Feel like embarrassing your kids? Is your idea of a Pitbull an angry dog rather than someone who watches a Ke$ha fall like timber?  Luckily for you, some very familiar (if somewhat wrinkly) faces are releasing albums just in time for Christmas.

Pink Floyd – The Endless River.

You’ve played Dark Side of the Moon to death, but believe me, The Endless River is one for the true believers.  It’s not sad enough that what is left of the band hasn’t released an album in almost 20 years. It’s the fact that the new album is essentially a reworking of left over material from that album (the rather lukewarm The Division Bell)… and that album wasn’t particularly well received in the first place.

Lead singer and serial destroyer of the Pink Floyd legacy, David Gilmour, says this is a love letter to deceased band-member Rick Wright. He can dress it up any way he wants, but I call this a cynical move designed to fill the coffers in a wave of pre-Christmas nostalgia. Still, for a week or two at least, it will be a guilty pleasure.

If only you could take digital downloads to Cash Converters.

The soundtrack to: The post-Christmas Lunch snooze

AC/DC – Rock or Bust

Far from the relaxed style of Pink Floyd that often sounds like it is being performed from a lounge chair, ‘Acca Dacca’ survives on such a reputation for the yelling and strutting kind of rock there is more than one reason to wonder if the old boys can ‘keep it up’.

Here we go though for Rock or Bust – scheduled for release on 28 November. You can bet on another throbbing collection of soaring riffs and insane finger-work from that young schoolboy, Angus Young. You can bet it will be simple and dumb, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Sadly, diehard fans shouldn’t hold their breath if they hope of ever seeing the band take the stage again. With over 50 million copies of Back in Black sold, it’s hard to see any motivation to get back on the big flying bus for another traipse around the world.

The soundtrack to: Singing in the car at full volume… without any passengers and not while stopped at the lights.                                               

U2 – Songs of Innocence

Oh dear. What happened to U2? 30 years ago they were hanging out with BB King, but these days it’s all going very, very wrong.

Where to start? The horribleness began when the band walked on stage at an Apple event launching the iWatch. Watching Tim Cook and Bono touch fingers like a Michelangelo painting was as awkward as watching your grandparents French Kiss. Then we had the ‘gift’ of the new album suddenly appear in everyone’s iTunes collections, while the interwebs went into meltdown in outrage at getting something for free.

It was all very weird and wrong. What would Bono’s starving masses make of it all?

These days, a U2 album is sill a wonderfully polished product, and The Edge still gives Mr Young a run for his money when it comes to taking a quick trip up and down the frets. Have a listen, nod your head knowingly and then go and put on The Joshua Tree.

Ah…. That’s better!

The soundtrack to: Embarrassing everyone around you under the age of 25.

Despite the refusal of all these bands to die a quiet death, it’s worth nothing that all three – at their peak – delivered some incredible music that has provided the soundtracks to many, many lives across the decades. Perhaps their resurgence is a great reminder of their previous work, so take a wonderful walk down memory lane and remind yourself of the rock star you always wanted to be.