It's Christmas jazz (vocal jazz with one exception), remixed. What I think is interesting that it's electronic music (remixes, after all) but the first bunch of songs don't sound electronic—the Count Basie track sound bluesy, the Ella Fitzgerald track sounds like traditional pop, and so on—like the album is easing the listener into the whole concept. Then they bring out the synthesizers in the second half.
I also like that the vocals are mostly left untouched. Mostly.
I don't really have commentary on every single track, just a few of them:
Louis Armstrong — "'Zat You, Santa Claus? (The Heavy Mix)" Something makes me suspect the original multitracks of this song are gone. Because there isn't any actual remixing here; there's some minor cut-and-pasting of the song sections, and some louder drums and electric guitar overdubbed, and that's it.
Honestly, the finished product is so close to the original
that it almost sounds like they were aiming to improve on it. Which is impossible.
Louis Armstrong — "What a Wonderful World (The Orb Remix)" This is great, but why is it considered a Christmas song? Is Christmas the only time of the year that we can get away with being optimistic?
Jimmy Smith — "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (Oh No Remix) As I mentioned elsewhere, this version off this album was my introduction to Jimmy Smith. It made an impression. Having heard the original, I now realize that Oh No basically chopped the song into pieces, and the rebuilt it into... pretty much the same melody as the original hymn, over a rather hip-hop beat. And Jimmy's organ solos really got the shaft for some reason.
The last three tracks—Dinah Washington's "Silent Night", Mel Tormé's "The Christmas Song", and Nina Simone's "Chilly Winds Don't Blow"—are the exception to what I said about the vocals being untouched. "Silent Night" and "Chilly Winds" exemplify the "sample one line from the song and build an entire new song off it" approach to electronica. But "The Christmas Song" is more interesting, in that the verses are left alone, while the chorus gets mostly cut out, but a few lines remain, mainly "...know how to fly..." which is repurposed into the song's hook. It actually works pretty well.
