There was a time when Life's Rich Pageant was my favourite R.E.M. album, perhaps my favourite album period. This wasn't merely because it felt like a hipper choice than Automatic for the People (although I won't deny that I enjoy feeling hipper than everyone else), but because I genuinely felt that Just a Touch and The Flowers of Guatemala were some of the best tracks in the R.E.M. pantheon.
I came back to LRP yesterday, and I must admit that it's not quite the world-beater I remember. The skyscraping solo in The Flowers of Guatemala (I swear to God, this was my #1 favourite song ever at one point)now sounds disappointingly prosaic, while Just a Touch - which used to sound like a thrilling rollercoaster ride of a song - has decayed into a slab of by-the-numbers rock 'n' roll filler.
I forgot my headphones this morning. At time of writing, I have already endured an entire morning without music (excluding the Titus Andronicus album that I was listening to in the car), and I'll still be here for a few hours yet.
Okay, okay, I realise that this is about as #firstworld as problems get - many people don't have the option of listening to music while they work, and I should be grateful to know that, as long as I remember my cans tomorrow morning, I can immerse myself in Damien Rice and The Hidden Cameras for the rest of the week.
On Monday, I suggested 10 lesser-known Christmas songs for people who are sick to death of Slade, Band Aid, Cliff Richard, and all the other music that's pretty much inescapable from Bonfire Night onwards.
But what about the people who don't want to listen to Christmas music at all? I've seen quite a few Grinchy Scrooges on my Facebook feed this week, all of them complaining that it's too early to break out the Christmas records, or that they simply hate Christmas in general and wish everyone would stop talking about it.
Well, for the benefit of those people, today's blog will concern itself with non-Christmas albums that are nevertheless perfect for this time of year. December is a rather lovely month, what with autumn gradually turning into winter, and it'd be a shame to completely abandon ourselves to seasonal cheese when there's so much other music that's ideal for the latter part of the year.
Without further ado, then, here are three albums for a non-festive December:
The Magic Position by Patrick Wolf
I only purchased this album last month, so it already held a distinct autumn/winter feel for me. Still, I'm pretty sure that The Magic Position would sound Decembery even in June, with its evocations of bonfires and rotting leaves and its sprawling array of warming sounds (including - yes - a Christmassy-sounding glockenspiel on the title track).
"And you were my husband, my wife, my heroine - now this is our final December."
Key Wintry Track: Bluebells, which seems to compare the slow decline of a romantic relationship to the Earth's slow descent into winter at the end of each year.
Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about Public Service Broadcasting's second album and what it might be like. I speculated that it might be - indeed, should be - a concept album, similar to their WW2-themed EP The War Room. But, y'know, longer.
I also recounted some suggestions from people on Twitter:
Oh, and to my delight, I actually received a response from the band shortly afterwards:
December is upon us, which means that it's now officially okay to listen to Christmas music. In fact, you're pretty much obliged to listen to Christmas music, so if you're not a big fan of Wizzard and Nat King Cole and Cliff fucking Richard, you may want to find something else with which to occupy your ears this December.
And that's where today's blog comes in. If you're bored of the same old Slade - because, let's face it, all Christmas CDs have basically the same tracklist - here are 10 lesser-known Yuletide classics that you might not have come across before. I've certainly never spotted any of these on a seasonal compilation, anyway.
1. A Christmas Duel - The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
A rollicking and gleefully hateful cheating song - and then some! Frankly, I'm not sure why Cyndi and The Hives haven't worked together since. I'd gladly listen to a whole album of this stuff.
2. A Christmas Carol - Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer ought to be everybody's songwriting hero. This is a characteristically sardonic take on the most wonderful profitable time of the year, recorded in an era when it wasn't yet clichéd to be cynical at Christmas (more on that later).
