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Apart from the breakneck 'Must Be Santa,' which barrelhouses like a barroom, Dylan doesn't really reinterpret these songs as much as simply play them with his crackerjack road band, dropping in a little flair--restoring "we'll have to muddle through somehow" to 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,' singing the opening of 'O Come All Ye Faithful' in its original Latin--but never pushing tunes in unexpected directions.
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It's a decent album with good intentions.
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Dylan’s craggy voice isn’t really equipped for crooning, so the sometimes middle-brow orchestration and singing--particularly the use of backing choirs--sounds like a misguided attempt to sweeten a dish best served lightly salted.
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It’s Bob Dylan’s Christmas gift to you, delivered with warmth from his heart, even if his tongue is in his cheek. Like eggnog, it’s something that will always go down well once a year, even if it is probably just the once.
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Q MagazineBut, alternating between the laughable and listenable, it's safe to say there's never been anything quite like the sound of him jollily croaking his way through Her Comes Santa Claus or Hark The Herald Angles Sing. [Jan 2010, p. 119]
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Bob Dylan celebrates the Christmas hit parade the old-fashioned way: He plays it straight, as much as his pitted baritone allows, with a band that mixes David Hidalgo with R&B guitarist Phil Upchurch.
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UncutRemoved from the comfort of his own musical constructions, they often sound like a collection of rasps, croaks and burrs optimistically corralled in to what just might be words; Latin has never sounded more like a dead language than when Dylan sings in it on "O Come All Ye-Faithful". [Dec 2009, p. 87]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 33 out of 43
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Mixed: 1 out of 43
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Negative: 9 out of 43
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TimK.Oct 15, 2009I'm not much for Christmas albums, but this one stands out!
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Nov 1, 2013
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GregJ.Oct 18, 2009Don't be fooled by the critics - this is the nadir of Dylan;s career. Truly awful!