Here's Your Christmas Album (Warner, 1999)

Bill Engvall is best known as the performer of the sarcastic country comedy song about stupid people, "Here's Your Sign." On this, his first Christmas album, he mixes some mildly funny comedy with some sappy sentimentality, contrived lyrics, and sterile singing and instrumentals to create an album that induces a few isolated smiles but is mostly just boring.

"Rudolph Got a DUI" is an entertaining concept, although the chorus of "ooh"s and "aah"s in the background is pretty grating. Engvall writes stand-up comedy well, but fails miserably at writing song lyrics. "Christmas in the Country Holiday," for instance, contains this banal lyric: "We may not give the finer things like mink coats and diamond rings but what we give comes from the heart, and that's okay."

"A Gift That She Don't Want" is mostly spoken, and as a result, Engvall fares better here than on other songs. Similarly, "Here's Your Sign Christmas" is a mostly spoken redux of Engvall's one hit, and it's pretty entertaining.

Engvall should stick to stand-up comedy and avoid country music.