It happens like this: You are in charge of a major teen-pop act who can sell anything with their face or voice on it, be it training bras, shaving cream, or caskets. You have a week off in the summer from touring.
Do you let the talent go home and sleep in their own beds or do you shove them in the studio to sing "Silent Night" and other public-domain holiday songs, release a Christmas album in October which sells way too many copies considering the lack of work that goes into it?
You tell your wife to spring for the Lexus and tell the pool guys to break ground on Friday. Of course you make the Christmas album.
It's a rite of passage for every Donnie, Justin, Jessica or Britney who lands on the cover of Bop or, somewhere down the line, Maxim.
98 Degrees, This Christmas
98 Degrees were the Beatles to LFO's Rolling Stones, or something. Remember Nick Lachey? He ruined Jessica Simpson for all men who came after him. More on her later...
