Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Singers we met on The Voice continue to brighten the holidays with their own versions of Christmas classics.

New holiday music is out from Payton Lamar, Lex Land, Jessica Childress, Whitney Fenimore and Brother Bird (aka Caroline Glaser).

Here’s a look at each of those releases. The links take you to the releases on Apple Music. Or you can check out the Spotify snippets below.

* Payton Lamar, fresh off her appearance on Season 19, released a four-song collection of Christmas covers called “A Colorful Christmas.” And, as a special bonus, there’s a separate “Christmas Mashup,” featuring some of her friends from the show — Casmé, Lain Roy, Kelsie Watts, Emmalee, Van Andrew and Bailey Hyneman. There’s also a YouTube video for that performance.

* Jessica Childress from Season 4 released a cover of “Deck the Halls.” Writes Jessica: “Since 2020 insists on doing the most, I figured I will too and do something I’ve never done before and release a song for the holidays! This song was never supposed to see the light of day. It’s quite literally a one-take freestyle of me trying to figure out a different arrangement for this song so we could pitch it for holiday syncs – and that’s how it stuck.” Jessica recently released an EP called “I’m Learning” and the fabulous lead single “Walk With Me” is featured in the film “Princess of the Row.”

* Whitney Fenimore from Season 13 released a holiday cover of “Silver Bells” on Friday. “Strange times trying to make music right now, but so thankful we were able to find a way to make it happen,” she writes on Instagram in a post that includes a photo of a masked Whitney accompanied by four masked colleagues. Will Pellerin provides a vocal assist with “Silver Bells,” former Voice contestant Michael Knight co-produced and played guitar and drums.

* Lex Land from Season 2 released “All I Want for Christmas (is My Birthday)” because, hey, Dec. 25 is her birthday. And Lex is celebrating right through Christmas with daily music live streams at 11:30 a.m. eastern time. Head for her Facebook page for details. Honestly, I’m a little confused over whether this is a new release or not. It showed up in my Spotify Release Radar. But it’s also dated 2019 on that site.

* Brother Bird, aka Caroline Glaser (aka Swon) from Season 4, released a cover of “White Christmas.” Writes Caroline on social media: “Hope it offers up a little tranquility to this very bizarre/chaotic holiday season we’re having.” Last month, Caroline released “Stay Down,” the first track from an upcoming Brother Bird album.