RhinoMore than 50 years into their career, The Monkees have released their first holiday album, Christmas Party. The record, which arrived in October, features new original tunes, traditional Christmas songs and standards, and a few covers of 1970s yuletide gems by various rock artists.
“I’m pleased with it,” singer Micky Dolenz, who sings eight of Christmas Party‘s 13 songs, tells ABC Radio. “And the reaction’s been, I gather, very good.”
Dolenz says that because of the holiday theme, he doesn’t consider Christmas Party a true follow-up to The Monkees’ 2016 comeback album, Good Times!, which reached #14 on the Billboard 200. That being said, the new record shares similarities with Good Times!, as both include songs written by XTC‘s Andy Partridge, Weezer‘s Rivers Cuomo and Fountains of Wayne‘s Adam Schlesinger, the latter of whom also co-produced both projects.
Micky says among his favorite tracks on Christmas Party‘s are the Partridge-penned lead single, “Unwrap You at Christmas”; Cuomo’s “What Would Santa Do”; and “House of Broken Gingerbread,” which Schlesinger co-wrote with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
Dolenz says he’s also a fan of band mate Mike Nesmith‘s rendition of the 1940s jazz-pop standard “Snowfall,” a song Micky remembers his mom singing to him when he was a kid.
The album closes with Dolenz’s soulful version of the 1940s R&B classic, “Merry Christmas Baby.”
Micky tells ABC Radio that recording the song was “really fun,” noting that Schlesinger told him to imagine himself singing it “in a blues bar at two o’clock in the morning.”
The late Davy Jones also is featured on two songs — covers of “Silver Bells” and “Mele Kalikimaka,” which Dolenz calls “amazing.” The tracks were created by combining new instrumentation with 1991 recordings of Jones.
Here’s Christmas Party‘s full track list:
“Unwrap You at Christmas”
“What Would Santa Do”
“Mele Kalikimaka”
“House of Broken Gingerbread”
“The Christmas Song”
“Christmas Party”
“Jesus Christ”
“I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day”
“Silver Bells”
“Wonderful Christmastime”
“Snowfall”
“Angels We Have Heard on High”
“Merry Christmas, Baby”
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