Twenty years ago – before the iPhone, before Spotify, when Tony Blair was in Downing Street, Taylor Swift was in Nashville and TikTok was the noise made by a mechanical time-telling device – a tradition began among my friends. Every December we would each make a mix of our songs of the year – old and new, borrowed and blue – and burn a dozen CDs to be brought to a Christmas party at my flat, where they’d be exchanged along with the customary glad tidings, good cheer and over-mulled wine.

New Statesman