Soundbites: Last-minute Christmas gift ideas

What music will Santa bring you this Christmas?

If you're still fretting over those last-minute Christmas presents (or you think you'll be getting music vouchers from Santa and don't know which albums to buy), help is at hand.

Of course you could go for the obvious present material - think Adele, Enya or Sol3 Mio - or you could encourage those blighters who for some reason release Christmas albums, including Michael Bublé and Kylie Minogue, but will they really love it?

Wouldn't they prefer Justin Bieber's pop-tastic Purpose? Or Coldplay's energetic new album A Head Full of Dreams?

If that's not to their taste what about UMO's Multi-Love, Fat Freddy's Drop's Bays or Grimes' Art Angels?

And you can't go wrong with Tame Impala's Currents, the Weeknd's Beauty Behind The Madness or Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly.

For someone really special you could splash out on the five-CD, two-LP, one-DVD Deluxe Edition of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, although the 1992 compilation 25 Years - The Chain would make an equally pleasing gift.

Or if none of those appeals, what about the gift of live music? Upcoming festivals include Laneway, Womad, Auckland City Limits and Raggamuffin, while plenty of top bands will be gigging on the summer circuit.

Revisit a classic

If you haven't dug out your copy of The Best Christmas Album in the World ... Ever yet what have you been doing?

The yuletide classic is only socially acceptable listening for but a few weeks a year ... and you're running out of time.

From John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War is Over) to Bing and David's Little Drummer Boy, the compilation is just what you need to get you and those around you into the festive spirit.

Frank Kelly's hilarious Christmas Countdown (Twelve Days of Christmas) is great fun, as is the Royal Guardsmen's Snoopy's Christmas, and it wouldn't be Christmas without belting out Jose Feliciano's Feliz Navidad.