“I’ve been such a good girl,” Alicia Keys assures Santa on the first song on her first festive collection. Certainly, for the 41-year-old to get this far into her career without cashing in with a Christmas album is a sign of exceptional classiness. And as Christmas content goes, it doesn’t come much classier than listening to her emoting in Latin on a closing version of Schubert’s Ave Maria.
In practical terms, this is Keys’ first album since her major label deal concluded and she went independent, so she may well have been looking for a bankable set of songs. However, so far it’s her first release to fail to hit the US or UK charts. The fact that it’s only streaming on Apple Music hasn’t helped its visibility, but it’s certainly the best of a buffet of 2022 Christmas albums that also includes releases from Backstreet Boys, two Andreas – Corr and Bocelli – and, naturally, Cliff Richard.
