Music Spotlight by Daragh Mulligan

Have Yourself A Musical Little Christmas

Maybe it’s me getting old, but it seems like that the past 12 months have been the quickest year ever. It only seems like yesterday when I was suggesting CDs for you to listen to on your Spring walk to work or as background music for hazy Summer barbeques – did summer actually happen?

Now we find ourselves plummeted into cold dark evenings as Winter takes its full grip and here we are now in December. And December means what? IT’S CHRISSSSTMASSS! (That’s the obligatory Slade/ Christmas reference covered.)

Ah, Christmas... that wonderful time where kids swear blindly to Santy that they’ve been good all year round in return for a PS3 with Fifa 2008, but it’s also it’s a time that fills normal steady folk with fear and dread due to one thing – present shopping.

Receiving music you love as a present really is an example of ‘a gift that keeps on giving’, as you’ll continue to enjoy that gift forever unlike that scarf Auntie Nellie knitted you that you still haven’t worn!

So this month's column is a little different and I hope I may be of assistance to some of you with some suggestions for CDs that you can buy as presents.

Firstly a golden rule: don’t buy Christmas CDs as presents. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Christmas compilations as much as the next wearer of reindeer-jumpers but those CDs are to be played in the run up to Christmas and not after Christmas.

For your Dad, Uncle or older brother
The Eagles: Long Road Out of Town (2XCD set).
The purveyors of the country/ rock crossover are back for their first studio album since 1979, giving him loads to sing along to in the car, as it's great value, a double album for the price of a single album.

For your Mam or Auntie
Andrea Bocelli: Vivere
All the greatest hits are here from the man who’s taken up the late Pavarottis baton of breaking down the ‘stuffy’ stereotype that surrounds opera. It’ll become her ‘preparing Sunday dinner’ soundtrack.

For your brother
Led Zeppelin: Mothership
Another greatest hits collection here, but it includes some of the most important rock music of the past 30 odd years and it’s music that every bloke should have in their collection, if only just to hear how much this band influenced rock music for the past two decades.

For your sister
Britney Spears: Blackout
The media can say what they like about her, but the music critics reckon this is her best album to date and, if you believe what you read about Britney's drinking, the album title is probably written from personal experience. But hey, it’s Britney and EVERY girl has sung Hit Me Baby One More Time in her bedroom at one stage haven’t they? Girls, get your hair brushes to the ready for this one.

Hopefully, I've given you some suggestions that might ease your pending shopping headache and allows you to cross a name off your 'to get' list.

Now all that leaves me to do, is to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year! Altogether now: "SO HERE IT IS, MERRY CHRISTMAS..." Darragh Mulligan

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