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Are You Listenin’? New Holiday Albums From Sarah McLachlan and Others

A selection of Christmas albums recommended by critics of The Times.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

JON BATISTE: ‘CHRISTMAS WITH JON BATISTE Naht Jona; CD, $9.99; MP3, $7.99

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Jon BatisteCredit...Amy Lombard for The New York Times

There’s a charming intimacy to much of this album, which Jon Batiste made on the side during his first year as bandleader for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” The style runs from spare to plush, with Mr. Batiste’s soulful piano, voice and melodica as abiding constants. Along with his regular band mates, he enlists instrumental guests including the trumpeter Sean Jones, the percussionist Jason Marsalis and the violinist Lee England Jr. As for the vocal guests, they include Judith Hill, on a slinky “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and Aloe Blacc, on the exhortatory, gospel-tinged original “Endless Love.”

NATE CHINEN

LAUREN DAIGLE: ‘BEHOLD: A CHRISTMAS COLLECTION’ Centricity, $10

You can hear the Louisiana seeping through “Behold,” the impressive holiday album by Lauren Daigle, her generation’s most promising singer of contemporary Christian music. Sometimes it’s in the arrangements, like on “Jingle Bells,” which pulses with New Orleans-informed jazz and swing. But mainly her home state is in her voice, which unlike that of many of her genre peers, is rife with ambiguity, not clarity. That means an “O Come All Ye Faithful” that’s more unsteady dirge than regal announcement, and a “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that, thanks to the appealing drag in her vocals, is tranquil, cozy and flirty.

JON CARAMANICA

BRETT ELDREDGE: ‘GLOW’ Atlantic Nashville; CD, $9.97; MP3, $9.49

Perhaps you have listened to the youngish country star Brett Eldredge and wondered just how, even in these polyglot, borderless, permissive times, he makes sense in Nashville. If that city has lately been dominated by bros, he is a gentleman; his twang feels digitally augmented. “Glow,” his first holiday album, makes the disconnect clear: It turns out Mr. Eldredge is a disarming crooner deeply at home in front of a big band. He achieves a striking Sinatra-lite on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and wrings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” into a scene of pure pathos.

JON CARAMANICA

AMY GRANT: ‘TENNESSEE CHRISTMAS’ Amy Grant Productions/Sparrow/Capitol; CD, $8.89; $9.49

It has been more than 30 years since Amy Grant released her first Christmas album, which opened with a cozy original, “Tennessee Christmas.” This album begins the same way, but don’t dismiss it as a retread. Ms. Grant, a longtime beacon in contemporary Christian music, is also a fixture of Nashville, where she recorded these songs at her home studio. Naturally, there’s a cameo by her husband, Vince Gill, who brings a silvery gleam to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” And in addition to friskier holiday fare, Ms. Grant offers a few bittersweet new ballads like “Melancholy Christmas,” which sets the stage with a relatable couplet: “I post another picture from the quiet of my room/And wonder who’ll like it, and wonder what to do.”

NATE CHINEN

KURT ELLING: ‘THE BEAUTIFUL DAY: KURT ELLING SINGS CHRISTMAS’ OKeh/Sony Masterworks; CD $10.79, MP3, $9.99

Kurt Elling wasn’t interested in a ring-a-ding holiday album; for a jazz singer of his temperament, that would have been too routine a challenge. What he made instead is a brooding, earnest reflection on the rites of the season, both religious and secular. Mr. Elling is sparkling and sure covering Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” and Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.” But his heart seems more honestly aligned with several numbers from “Scrooge: The Musical” (including the title track) and a haunted ballad called “The Michigan Farm (Cradle Song Op. 41/1),” which sets original lyrics to a 19th-century lullaby by Edvard Grieg.

NATE CHINEN

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Kacey Musgraves performing in November. Her new album is “A Very Kacey Christmas.”Credit...Rick Diamond/Getty Images

KACEY MUSGRAVES: ‘A VERY KACEY CHRISTMAS’ Mercury; CD, $8.90; MP3, $9.49

What better turn than a Christmas album for an artist whose mission is to uphold tradition under the cover of mild subversion? Kacey Musgraves’s first holiday album is by and large delightful, full of sweet, measured singing; varied arrangements, from Western swing to vintage soul; and catholic song choice, including the 1950s novelty “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” There are also four originals, the best of which is “A Willie Nice Christmas” (featuring Willie Nelson), on which she sings, over Hawaiian guitar, “I’m gonna wrap my presents up in red bandannas/and leave some special cookies out for Santa.” Get it? The cookies have marijuana in them. They’re marijuana cookies. For Santa.

