I was trudging around a major supermarket this evening, picking up a few items before heading off to pick up Mrs 17 Seconds and our son. To my amazement, and delight the song that came over the tanoy was Low’s ‘Just Like Christmas.’

Low’s Christmas album is one of those albums that gets rolled out in the ‘Christmas can be cool, honestly’ for those people who feel the need to do do (I wish they wouldn’t, it suggests an urge to conform and be smug and superior that’s really quite wrong). It has, rightly, become a classic, ahead of Christmas box sets from Sufjan Stevens and the new Bright Eyes Christmas album. The NME review from 1999 is actually spot on.

And the opening track ‘Just Like Christmas’ owes just as much to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound as it does to Low’s general greatness. I don’t think they made an official video, but it doesn’t matter. If you still haven’t bought it, go and do so. Sure the whole album is different to this, but it is a brilliant album. Take my word for it.

Snow Patrol have covered it, too:

Can’t find a video for it, but ‘If You Were Here Today’ from the album has been covered by Jimmy Eat World.