Annie Lennox - The Annie Lennox Collection (RCA)

I'm possibly not the best person to review a Best Of Annie Lennox, or at least not the most typical of Lennox fans. One of my favourite albums of all time is The Eurythmics' For The Love Of Big Brother, their aborted soundtrack to Michael Radford's 1984 feature film. But the rest of the Eurythmics catalogue leaves me indifferent – either because the hyper-exciting surreal electronica of the early 80s has since become daily regional radio fodder, or because of the whole late-80s leather jackets and rock-out period, full stop.

When Annie Lennox started out on her solo career, there was a hint of getting back to something a little more arty than Be Yourself Tonight. There was the Little Bird EP, complete with a monumental dance mix by N-Joi. And then there was the ballad of the early 90s, the strangely since-overlooked gothic anthem Love Song for a Vampire.

Both are present here (although Little Bird is the standard 7” version) alongside others you'll be familiar with (like Walking on Broken Glass, No More 'I Love You's and Why) and half a dozen tracks that you'll come to afresh (like a cover of Ash's Shining Light). It's all solo material of course, so nothing from 1984. But it's still well worth a listen, and a handful of one-track spot-buys from iTunes.

MADONNA CONFESSIONS by Guy Oseary (Powerhouse)

Not as mind-blowing as Sex but not as time-wasting as an Andrew Morton, this new addition to the Madonna library is a straightforward photo album from her recent Confessions mega-tour, as she heads out on her latest Sticky & Sweet jaunt. It’s her first official book since 1992’s legendary Sex in fact, as it’s 100% approved and was shot exclusively by her manager Guy Oseary.

These credentials, oh and he’s also the CEO of Maverick Records, gives Oseary unparalleled backstage access and opportunities for capturing intimate moments of life on the road with one of the world’s most famous artists. Does he use this wisely? He doesn’t really bother, as the bulk of this book’s 250 colour photos are of Madonna shot on stage, not off. So it’s very much a record of her costumes and image changes – which would range from glam equestrian (who’d have thought it) to Combat Rock to space-age disco revival – across the course of each nightly Confessional.

It all looks fabulous but only serves to remind that what’s really missing from the Madonna library is any in-depth - or even superficial - survey of her music. The songwriting and production, the stuff people actually get when they buy one of her CDs. As such she might forever only be covered in books like these – which celebrate the image rather than the art.

Various Artists – Amazon Holiday Sampler

A token Christmas gift from the online warehouse in the form of a five-track download-only festive album, available completely free of charge. Featured is a 1999 Digital Remaster of I Wish You A Merry Christmas by Bing Crosby, a 1991 remix of The Beach Boys doing Auld Lang Syne and – possibly most festive of all – a Peggy Lee rendition of Deck The Halls.

Wilco – I Shall Be Released

The Chicago rock band Wilco came up with a great idea during the recent presidential election. While voter apathy didn’t turn out to be an issue in the end – as it is most years – this is an idea that would work well in the UK. Quite simply, all you had to do was promise to get out and vote and, in return, the band would give you a free download. The track in question was worth voting for too, a cover of Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Released. You can read more and find the track on About.com at guitar.about.com/b/2008/11/04/free-wilco-mp3-download.htm.

Chris Morris – On the Hour

November 24 saw Warp Records release the first volume of On The Hour, the 90s spoof radio current affairs show by Chris Morris. And The Guardian ran this excellent exclusive free download, which also just happened to feature the first ever broadcast appearance by another near-legendary figure: Alan Partridge. Hear his arrival on the airwaves at www.guardian.co.uk/culture/audio/2008/nov/14/chris-morris-alan-partridge.

Long Division With Remainders – Volume 10 EP

This is the latest release from the LDWR collective (myspace.com/longdivisionwithremainders), an experimental electronic outpost dedicated to the art of the remix. A different artist recycles and remixes a set of found sounds to create a new EP every few months and this one – a riotous session from Australian sound artist Susan Hawkins - is the tenth to appear so far. They’re all available as free downloads and, when the project is complete, will be pressed up into what’s set to be a highly collectable limited edition CD box set.

Z-Trip – Obama Mix

A fantastic one-hour DJ mix of election fever and hip hop beats that was burning up on the internet in the weeks leading up to the big vote. As Dave Allen from Gang of Four (and OK Computer favourites Shriekback) recently explained on his blog (pampelmoose.com), “What happens when one of North America’s brightest lights in the DJ/Mix/Mash Up world, Z-Trip, gets fired up about the election? Well he teams up with artist Shepard Fairey and throws some fundraising parties. Then he puts together a 58 minute mix and gives it away online…”

djztrip.com

Keane – Spiralling

This is the first the internet heard of the new Keane album when it was given away as a free MP3 download from Keane’s official website. It was only available for one week but, in that time, clocked more than half a million downloads before being made available on iTunes and all the other digital platforms as a paid-for track. To OK Computer’s ears this is bog standard Keane – forgettable and anthemic, dreary and dream-like, all at once. If you missed the free download, another interesting taster can be found on YouTube – a radio recording of Love Is The End, recorded from Portuguese radio when it was accidentally played when the album was still under wraps!

