Robert Altman’s 1973 deconstruction of the private eye movie freely adapts and updates Raymond Chandler’s final completed novel from 1952. With Leigh Brackett (the remarkable female screenwriter who worked on Howard Hawks’s Chandler classic The Big Sleep in 1946 and The Empire Strikes Back in 1981) and his M*A*S*H star Elliott Gould, he offended purists, but caught some of Seventies LA's confusion.

Killing Joke: The Singles Collection 1979-2012

The Eagles recorded their first two albums in London in the early Seventies, though they couldn't have imagined they'd be back 40 years later to present their new documentary, History of the Eagles Part One, at Sundance London. There is, as you may have surmised, also a Part Two, which is available in the DVD and Blu-ray package that goes on sale on Monday 29 April.

Scarecrow tied for the coveted Palme D’or of 1973. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg, the man who did Panic In Needle Park and importantly Street Smart, which captured the electrifying moment when Morgan Freeman became a star, this sombre comedy stars Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. In fact, every element of Scarecrow aims for classic status. Thanks to nifty distributor Park Circus, we can now see first-hand on the big screen why this pedigreed film has been so little heard of or seen since its 1973 French triumph.

The author B S Johnson would have been 80 this year. An accessible "experimental" writer, cheekily described by the author Jonathan Coe as “Britain’s one-man literary avant-garde of the 1960s”, he’s best remembered for The Unfortunates, a book in which the chapters can be shuffled and read in random order. Johnson also took film making very seriously and a peek into his British Library archive shows the level of care and detail with which his film projects were planned – every camera angle and frame painstakingly prepared.

Sandie Shaw: Sandie/Me/Love Me Please Love Me

On hearing the opening track of this album, a friend said “I didn't expect to be listening to new albums of the YYYs 10 years on!” And this is kind of understandable: of all the new rock bands of the early 2000s – The Strokes, The Vines, The Hives, The White Stripes – they had the most air of hipsterism, their kooky demeanour and New York clubbability making it understandable that some could think they were a trend-driven flash-in-the-pan sensation.

One of the great British singer-songwriters of the past half-century, Nick Drake is the subject of a new tribute album, Way to Blue, released next Monday on Navigator Records. A companion piece to the concerts staged worldwide over the last four years, the artists involved include Teddy Thompson, Vashti Bunyan, Robyn Hitchcock, Lisa Hannigan, Scott Matthews and Danny Thompson. We are a delighted to have an exclusive preview from the album, of Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside performing “Fruit Tree”.

It was one of those entirely unverifiable "facts" that music documentaries increasingly prefer over genuine insight: early on in this serviceable but routine overview of a truly stellar talent, we were told that Nile Rodgers’s guitar has “played on two billion dollars' worth of hits”. Who really knows? Who actually cares? You don’t measure the sheer joy of Chic’s “Good Times” or Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” by counting the cash or doing the math. You simply use your ears.

"Noel. Noel." Damon Albarn had to shout twice before Noel Gallagher joined him onstage to strum his guitar during Blur's neo-bluesy "Tender". Maybe Albarn's former Britpop rival wanted their historic musical union to take just a little bit longer. Maybe he wanted Albarn to wait just to assert himself. Or maybe after all these years of standing between very loud bands and very loud audiences he is a little deaf. But it happened. At around 8.30pm on Saturday March 23 the Britpop War was officially over.