Various Artists - A Very Cherry Christmas (Cherryade) 01/12/2008

T: We'll have to give praise where it's due, as those fine folk at Cherryade are the first ones of 2008 to bother sending us anything for Christmas. Always entertaining, their selections range from the alarmingly twee to the downright confusing, but somehow always seem to keep that ethic of originality intact. Some of these tunes make you laugh (for example the total trashing of Mariah Carey's perennial "All I Want For Christmas Is You") and some of them just make you want to party like it was 1999. Although having said that, the party I had in 1999 was shit.

N: Or put another way, Cherryade Music's Annual Christmas Massacre, with songs both original and somewhat second hand. Put it this way, don't stop your kids from experimenting vocally on Christmas Day, they could well prove to be your retirement pension, now that the bottom has fallen out of the economy.

T: Hmmm....I wouldn't bet my house on this compilation making any money, to be honest, but it's tremendous fun. I think they should have called it "Now It's Christmas Kids, It's Snowing, Glory At Yuletide".

N: How immature. Do you really think I can't see what you've done there with the first letters of each word? Bastard! 7/10

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Tom Jones - 24 Hours (Parlophone) 01/12/2008

N: King of the velvet codpiece...

T: It might sound a strange thing to say, but this sounds exactly like Tom Jones. Do you understand what I mean? Ok, he's trying his damndest to sound like Talking Heads on the album's opening track "I'm Alive", but the fact is, it's got Sir Tom stamped all over it. Then he reverts back to his old sixties persona for "If He Should Ever Leave You". Um, Nick...I don't think I've ever seen him in a velvet codpiece (thankfully) - do you know something I don't?

N: Not really, but I wouldn't be surprised. That feeling of utter luxury next to his...

T: ENOUGH! Please!!!

N: I don't think we could - or even should - talk ill of this national treasure.

T: Not even if he put out a record of himself farting?

N: I think, before even that happened, the record company would have something to say, and practise their own form of censorship.

T: Pah, what substance do record companies hold these days anyway?

N: Good point. But we are reliant on what they send us.

T: Bearing this in mind, I guess he at least made our reviews section this Christmas, unlike the 24 other CDs we binned.

N: Not exactly binned, but deemed too terrible to even share with our readers. Anyway Tom Jones, I am in fact surprised he's still with us. That pacemaker is obviously doing its job.

T: You don't want to review the Whigfield comeback album then?

N: Now actually that WOULD be something worth talking about (irony). 7/10

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