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.

The Comsat Angels’ debut single for Polydor, July 1980’s “Independence Day”, was an instant classic. After setting a rhythmic bed, each subsequent instrumental contribution is measured out: a guitar string's harmonic; a spare keyboard line; drop-outs drawing from dub. The melody was anthemic, yet not overbearing, and the forward momentum unyielding. It still sounds fantastic.

Any band’s reunion is bittersweet. They can never be what they were at their peak and know it, and yet fans hope. Recapturing past magic is tough. Hair is lost, weight is gained and aging depletes energy. With Pulp, the band never assumed formula rock personae and their reunion was always going to be more seamless with their own past than most. There was less chance that memories would be sullied.

You may have a slight sense of déjà vu about a stage production of The Full Monty. Wasn't it a Broadway hit at the turn of the millennium? Well yes it was, but that was an Americanised musical version of Simon Beaufoy's Oscar-nominated 1997 film; now his adaptation of the movie is in the West End after its acclaimed debut last year at Sheffield Crucible, and the setting is back in familiar territory.

There isn’t really a consensus on what the single best Fall album is. However, I did come across a thread on a fansite asking devotees to nominate their favourite album title. Not album – album title.

Seasonal appearances by The Human League have an air of Christmas panto about them, with halls packed with coach parties of devoted fans who all seem to know each other, but the group have quietly solidified into a great British success story. They made the jump from experimental beginnings to become darlings of early-Eighties electropop, but more remarkable still is their ability to produce modestly credible new music 30 years later.

The Human League: Dare (Deluxe Edition)

Thomas H Green

Boy, do Arctic Monkeys move fast. There were 21 songs in their set at the O2 Arena last night and at one point they were racing through them at such a breathtaking lick I thought I would be on my way home within the hour. In the end their performance clocked in at around the length of a football match thanks to some pauses to swap guitars. Plus a break for Alex Turner to stand by the drums and ostentatiously comb his elaborate quiff.

Once upon a time there was a boy/girl band who hailed from Sheffield. They made a debut album called Yeah So which married whimsical indie-folk and a kind of post-punk rockabilly to words seemingly torn from the diaries of a pair of teenage sweethearts, holding hands in the rain one minute, crying into their snakebite the next, all the time hoping that this might last forever rather than just until the end of Fresher’s Week. Cute, knowing, twee as toffee, it was all very sweet but not hugely substantial.

The Human League are one of the brightest lights in the history of electropop. They have had many incarnations over the years but since late 1980 the core of the group has been frontman Philip Oakey (b 1955) and singers Joanne Catherall (b 1962) and Susan Sulley (b 1963). The group bloomed out of Sheffield's electronic underground in the late Seventies, releasing the seminal electropop single "Being Boiled" in 1978. They signed to Virgin but success was not quick in coming and by 1980, with two albums under their belt, they split. Synthesiser wizards Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh went on to form Heaven 17 but singer Oakey retained the band name.

The Human League are one of the brightest lights in the history of electropop. They have had many incarnations over the years but since late 1980 the core of the group has been frontman Philip Oakey (b 1955) and singers Joanne Catherall (b 1962) and Susan Sulley (b 1963). The group bloomed out of Sheffield's electronic underground in the late Seventies, releasing the seminal electropop single "Being Boiled" in 1978. They signed to Virgin but success was not quick in coming and by 1980, with two albums under their belt, they split. Synthesiser wizards Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh went on to form Heaven 17 but singer Oakey retained the band name.