Destiny's Child "8 Days Of Christmas" Album

	Title: 8 Days Of Christmas Format: Album Label: Sony Released: 2001-10-30
Buy 8 Days Of Christmas!

Tracklisting & Lyrics

Reviews

Destiny's Child's holiday album, 8 Days of Christmas, is pretty much what you'd expect -- divided equally between strained hip-hop-soul and smooth adult contemporary pop directly targeted at a crossover paradise. Since holiday albums have to have a hook, or at least one novelty to draw in an audience, there's the title track that recasts "12 Days of Christmas" as a modern, commercialistic, sub-hip-hop rant. Things get better than that, as the tailor-made "Winter Paradise" works much better, as does "A 'DC' Christmas Medley," which may be a little formulaic, but appealing. Then, there's a huge stretch that features the individual members of Destiny's Child singing a carol apiece (plus "Little Drummer Boy," which features Solange, who isn't in the group) -- good way of prepping for the inevitable solo careers, I suppose. Then, the album pretty much runs out with ballads and songs that emphasize some of the more irritating aspects of Destiny's Child (the skittering verses of "Spread a Little Love on Christmas Day," for instance, complete with its chorus of "I got your back on Christmas Day"), as well as their crossover attempts, including a version of "Opera of the Bells." So, yes, this is uneven, as much as any holiday album is uneven, and even if it lacks anything distinctive, it's still Destiny enough to please many hardcore fans. Ultimately, it doesn't really feel all that distinctive one way or another, which may be worse than being really bad or really great. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide.

Chilly, forced, and overdone, this mixed bag of modern classics, tarted-up traditional carols, and trio of tunes penned by Beyonce Knowles doesn't conjure a single warm and fuzzy image of chestnuts roasting on an open fire or Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Rather, it's just another forum to showcase the band's Gucci bag of vocal gymnastics and crass materialism. The Texas trio takes seasonal classics like Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," "Silent Night," and "Little Drummer Boy" and embellishes them with their own trills and off-kilter harmonies, obscuring the songs' simple beauty. "On the eighth day of Christmas, my baby gave to me a pair of Chloe shades and a diamond belly ring," brags Knowles in the title song, a takeoff on the "12 Days of Christmas," without ever explaining why they lopped off four days. The band is shamelessly self-indulgent throughout the dozen songs found here, taking untold liberties, like renaming "Carol of the Bells" "Opera Bells" and recasting "Silver Bells" as "Platinum Bells" to reflect their multiplatinum status. But the low point of the record is when Destiny's Child hawk their Hasbro-manufactured dolls in the intro of "Platinum Bells": "Ladies, remember long ago we asked Santa to give us Christmas dolls? This year the dolls are you and me under the tree." Humbug. ~Jaan Uhelszki, Amazon.com.