A perfect martini-and-mistletoe combo, Christmas Cocktails will gaily seduce you with its bevy of nostalgic and occasionally campy holiday fare. Vocal vixens Peggy Lee, Julie London (her "I'd Like You for Christmas" will melt the ice cubes in your fridge), Kay Starr and Nancy Wilson join forces with perennial crooners such as Lou Rawls, Dean Martin and the immortal Nat "King" Cole, along with a handful of instrumental big-band numbers and odd, at times cheese-ball-shaped jazz organ pieces from Jimmy McGriff and the flammable Eddie Dundstedter, among others. But the essential item that makes plunking down your pelts for this very chi-chi set is none other than Billy May's lovably kitschy workout called "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo"-it's a scream. The package comes complete with its own cocktail minimanual and the recipes for Hot Toddys and Hot Tom and Jerrys. Garishly retro and naughtily nostalgic, this kind of slinky Christmas gift should probably be illegal in many prudish countries. -Martin Keller.

Orange of skin and furry of chest, Tom Jones has been wowing the crowds since he first walked away from the green, green grass of his Welsh home and into the hearts of housewives the world over. Jones rode the 1990s kitsch revival and, with the release of 1999's Reload, proved himself one of the music industry's most powerful and entertaining survivors. A collection of duets and collaborations with various contemporary stars of pop, rock and indie music (the Stereophonics, the Cardigans, Cerys from Catatonia and Robbie Williams, to name a few), Reload put Tom Jones back on the musical map for a whole new generation of music fans. Highlights here include his cover of Portishead's "All Mine" with the Divine Comedy, his exuberant take on "Mama Told Me Not To Come" with the Stereophonics and the playful "Are You Gonna Go My Way" with Robbie Williams. -Ted Kord.

Released in the glow of Wings' biggest and best album, Band On The Run, Venus & Mars found Paul McCartney in his element-a working rock star, being screamed at again, cheerfully riding the last rays of his youth. Adulation always brought the best out of him, and Venus & Mars is nearly the equal of its more lauded predecessor. McCartney never strays from his favourite themes (sex, drugs, rock & roll and marriage), but his confidence is audibly high, mixing gorgeous, airy production numbers such as "Listen To What The Man Said" and "Letting Go" with the ribald and hilarious. "Rock Show" matches The Who's "Long Live Rock" as the finest and funniest of those self-celebratory Seventies stomps. McCartney's effortless marshalling of melody and arrangement hoists the blander material out of trouble, and the best stuff's powered by genuine, rediscovered verve. Facile and frivolous, but not at all bad. And their version of the "Crossroads" theme tune is wicked. -Taylor Parkes.

It's easy to understand why Nine Inch Nails became the industrial band to break out of the techno ghetto and win a larger audience. Trent Reznor, who records the NIN albums almost entirely by himself (although he tours with a full band), tries very hard to pass himself off as an angry young man, but underneath the angst-ridden lyrics, pounding synths, and grating guitars is an irrepressible pop sensibility. On the second full-length NIN album, The Downward Spiral, Reznor builds his constructions of noise and gloom around warm, fuzzy melodies. On the album's first single, "March of the Pigs," for example, Reznor screams about swine lined up for slaughter amid guitars screeching in pain. Suddenly the guitars fall away to reveal the sensually throbbing rhythm track below; then that falls away to reveal a vocal-and-piano track that's as catchy as anything by Elton John. Because Reznor has a better handle on dynamics now, the melodic core is more obvious than ever. -Geoffrey Himes.

The fifth album from the Detroit favourites, Get Behind Me Satan, finds stage siblings Jack and Meg White jerking the reins and steering The White Stripes into virgin territory. Gone is the maximal 70s rock sound that powered Elephant, cuts like "Seven Nation Army", replaced by a new emphasis on piano, acoustic guitar, and on numbers like "My Doorbell" and "Blue Orchid", the creeping - and very welcome - influence of Stax soul, classic R&B and disco. Which isn't to say the Stripes have left behind their desire for the sort of impulsive, raw garage-rock that defined earlier albums like De Stijl: "Instinct Blues", in particular, will hit you like a shot of old Bourbon. It's just that by this stage in the Stripes' career, they're most interesting when they're making music that sounds like nothing or no-one else. Listen out, then, for "The Nurse" - a minimal wisp of marimba, piano and seed-shaker interrupted by spasmodic, brutal guitar-drums crashes - or the dainty, Meg-sung "Passive Manipulation", which further muddies the waters of this most complicated of relationships: "Women, listen to your mothers," sings Meg, with an endearing falter, "Don't just succumb to the wishes of your brothers". All of which adds up to another bemusing, but brilliant family album from the White Stripes. -Louis Pattison.

