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    Football Gave Us a Carrie Underwood-Based Solution to Existential Dread

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    Carrie Underwood’s musical intro to “Sunday Night Football” offers a dazzling gift — even if you’re not a fan of the game.To an astronomer, the longest night of the year occurs once in each hemisphere, as the earth makes its ponderous revolution around the sun. For regular people — people with everyday problems, who don’t live in a fancy observatory surrounded by brass astrolabes — the winter solstice is a weekly event happening every Sunday. Sunday evenings are black holes from which no hope escapes; a time of rumination on the failures of the past seven days, and pre-emptive haunting by fiascos to come. Yet the universe has been known to attenuate misery with fleeting comforts: the sensation of incredible warmth that overtakes a body dying of hypothermia, for instance. And to those souls mired in Sunday-night gloom, it offers a dazzling gift: Carrie Underwood doing the “Sunday Night Football” song on NBC.If unshackled from the bonds of terrestrial experience, what might Carrie Underwood experience?This song is not one song but many songs. Since the show’s debut in 2006, its intro has been updated every year, and, within a given season, the song mutates constantly: Each week incorporates a different rhyming line tailored to the current matchup. A schedule may announce a contest between the Colts and the Cowboys; only Carrie Underwood reveals if this promises to be a “righteous showdown” or a “nasty showdown,” or that the teams are “about to throw down” or are “breaking new ground,” and so on. According to representatives from NBC Sports, Underwood annually records 85 permutations of this line back to back in a single session.The “Sunday Night Football” song extols not the thrill of football, nor the value of sport, but the highly specific ouroboric pleasure of turning on NBC to watch “Sunday Night Football” on NBC on Sunday night. The most frequently recurring version of the song, “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” is set to the tune of Joan Jett’s 1988 single “I Hate Myself For Loving You.” I do not enjoy football, or any sport other than Olympic women’s gymnastics finals when the United States is in first place. My comprehension of the rules is nil and my desire to learn them would have to be represented by a negative number. Nor am I a fan — or nonfan — of Carrie Underwood. Yet, when I hear the first word of the song explode from her confident lungs — “Oh,” pronounced “Hohawhunhohhuhawnhohn” — my consciousness abruptly recedes. Mechanically, I sprint to the living room and stare, bewitched, until the segment’s conclusion.The “Sunday Night Football” music video is beautiful to behold, each incarnation a novel response to the question: If unshackled from the bonds of terrestrial physics, what might Carrie Underwood experience? Answers include: strutting in a dress of rhinestone chain mail through a liminal space filled with floating videos of football fans; calmly standing on a platform that shoots her skyward through hoops of light at a thousand miles a minute; the stage at the Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas, the site of her residency, “Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency,” magically opening up onto a football stadium where approximately seven million fans, packed with atomic density, are losing their everloving minds to a song about “Sunday Night Football.”The “Sunday Night Football” song is most likely the theme song familiar to more Americans than any other, because more Americans watch “Sunday Night Football” than anything else on weekly television. In fact, of the 30 most-watched U.S. television broadcasts of all time, 29 are football games. There might be a need to gin up excitement for “Sunday Night Football” if, somehow, every week, “Sunday Night Football” were scheduled to air directly opposite the original 1983 broadcast of the series finale of “M*A*S*H” — the only nonfootball program to appear in the all-time Top 30 most watched. Under normal conditions, however, highlighting the fact that a football game is about to be televised for the American TV audience is an act equivalent to reciting the daily specials to a starving man.It is this unnecessity — the fact that it exists merely for its own sake — that makes the segment so moving. I don’t mean to imply that the opening sequence could compare favorably to, say, a sunset, which is likewise “beautiful” and “capable of reproducing itself in infinite variations”; I mean to say that outright. The tremble-inducing allure of the “Sunday Night Football” song surpasses nature’s awesome generative capacity. It is a spectacle that could only be