The year is pretty much done. You’ve driven home for Christmas. Now you need seasonal listening that won’t tip you over the edge before December 25th.

This year Morecambe’s best band The Heartbreaks – rising phoenix-like from their #4 stat on HERO 10‘s contributor’s page, let’s quell the irony – called in the strings and maxed-out their anthems Hand on Heart (as well as Jealous, Don’t You Know) in soul-wringing pathos. Record Store Day saw the 7″-only What Are You Doing Fool? recorded with Mr Edwyn Collins, featuring the solid-gold bait ‘Edwyn, you’re so unkiiiind’, backed by a cover of Orange Juice’s Untitled Melody on the flipside. Then it was into the studio with Dave Eringa to lay down the impending third album – sorry if we’ve broken an info embargo (notsorry) – before two intimate November shows to preview new material, in London and Manchester. The latter, a home gig ended in stage invasion, with hearts sung out and a few damaged walls. Ahead of the new album, you can download ¡No Pasarán! for free.

Looking forward to two shows in January – after menswear, so we’ll see you there – frontman and occasional HERO contributor Matthew Whitehouse rose to the challenge of compiling an alternative festive playlist for us.

Merry Christmas You Suckers by  Paddy Roberts
That old festive season is with us again and so, to kick things off, a wry little number by South African divorce lawyer, club pianist and airline pilot, Paddy Roberts.

Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses
Standout track on the compilation A Christmas Record released by New York label Ze in 1988, this song was later covered by the Spice Girls as B-side to their third best ballad, Goodbye.

Ding Dong, Ding Dong by George Harrison
A case of laryngitis (as well as a shitload of brandy and cocaine) explains the rather coarse vocal on Harrison’s cynical attempt to match the seasonal chart success of Slade and Wizzard. It was twenty-five years before Ringo Starr saved Harrison from the ignominy of the Worst Solo Beatle Christmas song by releasing the unspeakably bad I Wanna Be Santa Claus in 1999.

Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight) by The Ramones
Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Marky apply their trademark 1-4-5 chord progression to descriptions of sugar-plum fairies and children tucked in their beds. Ho! Ho! Let’s Go.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas by Gayla Peevey
Following a successful – if, frankly, a little ill thought out – campaign by a local promoter, ten-year-old Peevey actually did receive a hippopotamus for Christmas in 1953. Thankfully, she donated to the Oklahoma City Zoo where it lived for nearly 50 years without ever having to listen to the record again.

Homo Christmas by Pansy Division
San Francisco queercore group Pansy Division make it clear it isn’t socks that they want, on the B-side of this Lookout! Records 7-inch.

Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town by Joseph Spence
At this point in the impressions round, we ask Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence to do an impression via the gift of club singing. We really wanna hear that finger picking.

Space Christmas by Shonen Knife
The first of two Japanese releases now; Kurt Cobain favourites Shonen Knife with a song about wanting a spaceship for Christmas. Obviously.

Silent Night by Pizzicato Five
And here’s Pizzacato Five with a minimalist version of Silent Night. In fact, Pizzacato Five are so minimalist there are only three of them.

White Christmas by Otis Redding
Here, Otis Redding takes the best-selling single of all time, customises in it in his own inimitable style, and somehow makes all other versions pale in comparison. Stunning.

Christmas in Hollis by Run DMC
“Chillin’ and coolin’ just like a snowman”. ‘Nuff said really.

Christmas Calling by Valerie Masters
Next, a song produced by Joe Meek in his Holloway Road home studio with guitar from Richie Blackmore and a whole lotta reverberation from the bathroom walls.

Monster’s Holiday by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett
Follow-up to Monster Mash in which Frankenstein, Janos, Igor, Wolfman and Drac plan to rob Santa’s sleigh. In 2005, Pickett released Climate Mash, a protest against the U.S. government’s inaction towards global warming delivered in the style of Boris Karloff.

To Heck With Ole Santa Claus by Loretta Lynn
From the artist with the most banned songs in Country music, a track about burning Santa Claus to death.

Santa’s Doing the Horizontal Twist by Kay Martin & Her Body Guards
R-Rated nightclub act Kay Martin & Her Body Guards wishing you A Very Happy XXX-Mas.

Feliz Navidad by El Vez
Public Image Limited-sampling cover of Jose Feliciano’s 1968 hit Feliz Navidad by the self proclaimed “Mexican Elvis”. Snow way, José, I hear you cry! Yes way. Yes.

Jingle Bells by The Singing Dogs
The pitch-shifting work of Carl Weismann, a Danish ornithologist whose field recordings were often ruined by angry barks as he was chased from private property by guard dogs. A genuinely pioneering release and, for many listeners in 1955, the first music they had heard that could exist solely as a recording and not as a live performance.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by The Heartbreaks
And finally, here’s an above average cover of the Phil Spector produced Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by some band or other called The Heartbreaks. Thanks for listening and Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

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