lot earlier), and "Christmas Wrappin'" by The Waitresses gets a little easier to hear everytime I listen to it.
>
On the other hand, listening to Bob Seger's poor man's Mitch Ryder/James Brown imitation on "Sock It To Me, Santa" can be a bit of a chore (why couldn't they have put a JB tune on here for the element of realism needed?), and George Thorogood & The Deleware Destroyers "Rock & Roll Christmas" (the video for which was also shot at MTV) isn't exactly "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer". The Bon Jovi track I could do without, but then I haven't liked much they've done since "Runaway"...and Elvin Bishop's disco verson of "Silent Night"...well, do I even need to say anything further?
>
The price makes this CD a must if you remember at least one of these tunes...buying it with the "Volume 2" CD is recommended, as that compilation includes Bryan Adams' "(There's Something About) Christmas Time" (maybe my 4th-favorite contemporary Christmas tune of all time) and Bob & Doug's excellent beer-saturated version of "The 12 Days of Christmas".
>
Merry Christmas!