pearannoyed's Full Review: The Christmas Collection by Il Divo
There's no denying it... take some attractive men with gorgeous singing voices and you're going to be able to sell a whole bunch of albums. Add to the mix the nostalgia factor of the holidays and you almost have an instant classic. Unless, of course, the album is less than it appears to be at first blush; then all you've got is some good looking men and clever marketing. And that's what I think we've got with Il Divo: The Christmas Collection.
Don't get me wrong. There are some really nice moments on this sophomore effort from David, Sebastian, Urs and Carlos. There are some nice harmonies, some nice arrangements and some nice songs. It's all very nice. But that's about all it is. Nice.
Bleh.
But I don't want to get ahead of myself...
The Bad
I want to start with what I really found substandard about this album. It sounds like something they might have thrown together in a couple of weeks. Not that there's anything really awful here, I just wasn't wowed by any of it.
I think the worst of the lot is, by far, Over the Rainbow. I won't say it's as bad as that really wretched pop version that you hear on hospital commercials, but it's decidedly not good. It starts out with a simple acoustic guitar accompaniment and a vocal by one of the guys (not sure which is whom) that has slightly tortured English combined with a vibrato worthy of Belinda Carlisle's bleating sheep sound. It improves slightly as the melody is handed to one of the other singers and the instrumentation gains some depth with some quiet strings in the background.
Each of the vocalists takes a turn as soloist before coming back in with some harmonies on the repeat. Honestly, I think that's one of the major problems throughout the album. Rather than each of the singers being the lone soloist on a couple of tracks with the others in the group fully supporting his voice and singing style, each of them is a soloist on every song which leaves the majority of the tracks feeling like they have no musical center.
I'm also decidedly un-fond of the version of Ave Maria offered here. The first verse sounds pretty good if somewhat typical – they used the traditional instrumental arrangement so it should sound very familiar to all who've heard it before. But they make a horrifyingly bad choice when they add a Hooked on Classics style drum beat to the second verse. I suppose they were trying to make a traditional piece more accessible to their potential pop fans. Instead they just succeeded in alienating their more traditional, music snobby type fans (like me).
The other thing that bothers me about this album as a whole is that the song selection seems fairly uninspired. There are the typical classical Christmas standard – O Holy Night, White Christmas etc.; most of them done in very traditional arrangements except for playing round-robin with the lead vocals. Then there are a couple of tracks that just don't fit the genre for me – which brings me back to Over the Rainbow. Had it worked as part of the set it could have been fantastic. But for me, it just stuck out as ... not working. Maybe it was a leftover track from their first album.
The Good
I don't in any way want to leave the impression that there are no redeeming qualities to this album. There is a very pretty version of O Holy Night that features a boys' chorus (I hate when they don't list full credits in the liner notes – I have no idea what boys' chorus it is) singing backup on the second verse; and an equally pretty version of Panis Angelicus.
I fully enjoyed the two contemporary pieces included on the playlist. When a Child is Born is a lovely pop song alluding to the 'winds of change' brought about by the birth of a child (presumably the Christ Child – but the lyric doesn't force feed the message.). Likewise Rejoice is a pretty pop tune about recovering a nearly-lost love performed in both English and Italian. As with Over the Rainbow, this is not specifically a Christmas song, but I think it does fit very well with the mood and character of the other songs in the collection.
Call me a purist; I think my favorite track is Adeste Fideles. It is performed in traditional style with an a cappella introduction followed by traditional accompaniment and traditional harmonies. I don't have to say much about it – I just liked it.
The Indifferent
I also don't have much to say about White Christmas, Silent Night, The Lord's Prayer; they are adequate, but not terribly inspiring. They would make nice background music for a holiday dinner.
Nice. That word again. Overall this album is nice. The tragedy is that when you have four talented singers, each with world class vocal skills, they should be able to do something better than 'nice.' So while this first Christmas collection for Il Divo shouldn't cause them to hang their heads in shame, neither will it go down in musical history as being one of the finest Christmas albums ever produced. It is solidly average and well and truly earned my three star rating.
A note on sound quality
I've talked about arrangements and performances, but a big part of a CD is sound quality. The recording quality of this disc is good, but not great. I'm not sure when companies stopped putting the Analog/Digital designations on their discs, but this one doesn't have one. If I had to guess, I'd assume that it's AAD or ADD - there is a tiny bit of analog crackle and some minor distortion in the loudest passages. For the average listener on a typical stereo system, this disk should sound fine; but a true audiophile may be bothered by the lack of clarity in the sound.
Even non-elitist listeners may be bothered by the sound once the music files are compressed using a computer program. Listening to this album on Windows Media or on the new iPod that's in the house is more of a disappointment than listening on the stereo. The crackle and muzziness of the sound become much more noticeable in the saved file to the point that I'm very unlikely to ever again listen to this recording on my computer.
Track List:
O Holy Night / White Christmas / Ave Maria / When a Child is Born / Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) / Over the Rainbow / Panis Angelicus / Rejoice / Silent Night / The Lord's Prayer
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