Okay, I’m going to tell you right now that I am NOT a music critic (well, duh!), so I actually have no idea what I am supposed to write an album review about..so this is just going to be what I liked/hated about it, and then I’m just gonna waffle on for a page or so.

When I first heard that Hanson were releasing an Album called ‘Snowed In’, I was really happy. I figured it would be just like MON, maybe even better. About a month later, I read a list of tracks and realised that they were all about Christmas. I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed then. I think that as a general rule, teen pop bands should not release Christmas albums. Leave that to Cliff Richard and that lot. However, I managed to console myself with the idea that it WAS Hanson, and if anyone could make a Christmas album worth buying, it was them. So I dutifully ordered my copy, and when it arrived, I (surprisingly enough) put it into my cd player. And I was pleasantly surprised. Taylor actually made ‘Merry Christmas Baby’ sound good! But I have to say, I was still disappointed. Middle Of Nowhere is pretty hard to beat in my eyes, and this album just didn’t do it.

First I want to talk about the appearance of the CD. I absolutely ADORE the actual disc itself. For some reason, ever since I got the ‘Friends’ soundtrack, which has a coffee cup printed on it, I fell in love with discs that have graphics on them. And Snowed In beats them all. I mean, the ‘H’ on MON was cute, but this one…If you haven't seen it, it has the three guys lying on a pile of snow, sort of in a circle around the hole in the middle. Just gorgeous, sweetie. The cover slip is pretty cute, too. Love the orangey coloured picture….Ike looks so gorgeous!

Now I’m going to tell you what I think of the tracks one by one…..not all of them, because I didn’t really have much to say about a lot of them….just my favourite ones, and also the ones that they wrote themselves…..

Merry Christmas Baby: Taylor sings lead on this track, and does a pretty good job of it, too. But, if anyone can tell me what exactly it is that he says after the ‘yeah!’ at the start, I would greatly appreciate it. It’s a weird sort of, ‘unyah!’ noise. I think it was a pretty good song to use as the opener, and I even wonder, if they’re putting out singles from this album, if this might be one of them… The way they use their voices is good, too, and all round, this is one of the best tracks, in my opinion.

What Christmas Means To Me:Well, I think I mentioned on the index that I love this song, but I’m going to do it again. I LOVE this song! And, I have no idea why I like it so much. But I do. Zac sings lead, and does it soooo well. It makes you think ‘how old is he?’. There isn’t really much else I want to say about it, so…….

Little Saint Nick:Ike sings lead in this one, but it sounds a lot different from ‘At Christmas’, which he also sings lead in. His voice sounds sort of rougher - hard to explain. Anyhoo, it’s one of those tracks on an album that just sort of blends into the background….the one that you just sort of listen to and hum to, but you don’t think it’s anything special……

At ChristmasIke also sings lead in this one……and if you’ve heard it, you would most definitely know about it. He sounds so good on it, it really shows off his voice. Makes you think if he might be the best singer of the three…… They wrote this one themselves, so it’s a good thing it’s one of the best tracks on the album. It’s really slow, and just beautiful.

Christmas Time: Another really nice one. They wrote this one themselves, and it’s really quite good. Nice lyrics, nice tune, nice everything. One of the better of the tracks. An all round good song.

Everybody knows the Claus: They wrote this one too, I’m sad to say. I didn’t like this song at all. I won’t say hate, because the song itself is okay, but the lyrics……just shoot me already. If you haven’t read them, and you’re not getting the album, then don’t. They are really quite sad. The main reason of the song, as far as I can tell, is to say that Santa has a bad side, that you haven’t seen before, and then it just goes on about how you shouldn’t ‘take a cookie off of that pan/you don’t want to mess with this man". Lovely vision of Santa there. BUT, if you don’t listen too hard, you sort of can’t hear the lyrics, so it’s not so bad.

White Christmas:This one is supposed to be on an old record player, so it’s got this scratchy-background thing going. Which is really effective. They sing it a cappella, and they sound very good. At the very end, it has Mackie, or some other kid, talking to Isaac about the supposed record player. Too cute!

Well, that’s it. My review (well, sort of) of Snowed In. I think it’s only really a must-buy for a Hanson fan.. If someone doesn’t know if they’d like them, then they should definitely get Middle Of Nowhere, because, in my opinion, it is much, much better. Anyhoo, Thank you for listening to me babble.