Wow Christmas: Green
Christian artists and Christmas music go together like milk and cookies left for Santa. But for every cold, delicious glass of milk there's a stale cookie. Same can be said forWOW Christmas. There are plenty of traditional renderings like the delightful "Jingle Bell Rock" from Point of Grace, who could sing pages out of a phonebook and make it sound like the holidays; Zoegirl's "What Child Is This?"; Casting Crowns' "Away In A Manger"; Matthew West's "Let It Snow"; and, Mark Schultz's "The First Noel." For a different spin on the classics, check out Rebecca St. James' "Hark The Herald Angels Sing," otherwordly and strangely appealing; Tobymac's reggae-tinged "O Come All Ye Faithful"; Relient K's "Deck The Halls," which holds just enough energetic chutzpah to escape any charges of irreverency; and Bethany Dillon's smoldering jazzy take on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." New classics here give us a smile like Newsong's "The Christmas Shoes", David Crowder's south-of-the-border "Feliz Navidad," and Jars of Clay's ethereal "Little Drummer Boy." As for those overbaked cookies--FFH's close-but-no-cigar reworking of "Do You Hear What I Hear" or Jump 5's beat-silly "Sleigh Ride" will still be on the plate when Santa splits town.--Michael Lyttle