conjured from a colossal amount of money.Tripp Dixon, the NBC Sports “VP of Creative” tasked with supervising this visual triumph, likens the sequence to an “airlock” designed to safely transition viewers from the grim reality of everyday existence to the high-octane fantasia of “Sunday Night Football.” In exchange for submission to the spectacular, “Sunday Night Football” promises a respite from all concerns.The sly genius of American football is that its accouterments — Super Bowl ads with feature-film budgets, stupefyingly cutting-edge bumper graphics — replicate, even or especially for those with no interest in football, the draw of football itself: a celebration of human aptitude and a diversion of attention away from anything more important. Through judicious application of Carrie Underwood and C.G.I. technology, the “Sunday Night Football” song offers a brief yet total respite from the horror of Sunday night.Caity Weaver is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. More

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      Rina Sawayama Flips Damnation Into a Dance Party, and 15 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Burna Boy, Metric, Sudan Archives and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Rina Sawayama, ‘This Hell’Ever the pop maximalist, Rina Sawayama’s first single from her upcoming album, “Hold the Girl,” has it all: a fiery chorus, cheeky humor, devil puns for days and even a gloriously cheesy hair-metal guitar solo. “This hell is better with you, we’re burning up together/Baby that makes two,” she sings on the towering hook, making eternal damnation sound like an exclusive VIP party. Both the glammy intensity and be-yourself messaging feel like a throwback to “Born This Way”-era Lady Gaga, but it’s all remixed through Rina’s signature, neo-Y2K-pop sensibility. LINDSAY ZOLADZmxmtoon, ‘Frown’If the California singer-songwriter mxmtoon has a mission statement, it’s something like catchy, smiley self-help. “Frown” is from her new album, “Rising,” and it presents itself as an antidote to being “stuck in a loop overthinking all our pain.” She musters four-chord pop optimism, multitracked vocals and a pop-reggae backbeat to insist, “It’s OK to frown/smile upside-down.” JON PARELESDiana Ross and Tame Impala, ‘Turn Up the Sunshine’Nothing screams “Minions” like a collaboration between … Tame Impala and Diana Ross? Yet their styles blend surprisingly well on “Turn Up the Sunshine,” the first single from the Jack Antonoff-produced soundtrack for the animated summer movie “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” (Yes, the man is so ubiquitous, he’s even producing for the Minions now.) A sleek, seamless and lovingly conjured disco throwback, “Turn Up the Sunshine” allows Kevin Parker an opportunity to go fully retro in his arrangement and saves Ross ample space for ecstatic vocals and some groovy spoken-word vamping. ZOLADZCarrie Underwood, ‘She Don’t Know’Infidelity gets a fierce retaliation in “She Don’t Know,” a canny country revenge song from Carrie Underwood and her collaborators, David Garcia and Hillary Lindsay. A foot-tapping beat and country instruments like mandolin and fiddle back her as she sings, with the vindictive glee of someone escaping a very bad situation, “What she don’t know is she can have him.” PARELESKatzù Oso, ‘Conchitas’A good dream-pop song sparkles, like sunlight refracting through water. On the lustrous “Conchitas,” from Katzù Oso’s debut album, “Tmí,” the Los Angeles-based artist Paul Hernandez bathes in ’90s nostalgia, soaking in shimmering synths, buzzing guitar riffs and a breathy falsetto. The result harnesses Cocteau Twins’ most tender, romantic qualities, but Hernandez glazes the track in his own special gloss, too: Much of “Tmí” was written in Boyle Heights, and as sweet as the pan dulce treats of its namesake, “Conchitas” embraces the spirit of that neighborhood, casting it into the soundtrack for a saccharine, lovesick daydream. ISABELIA HERRERASudan Archives, ‘Selfish Soul’It might not seem like the impish charm of a playground rhyme and a jagged violin hook would seamlessly coalesce, but Sudan Archives has always taken risks. On her new single “Selfish Soul,” the artist born Brittney Parks reprises her irreverent boho whimsy, crashing together reverbed vocals, a rapped verse and wild visuals with a razor-sharp message: a promise to love and embrace every kind of Black hair texture. “If I wear it straight will they like me more?