With tastes and allegiances so personalized nowadays, it can be tough buying gifts for music fans—no matter how many algorithms tech companies come up with to figure out a person's preferences, there's no exact formula. So with the following list, we tried to include things that could be useful and enjoyable to almost any music lover (who doesn't like weird little magnets that make noise, right?). From novelty stocking stuffers to wildly intricate box sets, here's a handy list that may make your holiday shopping a little less stressful.

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Marky Ramone's Brooklyn's Own Pasta Sauce

It turns out Marky Ramone—drummer in the longest-running "classic" version of the Ramones and the guy who manned the throne for Richard Hell & the Voidoids' Blank Generation along with a number of other seminal NYC punk/rock bands—makes pasta sauce. And it's good! It's one thing if a rock musician puts their name on a food product as a gimmick (see: CRUNK!!!), another if it's vaguely edible (see: CRUNK!!!), something else entirely if it's… one of the better marinara sauces you've tasted. I'm no chef, but the "imported Italian plum tomatoes" aren't peeled or entirely crushed here, so you get an interesting, substantial texture to go with the onions, garlic, black pepper, and oregano. Nothing flashy, but it works very well (like the Ramones?), making it something you can buy for the packaging and a laugh, and then actually enjoy consuming. On the label we're told "Drums not included," but more helpful is a recipe for "Uncle Tookie's Sicilian Eggs" ("drumlicious," supposedly) and a mention that 10% of  sales benefit Autism Speaks. —Brandon Stosuy

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littleBits Synth Kit

littleBits is a lifehack-focused electronics company that specializes in teeny-tiny circuits that—thanks to the how-do-they-work power of magnets—can easily be combined for a multitudinous number of small-scale purposes. With the assistance of musical instrument company Korg, littleBits now offers a 12-piece mini-synthesizer kit that allows anybody to get their Kraftwerk on, even if they've never heard the word "analog" before. Sold at almost one-fifth the cost of a typical Korg analog synth, the littleBits synth kit is almost absurdly easy to use straight out of the box—and I say this as someone who tried and failed to put together that Neon Indian mini-synth from a couple of years back (spoiler alert: I eventually broke it). 

Knowledgable buyers will marvel at the endless-seeming circuit combinations made possible by what's offered here—there's even a mini-sequencer—while the relatively uninitiated will undoubtedly express invaluable observations such as: "When you turn the thingy this way, it makes a weird sound!" (As an aside to fellow amateurs: The manual makes it very clear that you are not to swallow the circuits whole. If you swallow magnets, they will kill you… don't shoot the messenger.) The accompanying booklet provides easy-to-follow instructions as to the types of synthesizers you can make; it even provides a visual physics lesson on how sound actually works, making it the perfect gift for both children and adults who fell asleep during science class. —Larry Fitzmaurice

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Houston Rap

"A lot of times when we see these books, or this documentation on certain scenes, or if you go deep into the inner city, there’s always a wonder at the back of one’s mind—is this for the expansion of understanding, or simply exploitation of the environment?" writes Bun B in the foreword of Houston Rap, a new anthology from photographer Peter Beste and writer Lance Scott Walker. In an age when regional history and context is often distilled to nothing more than its most tidily packaged aesthetic, Bun has a right to be skeptical. But Beste's photographs, shot in the Houston rap community over a period of nine years, feel like an antidote to coffee-table dilettantism. The book's beautiful 300 pages incorporate excerpts of Walker's interviews with Houston rap figures, from Willie D to Paul Wall, and members of the surrounding communities—radio hosts, businessmen, directors of children's programs—to add layers of first-hand insight into the birth and evolution of the scene. And then there are the photos themselves: a little boy standing next to DJ Screw's headstone, a pack of Newports and a styrofoam cup, a stark Baptist church, a stripper's wig on the floor of a club—that paint the city in joyous and brutal tones alike. "Theses guys [Beste and Walker] have have held it very close to their hearts," Bun B writes, offering up his blessing. It shows. —Carrie Battan

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K Records Wallets

A wad of crumpled cash is about the last thing that should remind you of the unfiltered, uncompromising DIY pop of a K Records band like Beat Happening or Talulah Gosh… but maybe it could! How wonderful, amid this hyper-consumerist season, to be gifted the humble and esteemed Shield of the K—to see that quaint-but-powerful symbol of anti-materialism at each grab for your debit card. Perhaps it will remind you to spend your $5 on a 7" at the show instead of a can of beer? To fuel the underground instead of your miserable vices?! Psychologic potential aside, these handy accessories are useful for storing essential capitalist documents, with a single snap that holds all of your stuff shut. Fear not, animal lovers, for these wallets are made using PCV-free faux leather; no worries for the sweatshop averse, as they are handmade in Portland by the people at Queen Bee Creations. Available in a whole array of colors, although I am partial to the black one. —Jenn Pelly

