Josh Groban releases Christmas album
This took a long time coming. The waiting, in my mind, probably took five years. But the Josh Groban Christmas album is finally here. Titled Noel, it is everything that Groban fans dreamed of these past years, an enjoyable blend of pop and classical songs performed by a voice that listeners believe naturally sparkles with the Yuletide spirit. Groban was born to sing Christmas and the CD is now here for us to enjoy.
This Christmas dreaming about Groban actually started when the young baritone burst into the scene with You’re Still You and To Where You Are. We instantly thought. This boy should be doing opera. But he did something better. The success of those songs forever changed people’s perception about classical singing. The change actually began when Luciano Pavarotti started dabbling in recordings of popular songs. He was not afraid of singing Volare while also doing Otello.
It took a bigger turn when the three tenors, Pavarotti with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo performed those themes from memorable films together in their shows.
Now there are always plenty of newcomers with good voices and nice looks around us and Groban himself, might have escaped notice had he surfaced a year or two earlier. But he came at the right time and he had a unique characteristic not usually found among classical singers. He was young and handsome. Rejoice, he was not balding and wearing a girdle. Suddenly it was also cool for kids to sing or listen to opera and for the girls to swoon over somebody who is not a rocker or a member of a boy band.
The Christmas association happened soon enough. It couldn’t be helped. Inspirational ballads like The Prayer got fans thinking of the Christmas album. Performances like one at the lighting of the Christmas tree at
Now we can mark Christmas 2007 as the year we got Noel by Josh Groban. It does not have his O Holy Night but it has Silent Night, Little Drummer Boy, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Ave Maria, Angels We Have Heard on High, The Christmas Song, What Child is This, The First Noel, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Panis Angelicus and O Come All Ye Faithful. It includes a new song titled Thankful and a French carol Petit Papa Noel, plus guest stints by Faith Hill, Brian McKnight and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The Foster posse is back in full force and the album is a producer’s dream come true. This is no surprise anymore. In fact, one of my favorite Holiday CDs is the David Foster Christmas Album featuring various artists. Great production. Noel once more demonstrates his uncanny knack for making the right choices.
How about having just Groban on the acoustic piano instead of the entire London Symphony Orchestra? Would it be OK to have messages from the troops in
Groban opens his two-night stint in
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