/Like those girls on front covers,” Parks sings. The video oozes euphoria, too; Parks climbs a chrome stripper pole, plays the violin upside down and twerks in a mud pit with her girlfriends. What did you ever do? HERRERAMetric, ‘Doomscroller’Over 10 minutes long, Metric’s “Doomscroller” is a minisuite that proceeds from electronic dystopia to a plea for empathy to an offer of reassurance that’s cradled by physical instruments. The dystopia is convincing: a tireless mechanical thump and throbbing, blipping tones — racing like a gathering troll mob — behind Emily Haines’s calmly caustic observations about internet rabbit holes and entrenched inequality. “Salt of the earth underpaid to serve you,” she notes, and, “Scum of the earth overpaid to rob you.” The reassurance, though it builds up to a full-bodied rock-band march, is shakier; as the song ends, electronic blips reappear. PARELESSylvan Esso, ‘Sunburn’Sylvan Esso celebrates self-indulgence and rues its aftermath in “Sunburn”: “Sunburn blistering, the heat under your skin,” Amelia Meath sings. “Oh, but it felt so good.” The electronic backup is bouncy and pointillistic — nearly all staccato single notes, rarely a chord — and punctuated with the cheeriest of samples: a bicycle bell. PARELESBurna Boy, ‘Last Last’Burna Boy juggles heartache, accusations, self-medication and reminders of his success in “Last Last,” a post-breakup song about a roller coaster of feelings: “I put my life into my job and I know I’m in trouble/She manipulate my love,” he sulks. “Why you say I did nothing for you/When I for do anything you want me to do.” The video shows him surrounded by friends, possessions and awards, smoking and drinking. The title of the sample that provides the track’s nervous strummed rhythm and vocal hook suggests a very different scenario: It’s from Toni Braxton’s 2009 single “He Wasn’t Man Enough.” PARELESMeridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento, ‘Metamorfosis’Meridian Brothers, a high-concept Colombian band formed in 1998 by Eblis Álvarez, delights in twisting and time-warping the roots of salsa and other Latin American styles. “Metamorfosis” — from an album due Aug. 5 — borrows Kafka’s title for a song about a man waking up transformed into a robot, facing a futuristic world of drones and screens; he summons Yoruba deities to battle transhumanism. Blending brisk guaracha and montuno rhythms with eruptions of psychedelic reverb and jazzy piano, it’s a percussive romp. PARELESCalypso Rose featuring Carlos Santana and the Garifuna Collective, ‘Watina’The Garifuna people, an Afro-Caribbean culture that has maintained its own language and traditions primarily in Belize and Honduras, are descendants of Indigenous Arawaks and of West Africans who survived a 17th-century shipwreck to escape slavery. The Garifuna Collective, founded by Andy Palacio, revived and updated old Garifuna songs and “Watina” (“I Called Out”) was the title song of its 2007 album. This remake adds a horn section — pushing the arrangement a bit closer to ska — and has lead vocals from the Trinidadian icon Calypso Rose, 82, who has been an honorary citizen of Belize since 1982, along with stinging guitar from Carlos Santana and some lyrics translated into English: “Lord please help me, even if I’m alone.” PARELESOneida, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand’The long-running Brooklyn band Oneida loves repetition, layering and noise, and its catalog includes plenty of arty, elaborate structures. But “I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand,” previewing an album due in August, recalls foundational punk-rock songs like “Roadrunner” by the Modern Lovers. It uses just two chords nearly all the way through (with one more for a bridge), a hurtling beat and terse lyrics: “So sure of ourselves/Who needs a plan?” But those two chords support a welter of guitar parts and drum salvos that just keeps getting more euphoric. PARELESFKJ featuring Toro y Moi, ‘A Moment of Mystery’Vincent Fenton, the French producer who bills himself as FKJ (for French Kiwi Juice), collaborated with Chaz Bundick, who records as Toro y Moi, and Toro’s keyboardist, Anthony Ferraro, on a track from FKJ’s album due in June, “Vincent.” It’s three minutes of lush, wistful uncertainty: serenely blurred vocals, hovering keyboard tones, ambiguous chords that stay unresolved. “I love the drama because I never know what the ending’s like,” Bundick sings, matching the music. PARELESEsperanza Spalding, ‘Formwela 12’“Our bodies are Music/You cannot play/Music/Without the body/Dancing.” The 91-year-old dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, a former Alvin Ailey star, opens Esperanza Spalding’s latest with those lines of poetry; in the ensuing 13 minutes, she brings them to life. She glides and tilts across the floor of an open studio, surrounded by four dancers and four musicians — including Spalding, who uses her upright bass and a quiet, cooing voice to coax and support de Lavallade. Early in the performance, de Lavallade sits down beside her, laying an ear and a hand on the bass while Spalding plays. As the piece carries on, the band’s lush flourishes and pointillism are clearly coming in response to the dancers, as much as their steps are responding to the music. Mostly, everyone is focused on the guidance and the unhurried elegance of de Lavallade. The audio of this piece is a bonus track on the newly released vinyl version of Spalding’s “Songwrights Apothecary Lab.