Recalling a young Joan Armatrading­ with a taste for Beach Boys-cum-Animal Collective-harmony vocals, this U.K. soul-folk singer builds a swarming chorale punctuated with bell and brass tones, snare rolls and pizzicato bass notes. Like Christmas-­pageant music from a planet where holiday songs are always awesome. 

Listen to "Like the Morning Dew":

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."