tek's rating:
Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 3
AllMusic; Amazon; Apple Music; Discogs; Wikia; Wikipedia
This was released in 2012, but I didn't listen to it until 2025. It's the third of four Christmas albums from the TV series Glee, featuring six songs from the season 4 episode Glee, Actually, as well as four bonus songs. For each song, I'll list the characters who sang it (taken from the liner notes).
1. "Jingle Bell Rock" (Sam): It's reasonably good.
2. "White Christmas" (Blaine and Kurt): It's nice.
3. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Puck, Jake, Sam, Brittany, Blaine, Kurt): This one feels slower and sort of comfier than the first two tracks, which is nice. Everyone harmonizes well.
4. "Silent Night" (Santana): This is sung beautifully, so I'm not sure why I don't like it more than I do. (But I do like it.) It's not in the episode.
5. "Joy to the World" (Unique): This starts off simply enough, then it gets sort of funky, and then gospel-y. It doesn't really sound like any other rendition of the song that I've heard. (It's unique, so it's appropriate that that's who sings it.) It's definitely good. It's not in the episode.
6. "The First Noel" (Marley): Fairly simple, very nice.
7. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (Rachel): It's fine, I guess. It's not in the episode.
8. "Feliz Navidad" (Artie): I like it. It feels like it's sung a little fast, but it works well.
9. "Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah" (Jake and Puck): This is the only song on the album that I wasn't already familiar with. It seems a shame that it's the shortest song, at 2:08; I feel like it's giving Hannukah short shrift, considering it's the only song for that holiday, among all the Christmas songs. But it's pretty good. I'm happy to have it on the album.
10. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" (Finn): This is a good rendition of the song. It's not in the episode.
Well, I've rated this higher than the first volume, and lower than the second one. But I'm not sure how much I actually like it, compared to those albums. It's possible if I listened to the first one again, I'd like it just as much as this one. On the whole, I think this volume is fairly good, but nothing special, as Christmas albums go. I liked all the songs, some of them more than others, but most of them didn't feel necessary, as they don't bring anything new to the songs. "Joy to the World" is perhaps an exception to that, and "Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah" is nice just because I don't know any other versions of that song. So, anyway, I consider the CD a keeper, but just barely.