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOShabaka, ‘Explore Inner Space’Shabaka Hutchings begins this track improvising on a lone wood flute, against a backdrop of silence. Soon analog synthesizers and loops are pooling around him, and an electric guitar adds dewy, flickering plucks. The music never fully crescendos, but its mysterious serenity might invite to take up the charge of the track’s title. The tune comes from “Afrikan Culture,” the first solo EP released by this famed U.K.-based saxophonist, who has begun performing simply under the name Shabaka. RUSSONELLOMary Lattimore and Paul Sukeena, ‘Hundred Dollar Hoagie’The harpist Mary Lattimore and the guitarist Paul Sukeena, two experimental musicians and Philly-area expats who occasionally collaborate, have teamed up to release the stirring ambient album “West Kensington,” out Friday on the indie label Three Lobed recordings. The opener “Hundred Dollar Hoagie” announces itself humbly, with its playful title nodding to the all-time greatest regional slang word for a submarine sandwich, which does not quite prepare you for the seven-and-a-half minutes of otherworldly sublimity that it contains. Lattimore’s synthesizer chords and Sukeena’s warping, weeping guitar lines layer to create an almost lunar soundscape, pleasantly reminiscent of Brian Eno’s awe-struck 1983 masterwork “Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.” ZOLADZ More

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      in Television

      Mariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This Cheer

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s notebookMariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This CheerPop stars try to pull off a Christmas spectacular in tough times, with three sparkly but heartfelt specials now on streaming services.Pop divas in holiday sparkle: from left, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton.Credit…From left: Anne Marie Fox/HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, CBSDec. 18, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETWith the C.D.C. advising against faithful friends who are dear to us gathering anywhere near to us, it’s understandable that we all might need some extra assistance getting into the holiday spirit this year. One of the few bright spots of the season, though, is the abundance of new Christmastime musical specials, helmed by some of our most beloved and benevolent divas. Thank the streaming wars, in part: HBO Max, Apple TV+ and CBS All Access have all jockeyed to get a different A-list angel atop their trees, perhaps in hopes that they’ll persuade you to subscribe to one of their services before your long winter hibernation (or at least forget to cancel before your free trial is over.) Whether gaudy, glorious excess or down-home simplicity, each offers a different take on a perplexing question: How do you stage a Christmas spectacular in decidedly unspectacular times?First up is Carrie Underwood, whose “My Gift: A Christmas Special From Carrie Underwood” is streaming on HBO Max. A companion piece to her recent first holiday album, the stately and reverent “My Gift,” Underwood’s special finds her fronting an orchestra led by the former “Tonight Show” bandleader Rickey Minor. Featuring duets with John Legend and, adorably, her 5-year-old son Isaiah (whose pa-rum-pa-pum-pums are impressively on point), “My Gift” is relatively light on pizazz — save for the eight (!) increasingly dramatic costume changes. As Underwood’s stylists told “People” magazine in an article devoted entirely to all of her different “My Gift” outfits, the fact that the country powerhouse wouldn’t be moving around the stage much gave them an opportunity to “break out these giant confections of tulle and sequins that would never really be appropriate for any other event.” The most memorable is a crimson-tinged Diana Couture dress-and-cape number that suggests a cross between a bridal cake-topper and Jude Law on “The Young Pope.”A scene from “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” which features guests like Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande.Credit…Apple TV PlusThe splendor and stirring purity of Underwood’s voice is powerful enough that even a plunging ball gown adorned with literal angel wings cannot overshadow it. Underwood’s most sublime belting, though, doesn’t come until the penultimate set of songs, when she absolutely blows the roof off “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night.” It’s enough to make the relative restraint of the rest of the show pale in comparison. “We really wanted this special and my album to be something that people would return to year after year and not feel dated,” she told “People” and, accordingly, there’s nary a nod to 2020 in sight. It’s a safe choice in a production so full of them that, despite its ample cheer, ends up feeling a little hermetic and snoozy.An offering not as worried about time-stamping itself is “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” a star-studded entry from Apple TV+ in the Yuletide streaming wars. It’s certainly the most plot-heavy of the bunch (a neurotic elf played by Billy Eichner must restore Christmas cheer to a world low on tidings by booking an impromptu Mariah concert, or something), and the one with a wardrobe that most frequently luxuriates in the lack of F.C.C. oversight of streaming content. Perhaps when she wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” she was singing to double-sided tape.Though a tad convoluted, Carey’s special is full of one-liners and knowing winks; when the elf has trouble tracking her down, she informs him, “It’s called elusive, darling.” Woodstock makes a brief, animated cameo (perhaps to remind us that Apple owns the streaming rights to the “Peanuts” specials, too), which provides a segue into Carey’s gorgeous, sultry rendition of “Christmastime Is Here.” A lot happens throughout these overstuffed 43 minutes, and the special could have done without some of the bells and whistles. The whistle notes, however, are another story.The most diva-licious moment of the whole affair comes when Carey is joined by two very special guests, Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande — who she stages behind her, so that they end up looking like the Supremes to her Diana Ross. Classic elusive chanteuse. By the song’s finale, though, she’s invited them both to stand beside her and riff. It provides the opportunity for something the world has been waiting for ever since a young Grande earned the nickname “Baby Mariah”: They look at each other respectfully, inhale deeply, and harmonize their whistle notes. This must be the exact sound heard when the Covid-19 vaccine enters one’s bloodstream.In “A Holly Dolly Christmas,” Dolly Parton offers the crackling warmth of a hearth.Credit…CBSA woman who might know is Dolly Parton, generous Moderna vaccine trial donor and star of the heartwarming CBS special “A Holly Dolly Christmas.” An hourlong show originally made for Sunday-night broadcast on CBS (and now streaming on CBS All Access), hers is the most traditional of the bunch, and hardly the flashiest: “It’s not a big Hollywood production show, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Parton says, gesturing around a set meant to look like a homey church. But she also specifies, “We have managed to do this show safely …. testing, wearing masks and social distancing.”Parton is such a charismatic presence that she doesn’t need guest stars, plot twists, or costume changes to keep this a transfixing show. Whether she’s hamming it up during “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or filling the spiritual “Mary, Did You Know?” with empathic emotion, her special offers the crackling warmth of a hearth. Before singing her classic “Coat of Many Colors,” she tells a moving story about her late mother’s selflessness, her painted eyes brimming full of tears the entire time. Just try not to cry along with her.Earlier in the fall, Stephen Colbert showed just how tall an order that is, when he was reduced to tears after Parton burst into a ballad a cappella during their televised interview. “Like a lot of Americans,” he explained, “I’m under a lot of stress right now, Dolly!” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though: Plenty believe there’s something deeply cathartic about Parton’s voice and her overall demeanor. As Lydia R. Hamessley writes in her recent book “Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton,” “For many listeners, the restorative effect of Dolly’s music seems to flow to them directly from Dolly herself, so they often experience her as a healer.” Which sounds like something we could all use right about now. As Parton spins yarns about her humble beginnings and sings songs of enduring faith in the face of despair, “A Holly Dolly Christmas” might, actually, be an effective cure for the 2020 holiday blues.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      20 Albums That Put a New Spin on the Holidays

