Stars - a Christmas compilation

If Apple preload all iPhones with Stars music fans will have the best Christmas ever.

A mate of mine reckons Woah Melodic’s Christmas Stars is the best Christmas single since Low’s Just Like Christmas. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it certainly draws on the ghost of Paul McCartney’s festive past to wonderful effect.

I lean towards Scrabbel’s Hiding In The Snow - glacial synths, minor chords, baroque pop - as this compilation’s killer tune. And then there’s White Town offering spectral Pet Shop Boys balladry in Say You’ll Be Home For Christmas. Jyoti, if you’ve been writing songs this good in the last 20 years, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. This is marvellous.

Bill Botting takes us on a trip in the southern summer, winds the windows down, snaps on the car radio’s FM soft rock dial and names pretty much everyone in England he was ever in a band with. In pockets of east London there are musicians wiping away their tears. Rightly so.

Pop quiz question: does Darren Hayman, as he claims on his festive jangleathon, really have cousins called Terry and Julie or is he channelling The Kinks? It doesn’t matter. You’ll likely be grinning too much to worry about it. Thanks to all these musical Santas for sprinkling their magical fairy dust on their songs.