This Christmas
It has become standard practice in the music industry for major acts like 98 Degrees to do an album for the holidays, essentially to cash in on their popularity. The four-man pop and soul team chose a somewhat strange melange of songs for their seasonal offering, including a couple of original tunes alongside traditional Christmas standards, even throwing in a hymn ("Ave Maria") for good measure.
New material like "This Gift" and "Christmas Wish" are standouts on this 11-track album, while the more well-known Yuletide fare varies in its effectiveness. The time-honored "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" gets a soulful treatment while "Little Drummer Boy" is an odd mix, working just fine until a jazzy piano interlude proves totally distracting. The group's strong harmonies are in full effect on "If Every Day Could Be Christmas" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas."
Aside from a redundant second version of "This Gift" added as a bonus cut, the album does the trick in the Yuletide stakes and is sure to appeal to the group's many fans without necessarily winning them any new converts.
David Nathan
CDNOW.com
December 10, 1999
Attention teenage girls: As vocal guy bands go, 98 Degrees sing and snap their fingers with the best in contemporary pop. And while This Christmas is not as engaging or musically adventurous as other holiday albums from vocal tour de forces such as the Persuasions, Take 6, or the Blenders, it is a respectable, if predictable, seasonal effort targeted to their teen audience, chock full of standards and three radio-friendly originals. Those include two versions of "This Gift," a Christmas version that merely adds some sleigh bells and a pop version, sans bells. Their a cappella reading of "Ave Maria" shines above all else, with soaring four-part harmonies in a stirring, awesome arrangement. But just when you think these adolescent heartthrobs have climbed the stairway to heaven, they follow up "Maria" with that cliché-riddled lyrical and musical toss off called "This Gift" (the pop version). Talk about not having your (sequencing) priorities straight.
Martin Keller
amazon.com