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Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop

Many fans of modern pop know Bob Stanley as one of the principal members of the band Saint Etienne. His group always seemed especially literate when it came to history, bending music's past to fit its own personal and idiosyncratic ends. And indeed, Stanley has enjoyed a second career as a music writer, with bylines in the NME, Guardian, The Face, and Mojo (and also some here at Pitchfork). The massive, 800-page Yeah Yeah Yeah is his attempt at a sweeping history of English-language pop music in the U.S. and UK, running from the early 1950s through the early 1990s. (Why this particular frame? During most of this run, the 7", 45 RPM single was a force in the popular music charts; yes, Stanley loves charts and could be described as a poptimist.)

On one hand, this is a strange book for this particular moment: These days we tend to think about fragmentation and secret histories and untold stories, and Stanley writes deeply on the biggest, broadest trends—what is sometimes called the macroculture—and tells much of the story more or less straight, moving in a linear fashion. But the book's audacity as a huge modern pop chronicle is part of its charm. Most of the chapters function as breezy self-contained essays, tackling one swath of the popular music universe (there are chapters on Dylan, Motown, the Beach Boys, ABBA, the Smiths) and he doesn't necessarily connect each of these discrete units to each other. But over the course of the book, a clear point of view emerges, one that hears the value in one-off oddities and the established rock canon alike. He doesn't claim to be telling the story from any perspective but his own—a 48-year-old music obsessive from England—and even when he's exploring music whose appeal is foreign to him, he has a strong knack for casual insight and wry observation (the chapter on the "American Rock" of the late 1970s and early 80s—Springsteen, Springfield, REO Speedwagon—is particularly entertaining). —Mark Richardson

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Saint Morrissey Prayer Candles 

For those of us who count concert halls as houses of worship, lyric sheets as Bibles, and band T-shirts as sacred vestments, here’s a fabulously holy addition to your mantelpiece shrine: The Saint Morrissey Prayer Candle! Yes, it’s exactly what it says on the tin: your average grocery store votive candle adorned with a crudely Photoshopped image of Steven Patrick Morrissey dressed up as a traditional Catholic saint. (“There is a light that never goes out!” reads the Etsy description. “Burn at night to make your life less miserable.”) And while this would certainly make a great gift for a Smiths obsessive, it might work even better as a gift for someone who hates Morrissey. Because how funny is that?

Saint Morrissey is just the tip of the iceberg, though. A search for “prayer candle” on Etsy comes up with over 800 results. Danielle Jenkins, the woman behind Saint Morrissey, is alone responsible for votives canonizing David Bowie (as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth), Robert Smith, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Social Distortion’s Mike Ness (?!), and various other pop culture figures. A quick scan of other stores yields candles honoring subjects ranging from the expectedly deified (Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain) to the delightfully random (“Weird Al”, Brooke Candy, Lana Del Rey, Garbage’s Shirley Manson). And if you can’t find your worship subject of choice, Jenkins offers customized candles. Saint Johnny Marr, anybody? —Amy Phillips

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Vinyl Reissues

In the last few years of reissues there have been two parallel trends. On the one hand, big major labels have been putting out career-spanning CD box sets by canonical artists that basically gather a huge amount of music in one place. The appeal of these sets from the label side is obvious: It's one last chance to get everyone to pay money for an artist's catalogue before streaming takes over completely; the profit margins, considering how cheap CDs are to manufacture, can be very high; and there are no rare tapes to chase down and master, no curators to pay. An example of this sort of set from this year is the Bob Dylan: The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1 box, which collects more than 40 of his full-lengths and retails for around $240. (The fact that the set also includes its complete contents on a USB stick means that it says more about the current limitations of wireless broadband than it does about the career of Bob Dylan.)

At the other end of the spectrum are reissues that are actually geared toward a smaller subset of people who like to own a beautiful edition of a favorite release and actually listen to it. Often, especially recently, these take the form of vinyl/digital reissues, and they are not always by the label that issued the record originally; the big labels get to keep trying to sell the CDs and iTunes downloads, and smaller labels get to package records on LP. Over the past year, the Seattle-based label Light in the Attic has been leading the charge here. It started last December when they put out a 2xLP version of D'Angelo's classic Voodoo (now out of print, sadly), and continued this year with thick, heavy, and great-sounding reissues of Seefeel's Quique, Digable Planets' Blowout Comb (above), and Grateful Dead's One From the Vault. All are beautiful packages that strive to be the definitive version of a classic record. 

