TELEVISION

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Holiday albums are as traditional in style as Christmas trees themselves. The baubles may vary from year to year, but underneath is the same old evergreen. The performers who do the decorating rarely change either. Whether listeners' tastes favor Buck Owens or Mahalia Jackson, Perry Como or the Philadelphia Orchestra, this year as always, they are sure to find an album by their favorite.

One variation on this pattern being tested by a few record companies is the sampler album. SOUL CHRISTMAS (Atco) presents pulsating, sometimes profane celebrations of the season by the late Otis Redding, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke and kindred swingers; some listeners may feel that a groovy Jingle Bells by Booker T. & the MGs is worth all the strained gimmickry of the other selections.

THE BEST OF CHRISTMAS (Capitol) is a two-disk set that brings together such diverse pop staples as Bing Crosby, Glen Campbell and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony. Nat King Cole's classic version of Christmas Song and Marlene Dietrich's gloriously campy Little Drummer Boy (in German) both are as richly seasoned as they are seasonal. On the whole, both albums are for listeners who want variety at all costs—since the cost in musical unevenness is high. More successful are three albums that balance standardized material with fresh, cohesive treatments:

SWINGLE: SINGERS: CHRISTMASTIME (Philips). Leader-Arranger Ward Swingle's wordless vocal octet deck 25 traditional tunes with sprung rhythms, piquant harmonies, a. melodic lines that sound like a collaboration of Monteverdi and Miles Davis. The group's interpretations are sometimes more intriguing than the themes themselves, as in Silent Night or We Three Kings. Still, their singing can be appropriately straightforward; Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming is a harmonic roundup that ends up back in the old chorale.

RITA FORD'S MUSIC BOXES: THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS (Columbia) is not only a sonic treat for stereo buffs but also a revelation for listeners who think of music boxes merely as gewgaws for the coffee table. These 19th century music boxes, all owned by the Manhattan Collector and Dealer Rita Ford, are ornate contraptions, and the arrangements they play are surprisingly complete.

DELLER CONSORT: FROM HEAVEN ABOVE (Victrola). On one side of this delightful release, the ensemble headed by Countertenor Alfred Deller lends its finely shaded phrasing and crystalline texture to songs like There Is No Rose and The Coventry Carol. Interspersed are other old carols, in spare, sprightly settings by Composer Carl Orff, for girls' choir, strings, recorders and percussion. The second side contains four baroque Christmas compositions including Buxtehude's lilting In Dulci Jubilo, which is more familiar, but hardly more pleasing, in various settings by Bach.

CINEMA

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Stanley Kubrick charts the history and future of man in this dazzling voyage through the cosmos of imagination.

THE FIREMEN'S BALL. Director Milos Forman (Loves of a Blonde) has fashioned a sharp parody-fable from this slight and funny anecdote about a group of Czech firemen who stage a ball to honor their retiring chief.