The queues for Sinéad O’Connor’s first London show in four years curled around the outside of the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Inside and throughout her performance, voices in the crowd shouted their love for a singer whose voice is astounding, at a point in her career when her peers’ singing quality begins to betray age. 

Season’s greetings, vinyl junkies. It’s unfortunate things grew so stinky just as we headed towards the one time when Britain downs tools and disappears to the enjoy itself for a week or two. But let’s try for good will towards all. To help along the way, theartsdesk on Vinyl Christmas 2019 Special takes itself not very seriously, and offers up a selection of cheese and biscuits, alongside a jamboree lucky dip…

Not all One Direction solo albums are created equally, and after Liam Payne's public ostracization for LP1, all eyes are on Harry Styles. His self-titled debut earned some baffling comparisons to David Bowie, so what to expect next?

It is a very rare thing, as Darius Brubeck reflected, to “inherit a hit.” This gig by the pianist and his quartet marked the exact day of the 60th anniversary of the launch of Time Out by his father Dave Brubeck. Time Out was the first million-selling album in jazz, reaching No 2 in the US pop charts. “It was the gateway drug into jazz for a whole generation,” he mused.

Britain is unpleasant to look at right now, ugly and foolish, so why not lock down with some tuneage. Below is the best plastic that’s hit theartsdesk on Vinyl over the last month, all genres, all the time. Watch out for the forthcoming Christmas Special where we’ll endeavour to find the seasonal good cheer we’re not currently feeling.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Kimyan Law Yonda (Blu Mar Ten Music)

Whatever your office Christmas party was like, I can (almost) guarantee that it wasn’t as much fun as this Fire Records event. Running from five to midnight in Studio 9294, with lashing rain cutting across the River Lea just behind the venue, it was like being invited to a party by someone you don’t know very well but know that you’re going to like very much.

Hugh Hefner established Playboy Records in 1972 as an arm of his male-targeted business empire. Amongst the singles issued in its first year were seven-inchers by jazzer Bobby Scott, proto-yacht rockers The Hudson Brothers, singer-songwriter Tim Rose, Björn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), who were ABBA before they had a name, and Michael Jarrett, who’d written “I'm Leavin'” for Elvis Presley. In 1974, Playboy Playmate Barbi Benton came on board.

It’s not about spontaneity. Bar switching the order of a couple of songs at the beginning and during the encore, the set was the same as a couple of days earlier in Paris. And, just-before that, in Turnout, Belgium. The first UK date on Mark Lanegan and his band’s European tour didn’t deviate much – odd other songs have cropped up during this excursion – from what they’ve been doing since hitting the trail in the last week of October.

She’s back. Dido stopped touring in 2004 and stayed away from it for 15 years. But since starting again in March of this year, she has gone at it with gusto and performed well over 50 concerts, with last night’s Maida Vale session for the series BBC Radio 2 In Concert, introduced by Jo Whiley, her last-but-one of 2019. And she will be setting off again next summer.

Dinosaur Pile-Up may have been around for more than a decade, but it would be fair to say that their career has been something of a slow burn. Indeed, while thanking tonight’s support acts, main man Matt Bigland claimed that they’d supported more bands than any other group in the UK. The release of 2019’s Celebrity Mansions album looks like it may be the shot in the arm that Dinosaur Pile-Up have been waiting for, though. This weekend saw them sell out Birmingham’s O2 Institute.