Artist: Bob Dylan
Album Title: Christmas in the Heart
Genre/Style: Retro
Release Year: 2009
I don’t know how he did it, but someone Bob Dylan has figured out how to travel through time, and has journeyed back to the 1940s to cut an album with Bing Crosby’s backup singers. Christmas in the Heart has a wonderful old-timey feel. It plays like an old, comfortable sweater of an album from the middle of the twentieth century. I really like the way these songs are arranged.
Unfortunately, Dylan didn’t find a way to send his voice back in time to an era when it was merely bad. He has to strain to sing anything on this album. Of course, Dylan’s gifts have always been his songwriting rather than his crooning, which is why it’s kind of disappointing that none of these songs are originals. If it weren’t Dylan, you’d never put up with this singing, and I’m not convinced you should put up with it from him in this case. Bob seems to be enjoying himself, and it is a fun record. But I can’t imagine it holding up to repeated listening.
Rating: 
Once the shock of Bob Dylan singing Christmas carols wears off, it’s just an old guy with no voice getting on your nerves.
