Indie For the Holidays, various artists (Amazon.com)

As with last year's All Is Bright, this is not actually an album but a playlist curated by Amazon as a come-on to sign up for Amazon Prime, which in addition to giving you free two-day delivery on all purchases also gives you access to their video library and lets you stream all the music you can eat. You can go ahead and buy all the individual tracks, though there's no album package price for doing so. For 2015, the playlist features such known quantities as Robert Pollard, Sondre Lerche, The Leevees & Matisyahu, Reverend Horton Heat, Langhorn Slim and Lisa Loeb, along with a raft of lesser-known indie artists, and most of the songs are fresh originals to boot. Hitting the highlights, we have the funky "Who's Up There?" by Bhi Bhiman, the hip-hoppy "Outside of December" with The Leevees & Matisyahu, a soulful "It's Only Christmas" by Moon Taxi, and Oscar's "It's Christmas Again" crosses lo-fi pop with 80s mopey new wave. Tuxedo goes all 90s R'nB on "Holiday Love," the Rev. Heat does what he does rockabilly style on "Donuts in the Snow," and Yacht (not to be confused with The Yachts or yacht rock), gives us an upbeat synth-pop confection, "Christmas Alone." Esmé Patterson (mentioned several days ago on the blog) has a David Lynch-influenced ballad called "If I," A Silent Film's "Christmas At Our House" is one of the nicer holiday nostalgia songs I've heard lately, and Kill Hannah's "This Is Our December" brings the modern arena rock vibe to the collection. My two favorites from this playlist are Langhorne Slim's garage rock take on "Deck the Halls" and Lisa Loeb's thumping New Year's party song (and who'da thought from her, right?) "Champagne (I'm Ready)." There are no stiffs in this list to my ears, just songs I like better, and that'll probably be how you relate to it as well. Don't feel obliged to buy 'em all if you're not a Prime customer; graze the ones you like.