Vh1: Big 80's Christmas
The '80s were a renaissance for popular music, riding a (new?) wave of garage, punk, and early technorock, along with retro pop and stylized funk. While there's no funk or R&B; to be found on the 15 tracks ofChristmas: The Big '80s, some of the touchstone artists from the era--and a few dinosaurs likeQueen--are well represented, among them theWaitressesand their classic "Christmas Wrapping," perhaps the most oft-licensed pop song in memory. Heavy on the Brits, the disc regains its Yankee roots with rocking songs byGeorge Thorogood and the Destroyers, theRamones, andLos Lobos, who provide an instrumental, polka-Hendrix reading of "Rudolph the Manic Reindeer." While many of these tracks can be found on better collections, it's hard to slam a holiday album that ends with Bob and Doug McKenzie's "Twelve Days of Christmas," eh?--Martin Keller