The Family Force 5 Christmas Pageant, Family Force 5 (Transparent)

This was out in 2009 and the band, an Atlanta group that identifies as "Christian crunk rock," toured behind it that year and is set to emphasize this disc on a string of dates this December as well. This is a bunch of white guys playing hip-hop who do a decent job of it, while leaving the Parental Advisory sticker behind as well. There's not much in the way of rapping, other than on "The Night Before Christmas," which is a good vehicle for that sort of thing. Otherwise, this is all singing, lots of vocal distortion and auto-tune carrying the mostly familiar carols over some contemporary beats. They even emulate the R'nB convention of doing "My Favorite Things" as a Christmas song. Two originals are part of the proceedings, the ballad "It's Christmas Day" and "The Baby," which has just a slight taste of "Gangsta's Paradise" about it musically, but I don't think there's any guessing about which baby they're singing about. They wrap up by contemporizing Sir Paul's "Wonderful Christmastime." Some rock fans find hip-hop material a bit monochromatic, but I have no problem recommending this, it's an excellent piece of work.