25 beloved holiday albums to rediscover this winter

Noël – Josh Groban

Josh Groban is another artist whose voice is made to sing Christmas songs. In fact, he should just sing Christmas songs all year round! The singer released his Christmas album Noël in 2007 and it was a wild success.

When you have a voice like Josh Groban, you don’t need any original songs for your album to be amazing. He covered all the holiday standards like “Silent Night”, “Little Drummer Boy”, “The First Noël” (which featured Faith Hill), and “Angels We Have Heard on High” (featuring Brian McKnight). He also covered the French Christmas song “Petit Papa Noël”, which translates literally as Little Father Christmas.

For the album’s 10 year anniversary, a deluxe edition was released with six new songs. This time around, Josh performed a duet with Tony Bennett on “Christmas Time Is Here”, a cover of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, and featured the song “Believe” which he recorded for the 2004 film The Polar Express. This album really does cover all your Christmas bases!

Like I already said (and to the surprise of no one), the album was a huge hit. It went to #1 on the Billboard 200, becoming the first Christmas album to spend four consecutive weeks at #1 on this chart in its entire history. It set a whole bunch of records, and by its tenth week, it was already the best selling album of 2007, having sold 2.8 million copies. By 2017, the album has sold over 5.9 million copies in the United States alone. The album even earned him a Grammy Award in 2008 for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, a feat for a Christmas album.