Take 6 It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
The ACB will return to regular posting on January 3, 2011. In the meantime, we head into this holiday season with a review of Take 6’s new holiday album, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Recording a holiday album is simultaneously one of the simplest and most confounding things any musical act can do. On one hand, holiday music easy. There’s a huge selection of songs to choose from, many of which already have multiple versions, and many of which are in the public domain. In addition, you know that you’re going to have willing listeners. Whereas groups may traditionally worry if they’re really reaching their audience, or if their song selection will be off-putting, Christmas has a built-in fan base of people eager to drink in what you’re putting out there.
On the other hand, holiday recordings are challenging because it’s difficult to accomplish something truly new, and you’re inevitably going to face comparisons with others who have tried their hands at the same tunes. As a result, it can actually be more difficult for a holiday album to receive a positive critical response, because there’s a lot more room for apples to apples comparisons.
Given the nature of holiday music, I have tendency to favor songs in this genre that provoke an emotion. Take Sarah McLachlan’s “Wintersong,” the title track of her 2006 holiday album which is positively haunting, tragic, and beautiful. Another example would be Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” on which the down home, rocking joy of the piece is so palpable that I can’t help but smile and think back to times when dreams of Santa seemed plausible. The long and short of it is that these are songs that will not get lost in the holiday shuffle—they’re provocative, grabbing and ultimately distinctive.
With all of that said, Take 6’s It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year is an interesting experiment. The group has openly stated that it means for the album to sound warm and familiar—to conjure up holiday memories, and to be easy to sing along to. On these notes, the album is, indeed, quite successful.
Where this album falls short is in its inability to stand out. The only approximation of an emotion this collection consistently drew forth for me was that of nostalgia. Otherwise, the album came across as too breezy, lightweight and generic for my tastes. I worry that the everyday listener could miss the a cappella nuance at play and readily mistaken the album for the easy-listening holiday favorites broadcasted at department stores across the country this time of year.
And that’s not to undercut the musicality of Take 6. The guys have impeccable tuning and harmonies. Every solo is a strong one, and the blend on each choral segment is impeccable.
The CD’s shortcoming, though, remains the even-keel jazzy sound that pervades tracks from “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” to “White Christmas” to “Sleigh Ride,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” As much as I like each of these songs on its own merits, I just never got the feeling these recordings did anything to distinguish Take 6’s imagining of the songs from what I’ve already heard before.
The album is at its best when the group does opt to show its personality. The theatrics of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and the sprinklings of play in the background syllables make for a genuinely fun listening experience. The sheer gumption of recording the instrumental “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” a cappella earns the groups some points—I can see this emerging as one of those particularly fun a cappella songs that aficionados can make a conversation piece with non-a cappella fans, who probably wouldn’t notice it’s all human voice until they really pay attention.
The album reaches its pinnacle in “I Saw Three Ships.” The track starts with a soulful, unaccompanied solo, really arriving at something different and emotionally interesting. The song builds from there with the rest of the group joining in. From there, the decision to re-tempo and reinterpret the later stages of the song make this rendering really stand out from different versions of the same song, without ever moving so far from the original to be untrue to its roots. The group seemed to have similar intentions with the oft-shifting tempo of “Jingle Bells.” I didn’t mind this song—and particularly enjoyed the horn synthesis on it—but the cumulative effect was not quite so luminous, as a goodly portion of the song seemed to settle back into the breezy jazz sound that defined so much of the album.
For the closing track, Take 6 welcomes Shelea Frazier in for a guest solo and piano performance. Frazier’s voice is a welcome shift from the more homogenous male jazz sound that dominates the album up to this point, and yet I can’t help questioning the decision to have her play piano on an a cappella album. Sure, the guys join in before long for some very pretty harmonies, and Frazier herself is fantastic. Nonetheless, the end seemed a little untrue to the a cappella roots of the recording project.
All in all, Christmas apologists—the type of people who watch Home Alone 2 each year and get so wrapped up in the holiday fervor that they never wonder how Kevin doesn’t literally kill the burglars with some of his more vicious attacks—will readily accept and enjoy this album, and may even find the quirk of it being mostly a cappella unique enough to make it a new holiday favorite. Those with more discerning taste in holiday music and a cappella, though, may find themselves disappointed with the effort. The album is never bad, but suffers from a dearth of true inspiration.