V/A: A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records [LEGACY]

Why you'll love it

This Legacy reissue presses the classic 1963 Christmas album on 180g vinyl. In 2019 Rolling Stone named it the greatest Christmas album of all time, and it appears in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Phil Spector spent the summer of 1963 thinking about Christmas. For six weeks in August and September he and a crew of Los Angeles session players took over Gold Star Studios and built sleigh bells into a wall of sound. Spector got the idea while producing The Ronettes' "Be My Baby," and he brought his whole stable along: The Ronettes, Darlene Love, The Crystals and Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, with Jack Nitzsche arranging.

The result treats mostly secular standards like teen-pop symphonies. The Ronettes' "Sleigh Ride" and "Frosty the Snowman" gallop along with clip-clopping percussion, The Crystals turn "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" into a girl-group strut, and Darlene Love's original "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is a full-throated soul belter that has become a holiday standard in its own right. The singers sang on each other's songs, and the sessions sometimes ran through the night and into the next day. Even Brian Wilson dropped by to try his hand at the piano on "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Pitchfork ranks it among the best albums of the 1960s, and decades of holiday radio have treated it as essential seasoning. It sounds every bit as good in July, though we'd recommend not testing that theory on the neighbours.

Also at Kops: more Phil Spector on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Philles / Legacy, a reissue of the 1963 compilation.