A Very Merry Perri Christmas Christina Perri

• 1Something About December03:59
• 2Merry Christmas Darling03:20
• 3Please Come Home For Christmas03:57
• 4Ave Maria03:26
• 5Happy Xmas [War Is Over]04:21
• 6Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas03:12
• Total Runtime22:15

Info for A Very Merry Perri Christmas

Building her rise to fame in 2012, Christina Perri has put together a collection of classic Christmas tunes, pairs an all-new seasonal staple, "Something About December" alongside unique renditions of such Yuletide favorites as The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling" and Charles Brown's "Please Come Home For Christmas". Produced by multiple Grammy Award winner David Hodges (Evanescence, Kelly Clarkson), the 6-track collection is further highlighted by a new take on the John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band classic, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", featuring choral contributions from such diverse artists as Michelle Branch, LP, Bushwalla, and Boys Like Girls' Martin Johnson.

Christina Perri has fulfilled a lifelong dream by releasing her first-ever holiday recording. The EP, A Very Merry Perri Christmas, features five Christmas classics, plus one original tune.

In a statement, Christina says, "I've wanted to make [the record] my whole life. Christmas is so big in my family, and I’ve been singing these songs since I was three years old."

The songs include The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling," Charles Brown's "Please Come Home for Christmas," the traditional piece "Ave Maria," the standard "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and John Lennon & Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." Singing backup on that last song is a chorus made up of some of Christina's musician pals, including Michelle Branch.

But since Christina is such a big Christmas fan, and there are so many holiday songs out there, how did she manage to choose just five songs for the project? She tells ABC News Radio, "It's funny, I thought it was gonna be hard to pick which ones to do...but it was one of the easiest decisions I ever made...I just picked my five favorites."

She added, "I just went through and I was like, 'Well, duh. Like, I can't not do this one. I can't not do this one. I can't...' you know, and then it was so easy. It was like, 'There you go. There's the five.'"

As for the original tune, it's called "Something About December," and Christina co-wrote it with her brother. "My brother is maybe the other human with just the same amount of Christmas spirit that matches mine in the whole world," she tells ABC News Radio. "So, it was really easy for us to step into that and we wrote one that I'm so proud of."

In fact, Christina says, "I feel like it's the Christmas song I've been writing my whole life. It's not cheesy or anything like that."

A Very Merry Perri Christmas will tide fans over while Christina works on her second album, the follow-up to her debut, lovestrong. Christina says she's taking October, November and December to go through all the new songs she's written, arrange them with her band and do some pre-production. In February, she plans to do start recording but she's not in any rush, unlike with her first record.

"I'm hiding away and doing that for as long as it needs," she says. "I'm not doing an album in 32 days again. I will definitely take my time but it should be out, hopefully, if it all works out, in the spring." (ABC News Radio 2012)

Christina Perri
During the summer of 2010, Christina Perri -- a 23-year-old café waitress who'd been moonlighting as an unsigned songwriter -- went from obscurity to the upper reaches of the Billboard charts in two short weeks. The Philadelphia native had moved to Los Angeles several years prior, hoping to spin her musical abilities into a record deal. Her brother, Nick Perri, had found platinum-certified success as the guitarist of Shinedown, but Christina’s own efforts weren’t met with such luck. She married, divorced, and took up a job at the Melrose Café in Beverly Hills, with music taking a backseat role as she struggled to pay the bills. While recording an EP, though, she managed to contact a choreographer from the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. Weeks later, one of Perri’s piano ballads, “Jar of Hearts,” was used in an episode of the show, and public demand for the single convinced her to release 'Jar of Hearts' independently. Over 100,000 people downloaded the song during its first two weeks, helping it crack the Billboard Top 40, and Perri inked a record contract with Atlantic before the summer was up. The following February, 'Jar of Hearts' climbed to platinum status as Perri put the finishing touches on her debut album, lovestrong., and prepared for a spring tour with James Blunt. 2012 saw the release of Perri's first-ever holiday album, Very Merry Perri Christmas. (AllMusic.com)

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