Last week's 'Culture' section of The Sunday Times ran a full page feature about Christmas songs. The story line was that there are some artists who have taken on the challenge of creating a cool Christmas song and succeeded. They cite the 'Its A Cool Cool Christmas' album which Blam wrote about recently, saying "its a fine fine album".
The article opens with a long analysis of David's duet with Bing Crosby, Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy. Mark Edwards had this to say about it:-
The version of Little Drummer Boy by David Bowie and Bing Crosby is actually rather beautiful. There are those among you who found the whole idea ridiculous: Bowie - at the height of his brutal, avant-guarde European phase - standing there, next to Crosby, who was clearly wondering what happened to the days when he could duet with Frank or Nat or Perry.
But for those of you who are able to stand back for a moment from the initial apparent absurdity of the duet, and acknowledge that, once he warms up, Bowie actually gives a rather fine vocal performance, that in fact their voices merge surprisingly well, that the mixture of under-rehearsed lo-fi and slick light entertainment production has its own charm, that, sadly, the line "Peace On Earth - will it be?" always seems to need to be asked, well, you probably agree with Bing's summation; "It's a pretty thing (sic), isn't it?"
Thanks, Spaceface!