tRACK LISTING

1. Christmas Means So Much
2. If Santa’s Real (Single released 22nd November 2024)
3. It Has Got to Feel Like Christmas
4. All I Need is You
5. Back for Christmas
6. Make My Christmas Dream Come True
7. A Very Merry Tudor Christmas
8. My Winter Love
9. I’m Christmasing With You (Single released 18th November 2024)

Christmas in July was also included on the CD version of the album but was not released to streaming platforms.

Credits
All Tracks recorded at Planet Uche, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
All lyrics by RoB Ward
All music by RoB Ward and Uche Eke
Backing Vocals: Uche Eke

Album streaming release date: 29th November 2024.
CD singles released:
November 2009: Christmas Means So Much / Mind in Mind / I'll Treat You Right
November 2010: Make My Christmas Dream Come True / All I Need Is You
November 2011: If Santa's Real / It Has Got to Feel Like Christmas

STREAMING LINKS

Luxury Boyfriend is available to listen to on all streaming channels:

VIDEO VAULT

There are currently no videos linked to this album.

REVIEW

We all know and love Christmas and part of its magic is that it paradoxically combines traditions steeped in history with refreshing new surprises each year it comes round - and so it is with this festive album from RoB. We are given what we might expect from a Christmas album but are, at the same time, treated to a different perspective on the celebration that, to all of us, means so much.​

We hear an album which pays due reverence to all the Christmas traditions: the familiar Yuletide jingles and melodies as in A Very Merry Tudor Christmas, It has Got to Feel Like Christmas and I'm Christmasing With You, the traditional Christmas symbols (Santa, the fairy lights, the snowflakes, the crackers, the mistletoe and many more), the religious undertones heard in A Very Merry Tudor Christmas and My Winter Love, the giving of presents in most of the songs and the giving of oneself and one's love alongside the overriding call to party and have fun.

​We hear an album which makes the listener think afresh about Christmas: its all-year round appeal as in Christmas Means So Much and Christmas in July, the need to be around others at this essentially convivial season - All I Need Is You and Back for Christmas for example, and indeed acknowledgement of the fact that Christmas can be a sad time for some: "A tiny tear", "A candle's ember that fades too soon".​

Yet again we see RoB the craftsman, sequence his songs to skilfully take us from the joyful Christmas Means So Much, to the pensive If Santa's Real, to the plaintive All I Need is You, to the baroque A Very Merry Tudor Christmas, to the romantic My Winter Love and ending with the "let's have a party" style of I'm Christmasing With You.

​So many themes, so many musical styles, so many twists and turns (so typical of all of RoB's albums). Does this mean that we are left in a confused, disparate state? Certainly not - the central message permeates the whole album: Christmas, like life, is there for the taking - it is up to us to join in with others to give and to receive "cos you're caring and sharing", to dream "I'm not too old for dreaming", "make my Christmas dream come true", to be near those we love "I want you next to me" "and I'll hold you oh so tightly", to find the fun side of ourselves, to celebrate "It's party time and the fun's begun".

This album is exactly that, a celebration "Sing Hallelujah, sing with me" of a special day "It's not just any other day" which means so much to us all - and to repeat the final few words RoB sings to us on his festive album : "Merry Christmas Everybody!"
!"

LORENZO FARINA