keanemusic.com

Kina Grannis – The Goldfish Song

Kina is an emerging singer songwriter of – to quote Wikipedia – “half-Japanese, English, French, Welsh, and Irish descent.” Her home-made, hand-crafted songs and videos on YouTube are a delight and all we can hope is that she retains this humour and delicacy in the face of recently signing to a the major coproate empire that is Interscope Records. Time will tell. In the meantime, savour this and other live acustic numbers on her YouTube page.

youtube.com/kinagrannis

Goldfrapp – Clowns, Live from Union Chapel (guardian.co.uk)

Late in October The Guardian website gave away four completely free Goldfrapp MP3s. Three were album tracks but the first was this exclusive live rendition of Clowns from the band’s latest album, Seventh Tree. It’s stripped down, very acoustic and an essential addition to any Goldfrapp collection, digital or otherwise.

Andrew Poppy- …And The Shuffle Of Things (Field Radio)

The very first time I listened to this album it felt like a Best Of Andrew Poppy. This is not a compilation, though – it’s 10 brand new recordings – but it does draw many of the diverse threads of the electronica/classical composer’s work from the past 20 years together into one complete whole.

My Stress Mistress and Wave Machine Parts II and III will be the entry point for those who discovered Andrew Poppy via his early 90s album Recordings. What Else: What Then Now, on the other hand, links bank to the minimalism of his highly collectable early 00s CDRs and private pressings like Why Blink.

Text has always played a part in Poppy’s work, although this abstract poetry has hitherto been confined to record sleeves and CD booklets. But Shuffle has incorporated it into the music, with Andrew himself reading a mixture of memoirs, memories and ideas (which sometimes overlap with Yoko Ono’s instruction pieces) across the music.

Tracks like the rattling, dream-like My Father’s Submarine’s wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mute or 4AD sampler, but only Andrew Poppy can drop in an entire male voice choir (an original recording, not a sample) to make a finished piece that lifts this track – and the style of the whole album – right up into another world entirely.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Messages: Greatest Hits (Virgin)

Between them Andy McClusky and Paul Humphries have been responsible for creating two brilliant, but very different, bands. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the early 80s Factory descendents who sampled blast furnaces and the Stanlow oil refinery. And OMD, the late 80s stadium pop act who defied all expectation by updating their sound and becoming – if only briefly – a relevant force in the 90s. It’s sometimes difficult to reconcile the fact that the two came from the same people, and consequently difficult to package the two together in one Best Of. Which is possibly why Virgin keeps trying over and over again.

This is their third major compilation release, with only minor tweaks in track listing from 1998’s The OMD Singles. But in the ten years since then the band have taken hold of their heritage and begun to repackage it and reperform it to renewed critical acclaim. And the main reason to buy this one is the bonus DVD, which contains 30 promo videos (11 of which are available for the first time) and one Top Of The Pops performance (for Joan of Arc).

The early and later videos remain stylish and, while OMD’s videos from the mid-80s (cod love stories that make Brookside look glamorous) have been derided for a long time, here in context they’re like classic retro museum pieces, the colour, comedy part of a fascinating, diverse legacy.

Various Asrtists – Just Stand Up! (iTunes)

Following the hour-long US TV show Stand Up to Cancer, comes this download-only single in support of the new charity. Featuring a veritable roll-call of divadom, it’s produced by a reunited LA and Babyface and comes with a digital booklet. Well worth the download, if only to hear Beyonce facing off against Rihanna, Fergie, Sheryl Crow, Ashanti, LeAnn Rimes and Natasha Bedingfield.

Little Boots – Magical Tropical Mixtape (MySpace)

Little Boots is a big anomaly. A Blackpool based kid of 90s, one minute she’s at the piano sounding like Kate Bush’s celestial daughter, the next she’s banging on a Tenori-on (techno keyboard/drum machine hybrid) and rattling off covers of Haddaway and Wiley, making them sound like genre classics, which – perhaps – they always were. Her new single Meddle is out on coloured 7” vinyl and, if you’re prepared to part with just your email address to join her mailing list, she’s put together this free 43-minute mixtape which will give you a pretty accurate feel for where she’s coming from. Or, for instant intrigue, check the videos and weekly cooky cover versions at youtube.com/user/littlebootsvideos.

Mercury Rev – Snowflake in a Hot World (Spin.com)

This thick, electro-tinged spaced out song is a taster for a fresher, more techno album from Mercury Rev (September 30’s Snowflake Midnight). It’s available for free full-length download from US magazine SPIN’s website (at www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-mp3-mercury-rev-snowflake-hot-world) which also recently played host to an exclusive stream of Noise Epic by The Verve.

Feeder – NapsterLive Session (Napster)

Feeder are the latest band to record an exclusive live acoustic session for iTunes rival Napster. There are four tracks in total and – one great scoop Napster has over iTunes – you can preview each and every one in full (as opposed to iTunes’ short preview) before you buy. Here they run through three tracks from new album Silent Cry before cutting loose on the essential download – a cover of the Johnny Cash favourite, Hurt.