Straight No Chaser
Christmas Cheers
Atco/Atlantic
By Al Kaufman
Christmas and a capella go together as well as Halloween and chamber music. Both are bright and festive, but at their heart are beautiful and meaningful. The 10-man a capella group, Straight No Chaser, bring both those elements to their second Christmas CD, Christmas Cheers.
Straight No Chaser caused a sensation back in 1998 with their You Tube video of "The 12 Days of Christmas". Their hilariously inspired rendition infuses one of the most generic hits of the '80s, (Toto's "Africa") and turns it into an instant Christmas classic. A new studio version of the song is represented here on the final track, and is just as funny as it was the first time we heard it.
That track is rivaled my the manic energy of the opening cut, "The Christmas Can-Can," Chaser's tongue-in-cheek commentary about commercialism. Plus they throw in some Chanukah and Kwanzaa references because, well, there's money to be made there as well.
The rest of the CD consists of some gorgeously sung renditions of classics, such as "Christmastime Is Here," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Oh Holy Night" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." But those are interspersed with lighter, breezier stuff. You can almost see their jazz hands shaking on their rendition of "Let It Snow," and their version of Brian Setzer's rockabilly "Hey Santa!" swings just as much as the original. They also bring some groovy swing to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."
The only real misfire here is "Santa Claus Is Back in Town." Sung by "Elvis," the song is full of cheap and easy jokes about food, an Elvis topic that has literally been done to death.
Spike the egg-nog, trim the tree, and put on some Christmas Cheers. It's a whole lot more festive than Andy Williams.
