Search - Elton John :: Elton John's Christmas Party

Not a cool party to me! Hip-O Records yanked six tracks fro

Steve | Rhode Island | 12/20/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The various artists compilation CD "Elton John's Christmas Party" was first released in 2005, but it was manufactured by the Hear Music imprint for Universal Music Enterprises. That means it was available for purchase mainly at Starbucks Coffee retail stores, with a retail price of $14.95 ($18.95 in Canada). Now you'd think Hip-O Records would be doing us a favor by re-releasing this set in 2006 on their label, thus making it widely available for purchase everywhere. But alas, that's not the case, because for the 2006 version of this set, a full six tracks have been removed from the original tracklist. Those six tracks are as follows:



- "Frosty The Snowman" by The Ronettes

- "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" by Bruce Springsteen

- "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by The Crystals

- "Playa's Ball" by OutKast

- "St. Patricks's Day" by John Mayer

- "Please Come Home For Christmas" by The Eagles



I'm not sure why Sir Elton wanted to include the OutKast and John Mayer tracks in the first place, and I don't consider those to be a great loss for a Christmas compilation. But here's what irks me that many people may not even notice: the Ronettes and Crystals tracks were both originally released on the classic 1963 Phil Spector holiday rock album "A Christmas Gift For You" (possibly the greatest holiday album of all time, if not one of the greatest). And if you look carefully at the cartoonish CD cover artwork, Sir Elton happens to be holding a vinyl copy of one of the old reissued versions of this album (when it was renamed "Phil Spector's Christmas Album" for reissues during the 1970s and 1980s). So not only has Hip-O yanked the two tracks that came from that classic Spector album, they didn't even bother changing the cover art for the new downsized version of the set.



Oh, and did I also mention that the suggested retail price of the new downsized version is $15.98. That's higher than the suggested retail price of the set when it had 21 tracks and was sold mainly at Starbucks Coffee stores in the U.S. This is yet another example of paying more and getting less, which is oh so woefully typical of corporate America these days. Personally, I can't understand why Sir Elton would go along with these changes (assuming he had a say in it), but I'm sure licensing fees had something to do with it.



So if you really wanna grab the better version of this compilation, my suggestion is to scan auction sites like eBay every so often, or buy a copy from a private seller here at amazon.com if one is available. Unfortunately, the original 21-track version of the set is now out of print."

Elton John - 'Elton John's Birthday Party' (Hip-O)

Mike Reed | USA | 12/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you like Christmas music, you should undoubtedly get plenty of enjoyable plays from this fifteen track disc. Was actually quite impressed by cuts provdided by artists like the Beach Boys, Flaming Lips, Chuck Berry, U2, The Pretenders and The Band. Only tunes here that I, personally didn't care for were the songs by El Vez and Jimmy Buffet. Musically speaking, Sir Elton can most certainly assemble a good holiday trail mix."

U2's "New Years Day" = holiday song ?

J. Padovano | NY NY | 12/09/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"U2's "New Years Day" = a holiday song ?

I wouldn't bother except that the money goes to charity (hopefully)."