This year's crop of holiday music borders on the bizarre.
Proof?
Talk-show and former game-show host Regis Philbin has released "The Regis Philbin Christmas Album" (Hollywood Records, $18.98).
It includes a duet with Donald Trump on a Broadway-esque take of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Yes, that Donald Trump. Oh my, please, fire someone.
Philbin's wife, Joy, also guests on the disc ("Baby It's Cold Outside," "Winter Wonderland"), as does vocalist Steve Tyrell ("Marshmallow World"). The album also includes big-band takes on other classics, including "The Christmas Song" and "White Christmas."
Equally as bizarre — in a good way — is the second installment of Spiro Ballas' hospice benefit CD, "Holiday Heart" (Volunteer Records, $22.92). Ballas is volunteer coordinator at the Saint Barnabas Hospice and Palliative Care Center in West Orange, N.J.
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Like the first, "Ho, Ho, Hospice," released a few years ago, this 44-song, two-disc package includes some of the quirkiest original holiday songs you'll ever put an ear to. There's no warm hearth and cozy family feelings brimming here. The artists, who run the gamut from pop to punk to country to adrenaline-injected folk, take us to that twisted little corner of Christmas where the focus is on human realities. Most of the songs are original and quirky, emphasizing things like getting dumped over "12 Days" and dumping the family in "That's Christmas."
And then there's the upstart duo the LeeVees — Adam Gardner and Dave Schneider — two nice Jewish rockers who saw a void when it came to Hanukkah tunes. Thus was born the pair's debut album, "Hanukkah Rocks" (Reprise, $13.98), which they say they wrote, fittingly, in eight days. One of the nine songs written with tongue firmly in cheek poses the all-too-important quandary: "Applesauce vs. Sour Cream." While you contemplate that, slide over to "Jewish Girls (at the Matzoh Ball)" — think of Billy Joel's famous line "Catholic girls start much too late" and change the cultural reference.
Not all is bizarre this holiday season. Plenty of folks dipped into the vault of traditional Christmas carols, repackaged them to fit their musical tastes and delivered them in pretty bows.
Country-bluegrass genius Ricky Skaggs and his family take an acoustic turn on classic carols, from "What Child is This" to "Do You Hear What I Hear?" on "A Skaggs Family Christmas, Volume One" (Skaggs Family, $12.98). Guitarists from the indie label Favored Nations chip in for "Acoustic Christmas" (Favored Nations, $13.98), which includes bare-boned guitar interpretations of favorites such as "Jingle Bells," "Greensleeves" and "The 25th Day."
The Americana outfit NewGrange, made up of six of acoustic music's most influential players, combines on its first project, "A Christmas Heritage" (Compass Records, $15). The ensemble —Philip Aaberg, Darol Anger, Alison Brown, Mike Marshall, Tim O'Brien and Todd Phillips — explores the musical holiday traditions that define America, from a soothing interpretation of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" to the more obscure, violin-enriched "In the Bleak Midwinter."
Possibly the most interesting new Christmas CD comes from American Indian pop singer Jana, who delivers classic carols in various native languages on "American Indian Christmas" (Standing Stone Records, $18.98). No two languages are repeated, and numerous nations are represented, from the Navajo on "O Holy Night" to the Chiricahua Apache on "Joy to the World."
Beach Boy Brian Wilson serves up his first solo Christmas disc, "What I Really Want for Christmas" (Arista, $18.98). Wilson wrote the Beach Boys-esque title song and "Man With All the Toys," which he recorded with the Boys once upon a time. The rest of the album is traditional Christmas carols, from "Silent Night" to "Little Saint Nick."
Shout Factory has remastered jazz man Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' landmark "Christmas Album" ($13.98). The album infuses south-of-the-border jazz flavor on traditional favorites, from "Winter Wonderland" to "The Bell You Couldn't Jingle." The disc, marking its 35th anniversary, spent an astounding three holiday seasons atop the Billboard Albums chart, 1968-1970.
But it is Sir Elton John who is serving up the most highly anticipated new Christmas CD: "Elton John's Christmas Party." John has invited some of his musical friends to celebrate the holiday in a 21-song disc that features pop and rock's royalty — from John Mayer doing his somber "St. Patrick's Day" to the Flaming Lips singing "A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So)."
There's also Otis Redding ("Merry Christmas Baby"), the Eagles ("Please Come Home for Christmas"), Bruce Springsteen ("Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town"). John bookends the disc, opening it with "Step Into Christmas" and ending it in a duet with teenage vocal sensation Joss Stone on the John-penned ode "Calling It Christmas."
One more reason to like it: Part of the proceeds from the CD benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
