Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin

Our price:	$13.98
Media:	Audio CD
Record label:	Rca
Release date:	01 July, 1991

Average user rating: Average user rating: 4.5

The world's fastest way to get the holiday spirit!

Every year I try to restrain myself until the day after Thanksgiving to bring out The Bells of Dublin. After that I play it almost continually until Christmas, and I never get tired of it. It starts up a giant holiday party in my heart.

From the moment the bells peel on the first track ("The Bells of Dublin"), calling in the season, to the angelic voice of the lad who begins the final medley (beginning with "Once in Royal David's City"), I love every bit. In between there is joy (Skyline Jig), beautiful melody (The Wexford Carol with Nanci Griffith) quiet reverence (O Holy Night with Rickie Lee Jones), the sweetness of voices in harmony (Il Est Ne with the McGarrigle Sisters), celebratory dancing I defy you to sit still to (The Wren medley), and even enough little tongue-in-cheek Irish subversiveness to avoid sentimentality (St. Stephen's Day Murders with Elvis Costello, The Rebel Jesus with Jackson Browne).

The Chieftains' worldclass expertise on traditional Irish instruments is front and center on this album, but the many famous guests also have lots of fun. I have never known a Christmas album that could come anywhere close to the Bells of Dublin for generating the holiday spirit.

One of the best Christmas albums ever made.

There is just no way to get tired of this album. It is so diverse in musical styles that each track takes you into new territory. You settle into the very traditional opening and the next thing you know, you find yourself laughing at Elvis Costello's hilarious (and definitely not traditional) St. Stephen's Day Murders. Jackson Browne contributes a kind of agnostic's hymn (but it works just find for a liberationist Christian like me, too). There are many unfamiliar but beautiful European carols, and some of the more traditional carols are done in not very traditional ways. I especially like the way Rickie Lee Jones does O Holy Night, which is usually performed by singers with big, multi-octave voices, and always seems to have more to do with showing off than with reverence. Jones' quiet version is hesitant and awe-inspired, and seems to me closer to the spirit of Christmas than the showier versions. Threading through the whole album are the Chieftains' wonderful jigs and reels, which make you want to get up and dance (at least it has that effect on me, but I'm Irish, so maybe it's genetic).

I bought two copies of this album, one on cassette for my car and one on CD for home because it is such a priceless and unique treasure. Right after Thanksgiving, it is always the first album I get out.

A (mostly) terrific CD

This is a delightful compilation of the Chieftains' rendition of Christmas songs. My whole family enjoys it immensely. I have to agree with another reviewer, however, that it does slow down into a non-Celtic vein on a couple of occasions, like Jackson Browne's "Rebel Jesus", which I like anyway, but really bogs down with Rickie Lee Jones's "O Holy Night" - which we skip.
Well worth the investment, for the most part.