After releasing "Electricity" in 1979, OMD quickly became one of the more influential electro-pop bands to emerge from England. While the premise of a singing synthesizer duo may now be a fairly conventional concept, Andy McClusky and Paul Humphreys had very few role models when they first developed their unusual style. This package pulls together two full decades of OMD's distinctive pop craftsmanship. From the early sounds of "Enola Gay" to radio classics like "Joan of Arc" and "Souvenir", OMD's polished, dramatic readings influenced everyone from Depeche Mode to the Pet Shop Boys. Late-1980s tunes like "If You Leave" and "(Forever) Live and Die" round out this collection. While not displaying all the more offbeat aspects of OMD's music, The Best of Omd certainly delivers the hits. -Mitch Myers.

The melding of South African styles and Simon's trademark sensibility made for one of the most intriguing albums-not to mention commercial hits-of the 1980s. At once lively, thoughtful, gorgeous, and tough, Graceland acknowledges splits both in South Africa's social fabric and in Simon's personal life (the title track is a clear descendant of the earlier "Hearts and Bones", a song about the singer- songwriter's brief marriage to Carrie Fisher). Humour is hardly absent from the mix, though; witness the addled "I Know What I Know" and the fable-like "You Can Call Me Al". -Rickey Wright.

Guitar hero Bonamassa may have dropped the "Smokin'" prefix from his performing name that he carried as a teenager, but he still specialises in superheated fret work. And for him, the faster it is, the better. Bonamassa sought to showcase the "heavier side of blues" on his fourth studio recording, emphasizing the approach used by the classic English blues-rockers. And he does just that with a hyperactive "Travellin' South" that Ten Years After would have been proud to claim and a hard-edged remake of the B. B. King hit "Never Make Your Move Too Soon". The title track, a Blind Faith favourite, is transformed into a frenetic live jam while Lowell Fulson's "Reconsider Baby", a staple of Bonamassa's live show, is given an extended workout and features some of his most potent blues licks. Sometimes Bonamassa is in too much of a hurry for his own good, but his penchant for speed works especially well on a couple of instrumentals. He races through "Revenge of the 10 Gallon Hat", a country-flavoured tribute to mentor Danny Gatton, and the rapid-fire, Al Di Meola-influenced closer "Faux Mantini. " -Michael Point.

The beginning of Phil Collins's massively successful solo career coincided with the discord in his first marriage, turning Face Value into a compelling churn of emotions, from the utter disgust of "In the Air Tonight" (where Collins dryly comments, "If you told me you were drowning / I would not lend a hand") to the delight he feels in exploring a new relationship ("This Must Be Love"). Collins' thundering drums and punchy horn arrangements-a close approximation of Earth, Wind & Fire's sound, actually-clicked with the public, turning "I Missed Again" and "In the Air Tonight" into Top 20 singles and launching Collins' career as one of the biggest and most unlikely stars of the 1980s. -Daniel Durchholz.

A judiciously-selected two-CD compendium of Peter Gabriel's finest moments, Hit offers a far more generous windfall than can be found on the only previous Peter Gabriel best-of selection, the 1990 Shaking the Tree. The devil, after all, is in the detail, particularly on the second disc (self-deprecatingly entitled "Miss"), which really traverses the whole gamut of Peter Gabriel's globally-visioned artistry. It includes recent soundtrack work (the haunting "Cloudless" from Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence), material from 2002's sterling Up ("Signal To Noise", featuring a compelling vocal from the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and some ominous string arrangements, really does sound like a thinking man's Massive Attack) and goes right back to that fourth album when marrying the reticence of cold, synthesised new wave with insistent African percussion seemed like a good idea (it was). The first disc-including the MTV smash "Sledgehammer", anti-apartheid war cry "Biko", "Big Time" (interesting how the styles of Gabriel and his former group Genesis seem to converge at this time) and "Games Without Frontiers"-really speaks for itself, although with hindsight it seems the single-buying public-at-large had a particular taste for a certain kind of Peter Gabriel record. Universally excellent throughout, the collection is rendered even more desirable by the inclusion of three previously unreleased tracks: a live rendition of "Downside Up", a shorter version of "Blood of Eden" and "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", latterly included on a video game and initially earmarked for the Up album but jettisoned at the last minute. -Kevin Maidment.

One Hot Minute was the first and only album to feature the talents of guitarist Dave Navarro, formerly of Jane's Addiction. A difficult sixth album, especially after the phenomenal success of Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik; in true form, the band beats a p-funk groove, be it bittersweet ballad or abrasive punk. More progressive than their previous offerings, songs like "One Big Mob" and "Warped" blur the fine line between frenetic power-metal and intense psychedelia. At the quieter end of this infinitely coloured spectrum are the signature ballads for which they are so revered and "My Friends" does the job perfectly. One Hot Minute has got everything a Chili Peppers record should need and then some, as their music grows in all manner of wondrous new directions. -David Trueman.