Rosie O'Donnell

ANOTHER ROSE CHRISTMAS

(Columbia)

The second in a series of Christmas releases commissioned by talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, Another Rosie Christmas follows the formula of its enormously successful predecessor, A Rosie Christmas, by enlisting an impressive array of teen-skewed pop acts to sing the usual assortment of seasonal tunes. The catch is that on almost every track Rosie sings too. Whether providing backing vocals, trading verses, or merely supplying mindless banter during the fadeout, she is inescapable. O'Donnell's serviceable yet obtrusive vocals turn even the good tracks (Jessica Simpson's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," and "Winter Wonderland," on which Macy Gray channels Louis Armstrong) into something cheesy, and they make the bad tracks unbearable -- Ricky Martin's "Ay, Ay, Ay It's Christmas" and Barry Manilow's "Because It's Christmas (For All the Children)" are surely on the seasonal playlist in Hell this year. Only on "Merry Christmas from the Family," where the Dixie Chicks overdo their trademarked white-trash twinkle, does Rosie actually seem to be helping. Not since Oprah sang her own theme song has a talk-show host been so convinced of her own infallibility. O'Donnell's ubiquity turns what could have been another respectably bad Christmas album into a testament to superstar ego run amok.

-- Allison Stewart