Artist: Musiq Soulchild
Album: A Philly Soul Christmas (EP)
Release Date: 10.28.08

Well, it’s that time of the year folks, and Christmas music is certain to be ringing in every mall and store from here to the North Pole and beyond very soon if it isn’t already. A Philly Soul Christmas is Musiq Soulchild’s offering for the season, an EP of 7 traditional Christmas carols delivered with some jazzy, neo-soul flavor. I’ll get straight to the point: this is a prime example of “just because you can sing, doesn’t mean you can sing everything”.

Musiq has a very monotone voice and a rather limited range which works well for his neo-soul style music. But traditional Christmas carols require a lot more than a limited range. His songs kinda take the joy out of the Christmas carols for me because his voice sounds so bland. Production-wise though, this has some great stuff. In fact, if he were to release just the instrumentals from this release, I’d cop it and rock it at my holiday party. I’d give him a C for effort, but a D- on the overall attempt. The best song to me was O Come All Ye Faithful, his voice moves a lot lighter and easier over the piano-led melody. This is actually one of the best renditions of that song that I’ve heard from any contemporary artist. His version of Deck The Halls comes in a smooth second place, but I could honestly do without the rest.

I’m sure his new album On My Radio will be much better when it’s released on 12.9.08 so I’ll be checkin for that. But if you’re on the hunt for new sounds of the season, I don’t recommend this one…

-Mack-