25 beloved holiday albums to rediscover this winter

Kylie Christmas – Kylie Minogue

Australia may not be a winter wonderland for Christmas time, but that didn’t stop Kylie Minogue from treating us all to some holiday cheer! Kylie released her Christmas album, Kylie Christmas in 2015, and reissued it under the name Kylie Christmas: Snow Queen Edition the following year with new tracks, featuring duets with artists like Iggy Pop, Mika, her sister Dannii Minogue, and even Frank Sinatra. To make things easier, I’ll just talk about The Snow Queen Edition, since it’s the same album, but even better.

Kylie wanted more than just covers, so the album also features three original songs: “White December” and “Christmas Isn’t Christmas ‘Til You Get Here”, both of which Kylie co-wrote, and “Every Day’s Like Christmas” co-written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The deluxe edition of the album also featured three more original tracks, “Oh Santa”, “100 Degrees”, and “Cried Out Christmas”, all co-written by Kylie.

I could never ignore the covers, because those are the songs that make Christmas feel like Christmas! Kylie put her own spin on songs like “Winter Wonderland”, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, “Let It Snow”, and Paul McCartney’s holiday classic “Wonderful Christmastime” which she performed with Mika.

The album was a mix of traditional Christmas sounds, with horns, strings, and jingle bells, but also infused disco, pop, and EDM influences into the tracks. Would it really be a Kylie album if it didn’t make you want to dance just a little bit? Even though I love the holiday classics, I also love any Christmas song that I could hear blasting in a club (wouldn’t that be amazing?).