The Hotel Cafe Presents Winter Songs, various artists (Epic)

Or, as I titled it after first listening, "A Grey's Anatomy Christmas," in honor of the roster of young alternative divas featured here. Not that this is a bad thing, as the "Grey's" musical directors have pretty good taste. But it's the direction you might expect for this 2008 charity compilation benefiting Susan Komen For the Cure, the breast cancer-fighting organization. Hotel Cafe is an L.A. venue that features many of the folks on this record, and wouldn't you know, some of them have even placed songs on "Grey's." Some names here are familiar; Colbie Caillat's "Mistletoe" was reviewed here as a single last year, as was KT Tunstall's "Sleigh Bells," and though Fiona Apple's sweet "Frosty the Snowman" has been around for a few years, I think this may be my first copy of it. Elsewhere on this CD, Nicole Atkins does an imaginative take on "Blue Christmas," Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson team up to write and sing "Winter Song," Lenka offers the sprightly original "All My Bells are Ringing," Meiko's "Maybe Next Year (x-mas song)" may sound more like Fiona Apple than Fiona does, and Katy Perry, the "Ur So Gay" girl, strips down "White Christmas" to the essentials. Also on hand here are Brandi Carlile, Holly Conlan, Alice Smith, Priscilla Ahn, Kate Havnevik and Catherine Feeney, and just about everybody on here appears on "Auld Lang Syne."