The deadpan duo of Tennant and Lowe have never been easy to suss out at the best of times: maybe their way of layering wackiness on deep seriousness, eyebrow-flickering subtlety on roaring camp, giddy frivolity on erudition, has been their way of staying fresh. The Gilbert & George of British pop, they live to perplex even into middle age and beyond.

Questions of what is authentic and what is retro get more complicated the more the information economy matures. Music from decades past that only tens or hundreds of people heard at the time it was made becomes readily available, gets sampled by new musicians, and passes into the current vernacular. Modern musicians play archaic styles day in day out until it becomes so worn into their musculature that it reflects their natural way of being. Tiny snippets of time that were once meaningless become memes that are shared and snared into the post-post-modern digital tangle.

Head straight for Disc 2, Track 4. A drum thumps while spring-loaded guitar feedback pulses. Suddenly, a wall of cascading guitar hurtles forth like an electric hare pursued by greyhounds. A distorted, amelodic guitar solo contrasts with the sweet melody carried by a female vocal. The energy level is extraordinary. The whole has a lightness of touch. Then, abruptly, it stops.

He knew.

18 months of dealing with cancer, and rather than withdraw and rest – as he'd done before – David Bowie knuckled down made a record as intense and disturbing as anything he's done before. The Next Day was a worthy return to the fray but Blackstar... Even before we heard the terrible news, just taken on its own merits, Blackstar was something else. And now, knowing that he knew, it's absolutely fearsome in its confrontation with death.

The news that Lush have reformed didn’t come as surprise. Their comparable contemporaries Ride and Slowdive had also done so over the past couple of years, and My Bloody Valentine – an influence looming over all three – returned in 2007 after over a decade’s abscence. Unlike the others, Lush, who were on 4AD rather than Creation, have reissued their complete catalogue as a box set during the run-up to re-hitting stages next May. Chorus has the potential to eclipse the reappearance as it doesn’t edit history like a one-or-so hour live concert.

Levitation: Meanwhile Gardens

It’s been worth the wait.

For all the wrong reasons, the work of Dexter Dalwood serves as a useful metaphor for this exhibition. Trite, tokenistic and desperate to look clever, Dalwood’s paintings are as tiresomely inward-looking as the show itself, which is a dismal example of curatorial self-indulgence at the expense of public engagement.

When TFI Friday first assaulted our screens (nearly) 20 years ago, things were very different. An untucked checked shirt passed for sartorial elegance, magazines sold in big numbers and, within their pages, women were routinely objectified, but ironically and in front of a paper-thin façade of equality.

Few would have predicted it back when they were gooning around in over-tight Adidas t-shirts, but with the benefit of hindsight it makes sense that Blur should have the most convincing longevity of the Britpop generation. Why? Because more than any of their contemporaries, and despite all the personality clashes and narcotic breakdowns, they were genuinely a band. Yes, Damon Albarn was the leader, but he never eclipsed the other three in the way that Jarvis or the Gallaghers did.