Warp joined this movement in glorious fashion this fall with deluxe vinyl reissues of Boards of Canada's entire catalogue, many of which have been out of print for years, Barsuk did very well with a vinyl reissue of Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism, and Jealous Butcher issued the first-ever LP version of the unheralded Red Red Meat side-project one-off Loftus. And Numero Group, another label that realizes getting people to pay money for records means giving them a package worth owning, put out the vinyl/digital Unwound box set, the first in a series. —Mark Richardson 

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The Pitchfork Review

Our new print publication The Pitchfork Review is the holiday gift that keeps giving, long after the last glass of eggnog has been poured and the new year's resolutions have been broken. The quarterly magazine features new long-form feature stories, photography, illustrations, and other ephemera with selected recent pieces from Pitchfork. The first edition, out December 14, includes an essay by author Simon Reynolds about his personal history with UK music weeklies, an interview with Glenn Danzig, cartoons, photos, and much more. Subscribe here.

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Wireless Speakers

In the foggy, tech-addled past of past of the early 2010s, wireless speakers were kind of a pain in the ass to set up if you didn’t have the right bluetooth capacity or were missing a critical functionality. Guess what? Those Luddite years of constant terror are gone, and a ton of relatively plug-and-play wireless speakers have made it to market. While there’s elite options in the mix—top-of-the-line wireless sets from Bose and Sonos can run $400 or $500—Sonos’ Play:1 (above) has a pretty friendly price tag ($199) for its potency. It’s portable, gets loud for its size, and it’s not a catastrophe if you break it. If you’re looking to go even more affordable, there's Soundfreaq’s Sound Kick ($100). If you want to go even cheaper than that, well, there are options there, too. —Corban Goble

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Debbie Harry and Missy Elliott illustrations by Emily Henderson; Patti Smith illustration by Marissa Paternoster; Robyn illustration by Cristy C. Road

Feminist Musician Playing Cards 

Playing cards—not a very exciting gift, and not very musical. These, however, are not your ordinary cards. Feminist Playing Cards are graced with 52 generation-spanning illustrations of feminist music icons as drawn by 14 contemporary feminist artists. We have Nina Simone as the seven of hearts, Patti Smith as the four of spades, Sinéad O'Connor as the ace of clubs, Nico as the Queen of Diamonds—not to mention appearances by Björk, Robyn, Yoko Ono, Joni Mitchell, Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, Carrie Brownstein, Joanna Newsom, and many more. The deck's illustrators are women with strong ties to the DIY music and zine worlds who offer the cards a distinct handmade aesthetic. Fans of New Jersey punk label Don Giovanni will recognize the work of Screaming Females singer Marissa Paternoster; her labelmate Lauren Denitzio, of Worriers, also contributed, as did Liz Prince of the always hilarious "Alone Forever" comic.

Produced through a successful Kickstarter campaign from Homoground, a website for music and art by queer and allied artists, the organizers have noted the historical significance of the playing card format—the earliest decks did not feature queens or women, "reflecting the dominating role [men] had in the royal courts." (Even today, card decks don't feature female characters in some cultures.) The whole pack functions like a lesson in music history and a portable gallery of amazing mini-portraits. I don't even remember any card games, but I tacked the whole deck all up to my wall, making for one very inspiring art piece. —Jenn Pelly

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The Cassette Revival

There’s been more than enough evidence this year to show that cassettes are a relevant commodity. (Seriously, they got their own holiday and everything.) And all over the world, there are tape decks and Walkmen collecting dust in basements, garages, and storage units, just waiting to be revived. Dig them out, make sure they still work, and hand them to your favorite audiophile with some fresh batteries and a bundle of tapes.

But don’t saddle them with a hand-me-down stack of 1980s Dan Fogelberg records—curate. Finding tapes isn’t an exact science, but there are lots of good ones out there. Visit a record store that stocks tapes. Go to shows and buy some from a merch table. Search eBay for old stuff and check Insound’s “Tapes” section for new stuff. Scour Bandcamp pages for demos (like Perfect Pussy’s brilliant I have lost all desire for feeling). Grab a stack of trashy rock’n'roll cassettes from Burger Records (like their all-star Wiener Dog Comp). Dish for that bundle of Captured Tracks tapes (Mac DeMarco, Beach Fossils, Widowspeak, and more). Drag City offers tapes for a lot of their newer albums (including the last couple Ty Segall records). Get that new King Krule.  If your giftee isn’t necessarily into guitars, check Stones Throw. And definitely consult Jenn and Liz Pelly’s shortlist of tape labels. —Evan Minsker

