When I heard this on the car radio the other day I honestly thought it was some overlooked song from a ’60s soul Christmas album. With better speakers I could hear that Phil Spector-style production was too clean to be that old, and its spot-on emulation of that girl-group sound showed the gifted mimicry of writer/producer Mark Ronson. I was still surprised that the vocals were by Kelly Clarkson. It sounds like she’s doing some code-switching, but she’s good enough to pull it off.
Clarkson has released two Christmas albums in her career since her 2002 triumph on the initial “American Idol,” but this tune didn’t appear until this year, with the release of a new “deluxe edition” of 2021’s “Christmas Comes Around.” She sang it the other night on the finale of “The Voice.”
