A Taste of Christmas Pudding 2019, various artists (Casa Music Group)

Last year I discovered the Taste of Christmas series, and a new edition of this collection became available this year. To reiterate, Alice Cooper supports a foundation that gives music instruction to at-risk youth, and they put on Christmas concerts and get to record Christmas albums like this one. I'm giving the Apple For the Teacher Award to the group Dragons in the Desert for their repurposing of a big hit by the school's benefactor, "School's Out For Christmas." Another eye-opener from this collection is "Funky Funky Christmas" by Mellowpshychodelicculture, which is a hard-rock cover of a song by the obscure soul group Electric Jungle from the 1970s. The Homestretch does a rock-inflected Americana version of "Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy," John Caufield does a straight "Blue  Christmas," Paige June takes a singer-songwriter approach to "Santa Baby," as does Ciara Cisneros on "Please Come Home for Christmas," and Sundai goes grungy on "Mr. Heatmiser." There appears to be a few originals on here, like "This Christmas Day" by Sun Kissed, "Christmas Toes" by Phoebe, and "No Need to Deck the Hall" by Between the Dark. Some selections are gentle ballads like "O Holy Night" by Sophie Dorsten, "Mary Did You Know" by Sammi Martinez, and "Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas" by Sophia Humbert, while the rest are 70s-style hard rock like "The Grinch" by Undecided Youth and "Mary's Boy Child" by Conrad Varela. This is a solidly listenable collection, especially if your tastes run to 70s rock. UPDATE: Stubby wrote in to mention that Dragons in the Desert didn't originate "School's Out For Christmas" as implied above. A group called Suite 88 recorded it for a previous Pudding LP in 2012, and that it probably was played live at one of the Pudding Christmas concerts prior to that.