There’s a compelling argument that we’ve had enough Christmas songs to last a lifetime and don’t need any more. But this one has that same seasonal sense of sadness and nostalgia as Fairytale Of New York.

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This is utterly heartbreaking. Once heard, never forgotten: Candi Staton’s first-hand memory of one of the worst racist terror incidents in US history, in which four little girls lost their lives.

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Lots of good films this year, and a massive revival in cinema receipts thanks largely to an old-fashioned head-to-head with Barbenheimer over the summer. And I’ve just noticed that five of my top ten have female directors, which must mean #MeToo has had some sort of impact in cinema.

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Gotta confess it took me a long while to take Olivia Rodrigo seriously. First there was her background as a Disney princess in High School Musical. Then there was her phenomenal pop success.

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Brian Auger is a name that rings a distant bell to me but ought to ring a lot louder. He’s a bit of a zelig, turning up with his Hammond organ in the unlikeliest places ever since the ’60s. Not just his organ either.

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Devon Ross is an American multi-hyphenate: model turned actor turned musician – not just an MTA but an ATM.

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Here’s something weird and appropriately trippy from Wiltshire producer DJ Emma, celebrating the invention of LSD – or, to be specific, the world’s first acid trip.

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Isabella Lovestory is a trailblazing new reggaeton star from Honduras, via Canada, and this is her self-styled “bad bitch anthem” called Fuetazo.

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Here’s an autumn playlist to warm the cockles of the ear: from obscure ’70s rock to pioneering ’80s funk, first wave hip-hop and New Wave country, free jazz and doom folk, dub, blues and even some prog – plus  tributes to those we lost in November, Shane MacGowan and Killing Joke’s Geordie Walker.

With a jazz background, a love of 1970s soft rock and a voice like Thom Yorke, former Midlake front man Tim Smith has always been hard to pigeonhole. A decade after quitting the band, the famously perfectionist Smith releases his first album as Harp – a new project with his wife, Kathi Zung.

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