George Strait - 20th Century Masters - The Christmas Collection

George Strait himself compiled this discount-priced, holiday best-of from his two previous seasonal collections, Merry Christmas Strait To You! (1986) and Merry Christmas Wherever You Are (1999), and it's easy to tell which one he likes better. After starting out with two Western swing-styled originals from the earlier release, the title song and "When It's Christmas Time in Texas," he simply repeats all ten tracks from Merry Christmas Wherever You Are, albeit re-sequenced. One might have hoped for a more even distribution between the two albums, a selection that included "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" from the 1986 disc (since that song reached the country singles charts in 1995 and again in 1997) and that featured more standards, such as Strait's versions of "White Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland." It also would have been nice to have had "Christmas Cookies," the country Top 40 hit by Strait that appeared on the 2001 various-artists collection of the same name. Read More