Now that it’s Advent, the four-Sunday season leading up to Christmas, I must hasten to remind people everywhere that Michael W. Smith’s Christmas is the Best Christmas album ever.
Sure YOU might think that the best thing about Advent is churches that are able to incorporate boxing equipment into their Advent decor.
I’ll give you, it’s got punch, but no punch like…
Christmas: The Best Christmas Album Ever
Heck, it might be the best ALBUM ever.
Am I overstating? No. I would never do that. In a holly jolly nutshell: Christmas is a Christmas miracle.
Michael W. Smith released this gem smack dab in the middle of his pop music / Alan Parsons beard / argyle sweater & socks combo period. It was 1989, and I made haste to my local Christian bookstore to buy it. (Yes kids, I bought music in a store on a thing called a CD. I nearly broke my arm hand-cranking my Model T in order to get there) Having acquired my musical prize, I hurried home and put the disc in my stereo, prepared to ROCK OUT for Christmas.
There was no ROCKING OUT. There was only an album that changed my Christmases forever.
Christmas is an orchestral, choral cantata of original Christmas music woven together with traditional carols with not a Jingle Bell in sight. I was blown away. That Smith guy could do much more than just add extra syllables to words to make them fit the music (though it’s true that nobody can sing Yeah–eee-yeah–uh better than Michael).
What floored me was the message of the entire album as a cohesive work of art. Musically, lyrically, it wove a tender picture of the Nativity. One of my favorite moments is a simple verse sung by a child in the song All Is Well:
All is well, all is well
Angels and men rejoice
For tonight darkness fell
Into the dawn of love’s light
Sing A-le
Sing Alleluia
I get choked up just typing the lyric. Honest. Christmas makes Christmas Christmas. Check it out!
But what about the rest of the fun stuff for the Christmas season? Everybody likes some jingle belling to go with their mistle-toeing, right?.
Enter The Festive Fantastic Four
In this case, The Fantastic Four is not the ill-fated Marvel movie from earlier this year; it’s the four Christmas albums that will meet ALL of your Christmas music needs. This frosty, feliz Navidad, fantabulous foursome of albums covers Christmas from every necessary angle. They are:
Michael Smith’s Christmas
Michael Smith’s Christmastime
Amy Grant’s A Christmas Album
Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas
There you have it… the Yuletide season in its entirety is contained in the four titles above. I’m sure of it.
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