Beauty And The Beast - The Enchanted Christmas Albany OR

Beauty And The Beast - The Enchanted Christmas

Soundtrack

Walt Disney Records, 1997

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 12/12/1998

I think I may be going to Hell for what I'm about to say: I've found a Christmas album that really isn't good.

After the remarkable success with the original Beauty And The Beast, the fine folks at Disney decided to release a Christmas movie reprising the tale, releasing it direct to video. Surprise! This is one of the times I actually watched the video to get a feel of the soundtrack... and, well, the story left a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, the accompanying soundtrack to Beauty And The Beast - The Enchanted Christmas is not much better.

Now, I do admire the fact that the original vocal cast is back to reprise their original roles -- and the addition of Bernadette Peters is a wise move. While I have never been one who has been into Broadway-style music, I've always admired her vocal talents, and she fits in quite well to the story. (The singing talents of people like David Ogden Stiers and Jerry Orbach are quite good -- though those silly accents tend to get in the way at times.)

Problem number one is that a lot of the music from the actual video -- which constitutes only about half of this disc -- isn't Christmas music... not by a long shot. I'd be hard pressed to explain how "Don't Fall In Love" from Tim Curry (as the voice of Forte) qualifies as a Christmas song; ditto goes for "Stories" from Paige O'Hara (as the voice of Belle).