JON CARAMANICA

R. KELLY:12 NIGHTS OF CHRISTMASRCA; CD, $8; MP3, $9.99

“Mrs. Santa Claus/This year will be, this year will be/the year I make holiday love to you”: R. Kelly would like to bring you tidings of comfort and joy and maybe some other things too. “12 Nights of Christmas” is his first holiday album in a two-decades-plus career toggling between the carnal and the spiritual. He doesn’t take the challenge lightly on this ambitious album: There are a dozen songs, all originals. Some are perfectly pleasant, others, like the afore-quoted “Mrs. Santa Claus,” are transfixing. Mostly, Mr. Kelly is in his polite, adult-contemporary R&B mode, making music for Chicago steppers ready for a grown-folks night out. But after the night out comes the night in, as the grunts and howls on “Christmas Lovin’” make clear.

JON CARAMANICA

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“To Celebrate Christmas” is the holiday album from Jennifer Nettles.Credit...Rick Diamond/Getty Images

JENNIFER NETTLES: ‘TO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS Big Machine; CD, $8.99; MP3, $9.49

If there’s no room in country music’s mainstream for Jennifer Nettles’s gargantuan voice, it’s a relief she found the willing canvas of holiday music. These standards don’t just forgive elegantly shouted singing, they encourage it. So Ms. Nettles howls on “O Holy Night,” leans into “The First Noel” with dignity and fire, and brings sass to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” an ice-cool duet with Andra Day. Like Ms. Nettles, the arrangements by Tim Lauer and Julian Raymond have just enough bite to invigorate the familiar — the easy guitar march on “O Holy Night,” or the rockabilly arrangement of the black spiritual “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

JON CARAMANICA

PENTATONIX: ‘A PENTATONIX CHRISTMAS RCA; CD, $6.99; MP3, $9.99

How long has it been since Pentatonix, the wildly popular, pneumatically precise a cappella group, last released a holiday album? Two years, since “That’s Christmas to Me,” which sold more than two million copies. If you liked that album, there’s no reason you wouldn’t like this one, which also emulsifies carols and Christmas standards to the consistency of a smoothie. Maybe you’ll want to know that there’s a solemn cover of a track by Kanye West (“Coldest Winter”); maybe you already know that there’s a dim, cloying cover of “Hallelujah,” the Leonard Cohen hymn. But the best news here suggests a merciful awareness of diminishing returns: In its entirety, the album lasts just under 35 minutes.

NATE CHINEN

LORETTA LYNN: ‘WHITE CHRISTMAS BLUELegacy; CD, $10.29; MP3, $10.99

The manger isn’t far from the honky-tonk on Loretta Lynn’s Christmas collection, which has songs from the trove of recordings she began making in the 2000s with Johnny Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, at the Cash Cabin Studio. Ms. Lynn’s voice is pure Appalachia, with openhearted respect in religious songs and a touch of swing on tunes like “Blue Christmas.” The arrangements hark back to the down-home understatement of 1960s country, placing just the right piano tinkle or steel-guitar turn between verses. When Ms. Lynn recites “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” backed by a guitar, Santa’s farewell is “Merry Christmas, you all, and to all a good night.”

JON PARELES

SARAH MCLACHLAN: ‘WONDERLAND’ Verve; CD, $11.99, MP3, $9.49

The cozy benevolence of Sarah McLachlan’s voice is the constant on an album that puts considerable thought into customizing familiar songs. There are echoes of Phil Spector and the Beach Boys in the steady quarter-note chords behind “Let It Snow.” “Away in a Manger” arrives with a different melody, as a countryish waltz with vocal harmonies from Emmylou Harris; “Huron Carol,” a Celtic-tinged Canadian hymn, gets full orchestral drama. Some choices are fussy and overblown, but Ms. McLachlan’s voice always provides warmth.

JON PARELES

SHE & HIM: ‘CHRISTMAS PARTY Columbia, $10.99

She & Him — the actress Zooey Deschanel and the guitarist M. Ward — keep a casual, home-recorded air on their second holiday album, “Christmas Party.” Ms. Deschanel has a pretty mezzo-soprano, a semipro with lapses in concentration, while Mr. Ward sings, in his occasional appearances, no better or worse than a session guitarist. Friends drop by, including Sonic Youth’s drummer, Steve Shelley, and indie-pop harmonizers like Jenny Lewis and the Chapin Sisters. Among many familiar songs is a record-collector find: Vashti Bunyan’s “The Coldest Night of the Year.” She & Him can’t match the freak-folk Phil Spector aura of the original. But along with the rest of the album, it’s a suggestion to find your own Christmas nuggets and sing them yourself.

JON PARELES

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Are You Listenin’?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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