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story20 Albums That Put a New Spin on the HolidaysStandards? Sure! But a crop of seasonal records from Dolly Parton, Tinashe and others introduce fresh original songs, too.Clockwise from top left: The holiday season has brought albums from Love Renaissance, Carrie Underwood, Leslie Odom Jr., Andrew Bird, Fuerza Régida and Jordin Sparks.Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Dec. 10, 2020, 1:47 p.m. ETMariah Carey’s modern classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” finally hit No. 1 (after 25 years) last holiday season, surely inspiring more songwriters to try their hand at a well-worn but welcome annual tradition. Our pop and jazz critics surveyed the latest releases and picked out 20 that offer worthy additions to your seasonal playlists.3D Jazz Trio, ‘Christmas in 3D’Here are three veteran jazz musicians who understand the joys of a firmly pressed swing rhythm, and how far it can take you. The pianist Jackie Warren, the bassist Amy Shook and the drummer Sherrie Maricle have released three albums as the 3D Jazz Trio (it stands for 3 Divas), which grew out of their work in Maricle’s DIVA Jazz Orchestra. The latest flaunts the kind of powerful locomotion that drives the DIVA big band, steaming through 10 holiday tunes — Warren’s buoyant improvising right hand leading the way. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAndrew Bird, ‘Hark!’The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso whistler Andrew Bird riffles through moods and genres on his holiday album: He’s wistful, sardonic, jaunty and pensive by turns. Along with Bird himself, the songwriters include Schubert, Irving Berlin, John Prine and John Cale. Bird mingles songs of his own with idiosyncratic takes on the standards: whistling a wordless “O Holy Night” over pizzicato strings, toying with bossa nova and Hot Club jazz in the Vince Guaraldi “Peanuts” tune “Christmas Is Coming,” bringing Western swing to “Auld Lang Syne.” Bird’s “Greenwine” is a gruesomely comic rewrite of “Greensleeves,” while “Night’s Falling” and “Alabaster” offer comfort through long winter nights. JON PARELESThe Bird and the Bee, ‘Put Up the Lights’Greg Kurstin, a hitmaking producer with Adele, Sia and others, has been recording breezy, slyly retro pop since 2005 with the singer and songwriter Inara George as the Bird and the Bee. Their holiday album has a multitracked George harmonizing coolly with herself on songs like “Sleigh Ride” and “Deck the Halls,” and enlists Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl to supply the hefty beat on “Little Drummer Boy.” Kurstin’s productions for “The Christmas Song” and “Christmastime Is Here” collapse the decades between blurry old movie scores and digital glitches. And two of their own songs, “You and I at Christmas Time” and “Merry Merry,” celebrate domestic comforts amid playfully meandering chords. PARELESKarla Bonoff, ‘Silent Night’The cozy yet polished Southern California sound of Laurel Canyon in the mid-1970s returns on the holiday album by Karla Bonoff, who’s entitled to it. She got her songs recorded in the mid-1970s by Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt, among others. The guitars are burnished, Bonoff’s piano offers hymnlike chords and the vocals are natural and intimate. She sings old carols, Joni Mitchell’s “River” and a song she wrote with Kenny Edwards, “Everybody’s Home Tonight.” PARELESBarnaby Bright, ‘Bleak Midwinter’Barnaby Bright is Becky and Nathan Bliss, a married couple based in Nashville. She sings lead, he’s the producer and occasional backup singer; both write songs. Their holiday album, “Bleak Midwinter,” explores various production styles — Beach Boys in their own “Star-Crossed Christmas,” chamber-pop piano and cello in their “If We Listen,” booming drums and arena-scale reverberations in the English carol “In the Bleak Midwinter,” electronic percussion with big-band horns in “Please Come Home for Christmas.” Becky Bliss’s voice can be breathy and confiding, but she also has reserves of power when production drama ramps up. PARELESFuerza Régida, ‘Navidad con la Régida’Over the last two years, Fuerza Régida has emerged as one of the leading trap corridos bands, blending nimble musicianship and attitudinal singing. Holiday music is perhaps too plainly joyful a medium for the group, but on “Navidad con la Régida” it proves game, whether it’s the chipper tuba on “Feliz Navidad” or the brassy singing on “Ven a Mi Casa Esta Navidad.” But the album closer is closer to home: a heart-rending cover of the unerringly mournful “Cada Diciembre” by Los Plebes del Rancho de Ariel Camacho, on which the frontman Jesús Ortiz sounds almost dizzy with sadness. JON CARAMANICAChilly Gonzales, ‘A Very Chilly Christmas’The keyboardist and producer Chilly Gonzales mostly offers familiar songs, from “Good King Wenceslas” to “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” as restrained instrumentals, usually piano solos. He has fun with reharmonizations, sometimes