''A Very Special Season'' is the twentieth studio album and first

holiday album Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject ma ...

by American singer

Diana Ross Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups o ...

, released on November 14, 1994, by

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company of the same name in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succ ...

. Produced by

Nick Martinelli Nicholas J. Martinelli (born 5 July 1952) is an American R&B and pop record producer. During the 1980s he worked with many R&B and pop music artists, some of them based in the UK. Acts he has worked with include Loose Ends, Phyllis Hyman, Fiv ...

, whom Ross worked with several times around the early nineties, it is a lush, soulful pop album, consisting mostly of traditional Christmas standards as well as takes on more contemporary songs by

Burt Bacharach Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

, and

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...

. The set was only released for the international market where it peaked at number 37 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

and was certified Gold by the

British Phonographic Industry British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with th ...

(BPI). The album was remastered and repackaged as ''Wonderful Christmas Time'' in 2018. The re-titled re-issue of the album, issued by Ross' own label Ross Records, featured new cover art and the six-tracks that Ross had originally recorded for the 1994 Hallmark album, ''Making Spirits Bright'', featuring the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

. Ross promoted the release with performances in the

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with ...

, and at the Rockefeller Center Tree-lighting concert special in November 2018.

Critical reception

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

editor Jose F. Promis found that ''A Very Special Season'' "easily ranks among the diva's best of the '90s. Instead of opting for hip arrangements aimed at pleasing a younger, jaded audience, all the songs on this set are classically arranged with lush orchestrations, resulting in a truly timeless holiday album, not unlike what one would have expected from the crooners and sirens of yesteryear. The songs are all lovingly produced, and Ross effectively wraps her silken pipes around each tune with utmost sincerity."

Track listing

All songs produced by

Charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Very Special Season, A EMI Records albums Diana Ross albums 1994 Christmas albums Christmas albums by American artists