'R Kelly Hits The Spot!'

I have been looking for some new Christmas music to introduce you to this year but haven't found much... Imagine my surprise then when I stumbled across the new '12 Days of Christmas' set by R.Kelly and was pleasantly surprised at how sensitive and festive the songs on it are! Now, to be fair, Mr.Kelly has written some corkers in the past - especially 'You are Not Alone', which I played to death when Michael Jackson died and even tried to sing at karaoke as a tribute to Michael.. 'I Believe I Can Fly' being another great song of his. Sadly, all too often, much of the man's material revolves around sex and is pretty throw away so, while I respect R.Kelly as a songwriter of enormous potential talent I rarely listen to him as a whole album of his usual stuff would bore me rigid (if you'll excuse the terminology!)...

The songs on '12 Days Of Christmas', however do seem to show that the man has a good heart though! 'I really like 'Snowman' (above) and having flicked through the rest of the album on Amazon via the mp3's think I will probably buy the album. R.Kelly's voice has always been o.k. for me - its just what he has been singing I've not liked. He's no Luther Vandross or Donny Hathaway but he does have a nice, soulful and mellow voice when its matched up to good material.

Another act who have a good Christmas single out this year is ABC. I really liked them in the 80's   (The Lexicon Of Love is a great album) but went off them after 'When Smokey Sings' came out as they went all dance-floor and the songs were less interesting. 'A Christmas We Deserve' is not available at the moment on Youtube so I can't steer you in the direction of the video but check it out via the mp3 somewhere on the net...

Finally, I see that Spandau Ballet's, Tony Hadley has released a Christmas album. The reviews are not that great though and I could not find any mp3 previews of it to have a listen to so I will wait until I get a chance to hear some of it before I get too excited! Maybe one day I will finally get my Christmas set 'in the wracks' alongside them all and give them some festive competition!