switching major keys to minor ones, as he does in “Jingle Bells” and “Auld Lang Syne”: every so often, additional instruments twinkle into the mix. The standout tracks have guest vocalists: Feist tiptoeing through a new song she wrote with Gonzales, “The Banister Bough,” and Jarvis Cocker and Feist sharing a fondly observant song by David Berman, “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan.” PARELESGoo Goo Dolls, ‘It’s Christmas All Over’Goo Goo Dolls cling to the earnestness of classic rock, but also step outside it, on their Christmas album. One of the two originals, “This Is Christmas,” splits the difference between Simon & Garfunkel and Billy Joel, with a waltz that praises “Not the things that you buy but the love that you bring.” The other, “You Ain’t Getting Nothing,” looks back to Cab Calloway, with horns, a swinging bass line and wry lyrics: “You think the season’s merry but you better think twice.” They also resurface Tom Petty’s “Christmas All Over Again” and a swinging Louis Prima obscurity, “Shake Hands with Santa Claus.” It’s a music fan’s album, cognizant of a long past. PARELESCory Henry, ‘Christmas With You’Cory Henry has shake-your-head-in-disbelief-level talent, and on this self-produced EP he mixes holiday-centric originals with classic carols taken in a gospel-pop style that’s recognizable if you know his work with the Funk Apostles. At an NPR holiday concert held earlier this month at the Kennedy Center in coronavirus-conscious fashion, Henry sat alone at a grand piano and played a short set including Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas,” an anthemic social justice plea, as well as two of the seven songs included on the EP. RUSSONELLOJoJo, ‘December Baby’After many years stuck in the purgatory of a bad record contract, the 29-year-old singer JoJo is making up for lost time: “December Baby” is her second release of 2020, following the confessional R&B of “Good to Know.” A mix of old classics, sleek originals, and personality-driven interstitials (“does anybody carol anymore?”), the modern-yet-tasteful album showcases JoJo’s silky voice and intuitive phrasings. “Bought a last-minute plane ticket so I could see you not just through a FaceTime,” she sings on “Coming Home,” a dreamy new song that certainly conjures the Ghost of Christmas Present. But “December Baby” is at its best when JoJo updates familiar songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Silent Night” with her signature sass and pop-R&B cool. LINDSAY ZOLADZLove Renaissance, ‘Home for the Holidays’The pair of standout songs on this compilation from the Atlanta-based LVRN (Love Renaissance) imprint couldn’t be more different. The wondrous, wise R&B melancholic Summer Walker leans into a damp, deliberate version of “Santa Baby.” And on “12 Days of Bhristmas,” the charismatic female rapper OMB Bloodbath tackles the first half of the calendar, crashing a car and hitting the club and the mall, while Westside Boogie closes out with chaos, including a detour on day 10: “Don’t ask me ’bout the 10th day/got too drunk inside the daytime.” CARAMANICALeslie Odom Jr., ‘The Christmas Album’Even the Leslie Odom Jr. albums that aren’t about the holidays almost feel like they are. On the heels of his breakthrough role playing Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” Odom brought that Broadway ebullience into the studio in 2016 with a self-titled debut album. But it was “Simply Christmas,” released later that year, that sent him up the Billboard charts, establishing a niche beyond his stage persona. Two releases later, “The Christmas Album” mixes traditional gems (“Little Drummer Boy,” “O Holy Night”) with contemporary classics (George Michael’s “Last Christmas,” Sara Bareilles’s “Winter Song”) and a couple of his own tunes (the jingle-jangly, synth-bass-driven “Snow” and the power ballad “Heaven and Earth”). RUSSONELLODolly Parton, ‘A Holly Dolly Christmas’Yes, Dolly Parton admits on a hilariously hammy spoken-word bridge of the opening track, the idea for the title predated this album. “Holly Dolly” is just Parton’s second solo-billed holiday album, and her first since “Home for Christmas,” a collection of 10 traditional covers from 1990. The new LP features six of her own compositions: “Christmas on the Square” is a warm, rollicking bluegrass number; “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas” is a characteristically randy duet with a very game Michael Bublé. Aside from Jimmy Fallon on “All I Want for Christmas,” the other guests make the most of their appearances: Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus; Dolly’s brother Randy Parton; and, most effectively, Willie Nelson, joining with Parton to sing his own stirring 1963 holiday tear-jerker, “Pretty Paper.” ZOLADZJordin Sparks, ‘Cider & Hennessy’One