By Patrick Luce Aug 20, 2008, 15:32 GMT
Rocker Melissa Etheridge is set to release a holiday album titled ‘A New Thought For Christmas’ on Sept. 30th through Island Records.
From an Island Records press release:
What if someone made a Christmas album for everybody else? That's exactly what Melissa Etheridge has done. Working alongside her producer David Cole, Melissa’s songs celebrate a spiritual time of year where people can rejoice in their traditional, or non-traditional ways, and celebrate a winter solstice filled with love and peace.
This ten song album has newly composed songs such as “Ring The Bells,” “Light A Light,” and “It's Christmas Time” interspersed with traditional holiday standards such as “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and “Blue Christmas.”
This album begs the question, “If we’re all talking about peace on earth, what if we all concentrated on peace on earth and made it happen?"
Melissa Etheridge has been a core Island Records artist since the release of her critically-acclaimed eponymous debut, which led to an invitation to sing on the 1989 Grammy Awards broadcast.
For several years, Melissa’s popularity built around such memorable songs as “Bring Me Some Water” (from her debut), “No Souvenirs” (from 1989’s ‘Brave And Crazy’) and “Ain't It Heavy” (from 1992’s ‘Never Enough’), for which she won her first Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal. Melissa hit her commercial and artistic stride with her fourth album, 1993’s ‘Yes I Am,’ featuring the massive hits “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window,” a searing song of longing that brought her second Best Female Rock Grammy.
The album went six times platinum and spent more than two and a half years on the album chart. In 1995, she issued her highest charting album, ‘Your Little Secret’ (#6 on the Billboard Top 200), which included the hit single, “I Want to Come Over.”
Her astounding success led Melissa to receive the Songwriter of the Year honor at the ASCAP Pop Awards in 1996. Melissa continued to write, record, and tour throughout the ’90s and into the new millennium. In 2006, she was approached by Al Gore to write a song for his documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.
The result was “I Need To Wake Up” and in February 2007, she won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Melissa’s ‘Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled’ was repackaged to include the OSCAR® winning song. In April 2007, Melissa Etheridge received the distinguished ASCAP Founders Award honoring the anthemic power, compassion, and generosity of spirit of her music, and her enduring status as one of the greatest all-time female rock icons.
In September 2007, she released ‘The Awakening,’ which was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as #20 on its Top 50 albums of 2007.
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