Justin Bieber - Under The Mistletoe
It seems the music industry is keen to gently usher us towards Christmas - Michael Buble released his festive album last week, and now it's Justin Bieber's turn.
Where Buble's benefitted from featuring the crooner giving his take on Christmas standards, with one new song that perfectly fit, Bieber has gone for mostly original songs, and it falls a little flat.
There's no doubt his fans will still buy Under The Mistletoe, and it has a couple of nice moments, but a more traditional approach would've helped his credibility.
To give the songwriters their due, songs like 'Home This Christmas' are decent seasonal tunes, but they won't have the lasted appeal of their forefathers.
When Bieber offers his twist on Christmas classics, the results are varied - his soft cover of 'Silent Night' is one of Under The Mistletoe's stand out songs.
However, we still have moments like the over-produced 'Drummer Boy', which is - however you paint it - completely awful.
The song, which sees him collaborate with Busta Rhymes, is clearly some attempt to play on the 'Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy' duet from Bing Crosby and David Bowie.
However, it falls completely flat due to a mess of production, and the less said about the rapping, the better - they really do ruin the song.
Songs like that will mean that Bieber's album is always facing an uphill battle for credibility and wider acceptance.
Whilst the record's other duet (as Bieber and Mariah Carey re-record her hit 'All I Want For Christmas Is You') is an improvement, it's still fairly unremarkable.
Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend on Under The Mistletoe, as Bieber struggles to find a good balance between decent original material and solid reinterpretations of the classics.
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