Former American Idol contestant and youngest-ever EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson released her first holiday record this year, her first studio album since 2014. The Gift of Love features four original tunes and ten covers. “What better way to come back than a Christmas album?” Hudson said an interview. “It’s been a dream of mine my whole career. I’m a holiday fanatic … so it just makes sense.”
“Little Drummer Boy” begins in D and shifts up to Eb at 1:40.
MotD holiday standby Pentatonix released their seventh holiday album, Holidays Around The World, in 2022. The record, which won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, songs from many different cultures. Hiba Tawaji, a Lebanese singer, is featured on this track. It begins in D, shifts up to Eb at 1:20, and up another step to F at 2:07.
Straight No Chaser has become one of the most prominent professional a cappella groups in the United States after starting as a student group at Indiana University in 1996. They have released numerous holiday albums, and “I Pray on Christmas” is featured on their 2023 record Stocking Stuffers. The song was written and first released by Harry Connick Jr. on his 1993 album When My Heart Finds Christmas.
The tune begins in A and modulates up to Bb at 2:00.
American Idol winner Jordin Sparks released the holiday EP The Gift of Christmas last year, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful” is the first track. It begins in Db and shifts up a step to Eb at 2:29.
Broadway singer Jessica Vosk released her first holiday album, Sleigh, last month. This mash-up of “Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland” features her fellow Broadway performer Neil Patrick Harris. It begins in Eb and modulates up a step to F at 2:29.
The Alabama-based country vocal group Little Big Town released their first holiday album, The Christmas Record, earlier this year. “Evergreen” is one of five original tracks featured on the record. It begins in B, modulates to Db at 1:10, and again up to Eb at 2:30.
Home Free, an American country a cappella group, released Any Kind of Christmas, their third holiday album, earlier this year. The group rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of the NBC reality-singing competition The Sing-Off in 2013.
“Somewhere In My Memory,” originally written by John Williams for the 1990 film Home Alone, was nominated for a Grammy and an Oscar. Home Free’s cover features the Indiana-based a cappella group Straight No Chaser, and is the final track on the album. It begins in Bb and modulates up to C at 4:12.
“Eight Brown University students united by an undying love for all things groovy” is how Orange Guava Passion is described on Spotify. “Named after a juice offered in the Sharpe Refectory, Orange Guava Passion oozes Brown influence: youthfulness, idiosyncrasy and an aversion to the cardinal sin of taking oneself too seriously,” says a write-up in the Brown Daily Herald. “Their lyrics fill the bingo card of things stereotypical liberal arts college students enjoy, from Subarus to Trader Joe’s.”
“Eagletown,” released in 2020, is one of the group’s three singles. The track begins in F and shifts up to G at 3:16. There is a final modulation up to A at 3:49.
“Locked down in the Netherlands (during COVID), pianist Brad Mehldau decided to compose a 12-part cycle (Suite: April 2020) that reflects his response to our new normal (Downbeat) … Don’t come looking for Mehldau’s long, lustrous improvisations—or even short ones, though there might be some light embellishments here and there. This is a composer’s work. If its bite-size pieces are easily digestible, so are its penetrating melodies. Like the thinned-out harmonies, they emphasize the isolation at the heart of both the work and the context. Well, that and the pure strangeness …
Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ is fraught with tension …” The track, originally released by Young in 1970 and covered by Annie Lennox in 1995, alternates quickly between A minor and A major throughout. It’s only as the lone chorus arrives (1:41) that the piece settles into A major in earnest for more than a measure, but even that respite from ambiguity is briefly interrupted by A minor just before the piece ends in A major.
The musical theater cover band Third Reprise released their arrangement of “Defying Gravity” from the musical blockbuster Wicked earlier this year. Featuring vocalist Amanda Barise, the tune is filled with reharmonizations and set to a funk groove that provides a sharp contrast to the original. A film adaption of Schwartz’s musical opens in theaters tomorrow.
The track begins in Db major and modulates down a half step to C near the end at 3:39.
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