The Christmas Album You Should Be Listening To
‘Tis the season, which means you’re likely jamming out to classic festive tunes. After all, there’s nothing better than Christmas music to get you in a holly jolly mood. But I’m not writing this to tell you how to live your life, or how to prepare for the holidays. My job is simple: to enlighten. To evangelize about the existence of a god-tier creation sure to jingle the bells of the most stoic and static of souls. I am here to tell you about CeeLo Green’s Christmas album.
You may know him as the dude who wore that outrageous outfit that looked like Bumblebee the Transformer had an accidental brush with King Midas. Or you may know him as the one-hit wonder who sang the timeless 2010 classic “Forget You.” [Ed. Note — Or you may know him as the two-hit wonder who also sang the Gnarls Barkley hit single “Crazy.”] But you probably don’t know his most complete work, since it is absent from even his Wikipedia page.
Titled CeeLo’s Magical Moment, with album art that depicts CeeLo being chauffeured by a reindeer in a shiny red Cadillac that is also being pulled by a trio of white horses, seemingly traversing the purple continuum of time and space, the album is clearly nothing short of epic by just its appearance. What about the music? Well, let me tell you: listening to it changed my life for the better. While it may seem unlikely, CeeLo has an angelic voice, perfect for singing jazzy Christmas tunes. He can run the gamut, from mastering the heartfelt “Mary, Did You Know?” to nailing the bouncy cheer of “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Yes, you read that right. CeeLo has the audacity to match Mariah “Queen of Christmas” Carey’s status, and in my opinion, he absolutely smashes it. His rendition contains all the elements of Carey’s original, while maintaining the soul/soft jazz feel of the album—which, by the way, has all your Christmas favourites: “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (featuring the talents of Christina Aguilera), “White Christmas,” and a purely angelic and infinitely calming rendition of “Silent Night.” If that isn’t enough, CeeLo adds some less-known holiday classics, such as “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (featuring a cappella work by Straight No Chaser), which offers a unique, funky rendition of a childhood favourite, and “All I Need Is Love” (featuring Disney’s actual The Muppets), among other classic festive tunes, reimagined by CeeLo.
This album sounds great. Not only that, it has immense replay value. You can underscore a coffee-table discussion with your friends during a holiday get-together. You can listen to its slower, calmer tunes while relaxing after a hectic pre-Christmas day at work or school. You can jam out to it like a madman in your car. CeeLo did not make this album for his fans, or for avid listeners of pop, rap, or jazz. He made this for everyone to share, which, in a way, seems exactly like him. Throughout CeeLo’s career, he’s shown himself to be a good man at heart who just misses the mark in his execution. In 2017, he showed up to the Grammy Awards in the famous gold outfit in an attempt to dress as the alias under which he had released a song the previous December, but ended up getting made fun of relentlessly by the Internet. Plus, the man seems to never make up his mind on how to spell his stage name. He has been credited as “Cee Lo,” “Cee-Lo,” and “CeeLo.”
Whatever his name is, he’s simply doing his best to stay afloat in the world, as all of us are. He did his part by boldly taking on the task of successfully reimagining beloved classics, and created what I think is one of the most complete holiday albums of this century.