A festive message from Spoook

Greetings Spoook readers,

For many years, James made a mixtape of the songs he had enjoyed that year and sent it to all of his mates and PR contacts instead of a Christmas card. More recently, he made them as a Spotify playlist which was a bit of a shame as receiving the intricately decorated parcel in the post was a big part of the fun. But since fewer and fewer people had CD players, it did seem a waste to post them a CD, because he genuinely did want people to listen to the music. So instead, once it became a playlist, it usually had an accompanying cartoon strip in lieu of the envelope. Like this one:

I don’t know what would have been on his playlist this year - we listened to a lot of music in the car going to and from hospital appointments, but we both were finding comfort in songs we had known a long time, so there were fewer new discoveries than usual. But as always with James, he would still bowl into the room almost every day saying “Stop whatever you’re doing, I must play you this song”, although I have to say that this year, nine times out of ten, it was ABBA. He also got very excited about discovering 80s New Wave band Wang Chung who now have the perhaps surprising honour of being the last band added to his playlist The Best Songs Ever, Ever.

So, I can’t send you his favourite songs of 2024. Instead, I invite you to check out his definitive festive playlist A Very Spoook Christmas at some point over the holidays*. Whether it’s this afternoon while frantically wrapping last minute gifts or tonight over a mulled wine or Christmas morning in your pyjamas wishing you didn’t still have an entire bloody meal to cook. Whack on this playlist, make an extra plate of roast potatoes for Jam and sing along to some of his festive favourites.

With love and thanks for all of your support this year,

Kat (James’s wife)

*Don’t worry - this one isn’t 195 hours long