of the year’s unique holiday albums, Jordin Sparks’s “Cider & Hennessy” is full of Christmas originals that temper tradition with modern twists. The title track is up-tempo R&B about a mother letting her hair down after a long December day, and “Trapmas Medley” smears Maybach and Birkin dreams over rat-tat-tat percussion. But the most radical song might be the most traditional: “A Baby Changes Everything,” a tender track about the trials of a teen mother (who just happens to be Mary, mother of Jesus). CARAMANICAMaddie & Tae, ‘We Need Christmas’Maddie & Tae, the spirited duo best known for “Girl in a Country Song,” bring their twangy, angelic harmonies to four standards and two new songs on their festive EP “We Need Christmas.” The originals are a mixed bag: The mawkish “We Need Christmas” contorts itself to be timely (any song that contains the lyric “now more than ever” is probably gunning a little too hard for commercial placement), but “Merry Married Christmas” is a genuinely sweet ode to a newlywed couple’s first holiday season together. The highlight is their cover of Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” which slows the tempo and draws fresh emotion from a familiar tune. ZOLADZMat and Savanna Shaw, ‘Merry Little Christmas’Can I interest you in some Wholesome Content™? Savanna Shaw and her father, Mat, became a quarantine-era YouTube success story for their acoustic duets of religious-esque songs that were pinpoint precise, verging on stern. Things are moving fast — this Christmas EP is their second release in the last three months, all sung in the mode of Bocelli and Groban. Their rendition of “Mary, Did You Know?” is poignant and elegantly spacious, almost nervy in its conviction, and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” has an unlikely echo of Extreme’s “More Than Words.” Throughout, Savanna sings with airy sweep, and Mat booms like a drill sergeant — on “Thankful,” father and daughter harmonize into billowy bliss. CARAMANICATinashe, ‘Comfort & Joy’Tinashe treats familiar Christmas songs the way hip-hop producers treat samples: as springboards for commentary, moods, tangents, associations, sonic transformations. While the track list for “Comfort & Joy” looks familiar — from “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” — Tinashe ricochets off the familiar material, adding verbal responses or surreally warping arrangements, using synthetic rhythms and her gravity-defying voice to change and challenge expectations. PARELESMeghan Trainor, ‘A Very Trainor Christmas’Doesn’t every Meghan Trainor song already sound like a Christmas song? So it should be no surprise that her originals here — the frisky “Naughty List,” the swinging “I Believe in Santa” — could have easily fit in on her other, yuletide-free albums. Mischievous misbehavior, hope beyond hope, belief in the impossible: Trainor, one of pop’s least self-conscious stars, focuses on them the other 364 days, too. CARAMANICACarrie Underwood, ‘My Gift’The first holiday album from country music’s reigning vocal assassin comes full of promise. Bombastic ballads, bring ’em on! Hardcore hymns, thou shalt be exalted! And yet “My Gift” is … placid, light on melodrama. Restrained. Nice. Underwood duets with her son Isaiah, who is 5. And for most of the rest of the album she sings gently enough that he might be able to sing along. Bummer. CARAMANICAVarious Artists, ‘Eterna Navidad Celebremos’In 1986, stars of Latin pop, mostly Mexican, recorded “Eterna Navidad,” a collection of Christmas songs in Spanish that became a hit across Latin America. “Eterna Navidad Celebremos” revisits its track list and adds a few — including John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” translated as “Llegó Navidad” and sung by Manuel Carrasco, from Spain — performed by a newer assortment of stars. The lineup features Juanes (with a hard-rock version of “Little Drummer Boy”) and the rapper Pitizion from Colombia along with Mexican performers including Alejandro Fernández, Gloria Trevi, Kurt and Banda el Recodo. While the original album reveled in a contemporary, synthesizer-happy 1980s sound, the new one is more self-conscious and rootsy, placing accordions, acoustic guitars and brasses upfront, even in songs written in the United States or Britain, like “Dulce Navidad” (a version of “Jingle Bells”), “Blanca Navidad” (“White Christmas”), “Diciembre” (Wham!’s “Last Christmas”) and “Rodolfo El Reno” (“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”), which gets turned into a cheerful cumbia by Los Tigres del Norte. Throughout the album, the voices — scratchy, husky, chirpy, floating — are vividly committed. Time will tell if, in 34 years, this album will sound as dated as “Eterna Navidad” does now. PARELESAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More