Roger the Elf sits on the shelf. I don't know why my kids called him Roger. I think it has something to do with Bl*ppi? Don't even get me started on that shit. That's a blog post for a different time. Anyways, Roger the Elf. The K*** family "Elf on a Shelf." Every morning the children awake to find him in a different location. The story is told that he travels to the North Pole every night to give a report to Santa about the children's behavior that day. I hope I'm not spoiling this for anyone when I say: the actual point of Roger the Elf is that he is another attempt at getting the kids to behave themselves. The exchange—nice behavior equals gifts under the tree on Christmas day. Roger the Elf is thus the pit boss in the game. You either you get your gifts or you get coal, depending on what he sees.
The expectation is that the kids behave themselves. I mean, that's always the expectation (on top of the understanding that they will, by and large, not behave themselves), but it's especially the expectation around Christmastime. Sure, there's the gift exchange, but I dunno... call me sentimental, but you're supposed to be kind to your fellow man around Christmas, ya know? It's a time for good cheer and fellowship and finding comfort in kith and kin. More than any other time of year, there's the expectation around Christmastime to be nice to the people in your life. (At the very least, there's the expectation that, like, you're not supposed to slap your younger sister in the face because she won't share whatever piece of trash toy you're fighting over now?!)
But then if it's true that Roger expects W. and M. to behave, to be nice, to be kind and gentle and optimistic, then why wouldn't Roger expect the same of me? Christmas is no time for cynicism. Christmas is no time to, perhaps, listen to a new album full of holiday music released by a popular recording artist and think things like "this shit sucks" or "this is annoying" or even a pithy thought like "this is fine" or anything like that. Rather, let's pretend that this week's album's title is a madlib: "When Christmas comes around... I try to be optimistic." I am optimistic about Kelly Clarkson this week, because it's Christmas. Roger is watching.
I hate to present that like it's a challenge, because it's not. It's not hard for me to like Christmas music between the fourth Thursday in November and December 25th. We had our own Roger-esque tradition when I was a child (the "pixies" were unseen, though operated in the same fashion as Roger the Elf), so it was imprinted in my psyche from a very early age that the expectation during the Christmas season was a time to be kind toward my sisters and my parents and my friends. This is what Christmas was all about. The holiday season has a different feel to it. Yes, it's awesome to be kind and humble all the year round, but that's also extremely difficult to do, because the world is cold and cruel, and it gets to you sometimes. Christmastime is a specific time a year when the world seems to thaw a little bit. That idea might just exist in my mind as some confirmation bias bullshit, I dunno, but still, bottom line—I'm happier around Christmas. I'm happy, and that happiness shines through even when I'm listening to Kelly Clarkson.
Anything pessimistic I could possibly say about the innocuous album of Christmas standards and originals would be mean-spirited in the exact opposite way that Roger is supposed to teach the kids to behave. In other words, most of my negative words would be directed toward Kelly Clarkson herself, and really, what would be the purpose of starting that beef? Kelly Clarkson has done nothing to me. "Since U Been Gone" is a great song. From Justin to Kelly is enjoyable is perverse sort of way. She is a sincerely terrible voice actor, but the kids' movies we've seen featuring her anti-talent (Trolls and Ugly Dolls) were both streaming, so Clarkson didn't pick my pockets for loose change. The most obvious truth is that she is very competent at her main talent—singing. Theoretically, one might even say she is too good at singing, and some of these Christmas standards sound a little ridiculous with this much polish and vibrato ("It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas" being the main culprit), but no! I am being optimistic, okay Roger? She is a good singer, and let's leave it at that!
One might also be a bit cynical when you think about the existence of this Christmas album, and pretty much any Christmas album that has been released since like 1958. What is the purpose of releasing this album, this specific album, now, here in 2021? What was Kelly Clarkson trying to accomplish with When Christmas Comes Around..., with the umpteenth fucking version of such chestnuts as "Santa Baby" and "Last Christmas"? Is it all about money? That would be the cynical take, for sure. To think that any artist sincerely wants to record a bunch of holiday songs in August, release them in October, and wring not a single drop of originality out of these already bone-dry songs, is almost too much to consider. I suppose the optimistic way to look at it, then, is that Kelly Clarkson loves Christmas so much, all year round, that she can't help but trying to put her own spin on it, even if that attempt is mostly a failure, that it's the attempt that counts, that it can't actively hurt Christmas, this additional swing at "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," because Christmas is bulletproof...? I dunno, man. I'm on the fence here. I'm leaning toward the optimistic take here, even though I secretly smell a whiff of opportunistic money-grubbing.
Or you could take the middle of the road here and say that Kelly Clarkson had pure intentions, and it's not her fault that some of the traditional songs fell a little flat—it might just be a reaction to the fact that there are a thousand versions of all these songs, and we all have our favorite version, and every other version is going to pale in comparison. For example, in my opinion, no version of "Jingle Bell Rock" will even come close to the song as performed by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. It's not really Clarkson's fault that can't live up to the best. Not many artists can match the Electric Mayhem. Few have. Them's the breaks.
Or you could take the middle of the other road and think of all the covers of traditional Christmas songs as the necessary tinsel that pads out the handful of Christmas originals featured. Might be a tougher sell to hawk a six-song Christmas EP, and I'm glad that Clarkson padded it out with some oldies so that it would be eligible for Record Club. And hey, the originals are pretty good! I don't think you can expect any of these new standards to reach ubiquity levels akin to that Mariah Carey song (there haven't been many in the past 27 years at all), but still, nice to hear a new song that sounds kinda Christmassy. I especially liked "Glow," a song that made sure to tell us it was a Christmas song by layering sleigh bells over the hard country stomp. The Grande duet is decent too, even though Clarkson makes her seem like a chump when they are back-to-back. Look, I don't know if I'm gonna be blasting any of these songs on Christmas 2022, but they were nice here. I'm back to being optimistic.
I need to be optimistic, or else none of this works. What, you think I'm gonna be optimistic if I'm listening to a new Kelly Clarkson album in April? No, I don't think I would be. I'm saying that I like When Christmas Comes Around... because it is a Christmas album, and I am listening to it during the Christmas season, and to say that I don't like it would mean that Roger the Elf is going to have something to say to Santa Claus about it.
If I'll allow myself even a morsel of pessimism, then it'll be in reaction to the months of 2021 prior to the Christmas season. I think Clarkson actually shares my pessimism in this regarding, on the final track:
"Running out of faith, I need a little help,
I could us a break from myself.
Bells are in the distance, but they're gеtting hard to hear.
Christmas, won't you please comе early this year?"
In "Christmas Come Early," we have probably the best approximation of the year some (or most) of us had. Speaking personally, I know I had kind of a rough one. Nothing that I wasn't able to overcome, but still, yeah man, some challenging times. Still... Christmas is here. Right now. We're in the Christmas season. And it's really hard to focus on the bad stuff in your past during Christmastime, and so easy to focus on the good stuff in your present. I'm focusing on the good stuff right now, even as I listen to a goddamn Kelly Clarkson album. I'm focusing on my wife, my kids, my family, my friends, old and new. I'm focusing on the level of comfort we are privileged to live in. I'm focusing on the joy that still able to be found in the backwards-seeming and fucked up world.
I'm focusing on the here and now, how we're all gathered here, digitally, friends and family, talking about a motherfucking Kelly Clarkson Christmas album, that we're all together, no matter the opinions about the album itself, that we find that warmth around Christmastime. I am thankful for that, especially now. You hear that, Roger?!?!
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5 (graded on a Christmas curve)
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