Rod Stewart – Merry Christmas, Baby (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Rod Stewart – Merry Christmas, Baby (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 46:08 minutes | 924 MB | Genre: Rock, Pop, Christmas
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Verve

Rod Stewart, one of music’s bestselling artists of all time, releases his debut Christmas album, Merry Christmas, Baby. This monumental release includes guest appearances by Michael Buble, Mary J. Blige, Cee Lo Green and an historic ‘virtual duet’ with Ella Fitzgerald. Working with David Foster, the GRAMMY Award-winning artist dazzles with this collection of standards and traditional songs.

Hard as it may be to believe, but Rod Stewart has gotten through five decades without succumbing to a holiday album. That streak ends in 2012 with the release of Merry Christmas, Baby, an easygoing and chipper collection of secular seasonal standards. A couple of carols are thrown in for good measure but these songs — “Silent Night,” “We Three Kings” presented as a duet with Mary J. Blige — along with a mildly incongruous “When You Wish Upon a Star,” slide by easily on the mellow big-band swing of the rest of the record. Song for song, Merry Christmas, Baby is very much of a piece with Rod’s ongoing Great American Songbook series, with Stewart not straying from the familiar form of these songs and producer David Foster laying on all manner of soft, soothing sounds, whether it’s acoustic guitars, synthesizers, strings, or a children’s choir on “Silent Night.” Very rarely does this hint at the Rod of the ’70s — and when it does on the closing “Auld Lang Syne,” its intro given a spare folky treatment reminiscent of his Mercury work, it’s a bracing, effective reminder of Stewart’s skill as a singer — and instead relies on a gladhanding charm that suits the season, not to mention Stewart in his crooning dotage.

Tracklist:
01. Rod Stewart – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (04:31)
02. Rod Stewart – Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (02:47)
03. Rod Stewart – Winter Wonderland (feat. Michael Buble) (02:26)
04. Rod Stewart – White Christmas (03:49)
05. Rod Stewart – Merry Christmas, Baby (feat. Cee-Lo Green & Trombone Shorty) (03:53)
06. Rod Stewart – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (feat. Dave Koz) (02:51)
07. Rod Stewart – What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? (feat. Ella Fitzgerald, Chris Botti) (03:43)
08. Rod Stewart – Blue Christmas (03:30)
09. Rod Stewart – Red-Suited Super Man (feat. Trombone Shorty) (03:11)
10. Rod Stewart – When You Wish Upon A Star (03:47)
11. Rod Stewart – We Three Kings (feat. Mary J. Blige) (03:27)
12. Rod Stewart – Silent Night (04:24)
13. Rod Stewart – Auld Lang Syne (03:45)

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