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Hip-Hop Socks

There is something deeply nerdy about the idea of merch, and something very quaint about purchasing a T-shirt printed with an artist's name at a booth after a concert. This year found plenty of artists—rappers in particular—subverting the traditional parameters of merchandising, designing items or partnering with brands to create lines of gear that are hip and wearable or strange and cool (not to mention overpriced). Kanye West teamed up with A.P.C. for cut-off sweatshirts; M.I.A. put her stamp on a line of bold Versace items. Even Drake, perennially challenged in the personal style department, found a way to create some Drake-branded products with edge and flair.

This year also saw a surge in clever lines of fan-made rapper kitsch, made possible by small online distribution platforms. My favorite of this crafty genre of gear are the custom sets of long Nike tube socks printed with contemporary rap iconography—namely, the beloved photo of Cam'ron in his mischievous pink fur and matching flip phone, and Drake in the blue sky of Nothing Was the Same. (You have to do some digging to find them—some knockoffs of the original limited-run Cam socks are currently $35 on eBay and the Drake pair is here.) They're the perfect gift for anyone who wants to wear their internet rap-nerdiness on their ankles—no merch booth required. —Carrie Battan

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The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One (1917-1932) Box Set

Jack White’s Third Man Records has previously used their platform to repackage and reissue archival blues LPs on vinyl, but the first volume of The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records puts everything else they’ve done to shame. It’s a collaboration with John Fahey’s Revenant Records and it is gorgeous. In a handcrafted oak cabinet lined with velvet upholstery, they provide a comprehensive history of the Wisconsin chair company-turned-iconic roots label. There’s reading material—a clothbound hardcover art book, a “field guide” with artist portraits and discography, the original advertisements—and of course, tons of music. It comes with six 180-gram LPs pressed on chestnut vinyl, all brandished with gold-leaf labels, and then there’s a USB drive (featuring the label’s insignia) with 800 newly-remastered digital tracks by 172 artists. It’s a dauntingly detailed collection that’ll put you back $400. And remember: This is only the first volume. (Read Grayson Currin's Best New Reissue review of this box set.) —Evan Minsker

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LSTN Headphones

Considering the relatively low sound quality of many MP3s and music streaming services, owning a solid pair of headphones is probably more important now than ever. There are the super-stylish brand-name cans vying for your attention—led by Dr. Dre's ubiquitous, bass-heavy Beats—but oftentimes what you pay for in appearance costs you in other areas, like dynamics, isolation, and comfort. Enter West Hollywood-based company LSTN, which nails the sweet spot between aesthetic panache and nuts-and-bolts sonic acuity. Instead of using shiny plastic, the company takes discarded pieces of wood from furniture and flooring companies, smooths them out, shines them up, and repurposes them into their headphones, resulting in a distinct look (as well as acoustic benefits). There are three models—earbud Bowerys for $50, collapsable Fillmores for $100, and the gorgeous metal-and-wood Troubadours (above) for $150—and all of them come through with a sound that's both loud and precise. Plus: The company gives a portion of the profits from every pair of headphones sold to the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which travels around the world to help people with hearing loss. So just as you slowly lose your hearing listening to Deafheaven scream their lungs out on these headphones, someone else on earth will benefit from your purchase. The circle of sound continues. —Ryan Dombal

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A Band Called Death DVD

It’s been a good couple years for documentaries about Detroit artists who found success decades after they ceased to be. Following the Oscar-winning Rodriguez doc Searching for Sugar Man, there’s A Band Called Death, the story of the Hackney brothers, who formed a rock band in the early 1970s, made one great proto-punk LP, and got turned away from major labels and radio DJs because of their name. But like Sugar Man, the documentary’s biggest triumph comes from the story of their newfound success—their debut album …For the Whole World to See was released in 2009 by Drag City, and Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett’s film is a solid, consistently entertaining work of storytelling. The Hackney family are, in many ways, better documentary subjects than Rodriguez, who seemed hesitant to discuss his music career. By contrast, the Hackneys are animated and willing to discuss their past—even the late David Hackney’s demons. ?uestlove, Alice Cooper, the Gories’ Mick Collins, Henry Rollins, and Kid Rock all appear, discussing the band’s influence. The DVD/Blu-ray release comes packaged with a booklet, a commentary track with the Hackney family, director commentary, deleted scenes, footage of the band playing live at SXSW 2013, and a new music video for “Let the World Turn”. —Evan Minsker