Alanis Morissette released her first full-length Christmas album today, November 6, as Good Weather For Immaculate Conception arrives on Epiphany Music and Virgin Music with 14 tracks. The Alanis Morissette Christmas album pairs seasonal standards with two new original songs and a guest list that runs from Brandi Carlile to Steve Martin and Martin Short.
It is a first in a career that has run for three decades. Morissette has issued seasonal singles before, but never a complete holiday record, and the Ottawa-raised singer discussed the project this week on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast ahead of release day.
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The Alanis Morissette Christmas album tracklist runs 14 songs
The full Good Weather For Immaculate Conception tracklist, as listed in the album announcement from JamBase, opens with O Holy Night and closes with Merry Christmas featuring Martin Short. In between sit What Child Is This, Happy Xmas (War Is Over), Little Drummer Boy, Ave Maria, Joni Mitchell’s River, Wham’s Last Christmas, and Silent Night featuring Joy Oladokun. The lead single, Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem, features Brandi Carlile on vocals and Steve Martin on banjo, and it was released ahead of the album. Momma Mary features Amythyst Kiah, and O Tannenbaum features Trans Voices, the United Kingdom’s first professional trans choir.
Two originals sit beside the standards
The album’s two new Morissette originals are To An Empath At Christmas Time and Christmas On The Dancefloor. The first title is unmistakably hers, folding her long-running interest in empathy and emotional labour into a season that runs on both. The second points the other way, toward movement and release. Placing originals beside songs as canonical as O Holy Night and River is the risk every first holiday album takes, and Morissette answers it by sequencing her own writing through the record instead of parking it at the end.
A Canadian voice joins the holiday canon
Canadian artists anchor the modern holiday catalogue, and Morissette’s entry carries a specific lineage. Her take on River connects the album to Joni Mitchell, whose Blue gave the song to the season in 1971, and the Carlile collaboration follows the two singers performing Morissette’s Uninvited together at Red Rocks earlier this fall after Carlile covered it at the Newport Folk Festival. A first Christmas album at this stage of a career is usually a victory lap. This one reads more like an argument that her voice, grain and all, belongs in December too.
Good Weather For Immaculate Conception is out now on Epiphany Music and Virgin Music.
