Album: Lael Neale - Altogether Stranger

★★★ LAEL NEALE - ALTOGETHER STRANGER Arresting art pop with a touch of creepiness

Arresting art pop with a touch of creepiness

Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By deconstructing modern R&B, the upbeat “Come on” is as close as it gets to pop’s mainstream. The unifying factors are Lael Neale’s way with a tune – she writes a memorable song – and her penetrating yet translucent voice.

Album: Billy Idol - Dream Into It

★★ BILLY IDOL - DREAM INTO IT Immense charm and uniqueness shine through, but too much leaning into the generic

Immense charm and uniqueness shine through, but too much leaning into the generic

There’s always been a goofy charm about Billy Idol. As an implausibly chiselled Adonis shining out from the deliberate ugliness of the original London punk scene, he was a misfit among misfits. As a pop star through the ‘80s, he was visibly so spectacularly high almost all the time that he somehow made everything pantomime-ish around him. Latterly he’s been such a perfect encapsulation of the Brit rock star in LA archetype he could quite plausibly be starring in a Spinal Tap spinoff.

Neil Young: Coastal review - the old campaigner gets back on the trail

★★★ NEIL YOUNG: COASTAL Young's first post-Covid tour, documented by Daryl Hannah

Young's first post-Covid tour documented by Daryl Hannah

As well as generating a ceaseless stream of albums, whether live, studio or culled from his copious archives, Neil Young has also amassed a fairly hefty body of film work, either as director, star or both. Like his music, his movies are created with a kind of confrontational spontaneity, grabbed on the run with rough edges and non-sequiturs still intact. His directorial debut, 1973’s only fleetingly coherent Journey Through the Past, gave early warning of what to expect.

Album: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I Said I Love You First

★★★ SELENA GOMEZ & BENNY BLANCO - I SAID I LOVE YOU FIRST An album by a pair of loved-up Hollywood celebs that is, whisper it, rather good

An album by a pair of loved-up Hollywood celebs that is, whisper it, rather good

Selena Gomez is the enormously successful Disney child star who grew up to be a Hollywood actor and global pop sensation. As notably, she’s the third most followed person on Instagram, the most popular woman, with 421 million followers. Benny Blanco is the golden boy American producer-songwriter whose many, many hits run the gamut from Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” to Ed Sheeran’s “Happier” to Kesha’s “Tik Tok”. The pair got engaged last December.

Noah Davis, Barbican review - the ordinary made strangely compelling

A voice from the margins

In 2013 the American artist, Noah Davis used a legacy left him by his father to create a museum of contemporary art in Arlington Heights, an area of Los Angeles populated largely by Blacks and Latinos. But his Underground Museum faced a problem; it didn’t have any art to put on display and none of the institutions approached by Davis would loan him their precious holdings.

David Lynch: In Dreams (1946-2025)

DAVID LYNCH: IN DREAMS (1946-2025) The director, who has died aged 78, rewired cinema with nightmare logic, an underground ethos and weird, wondrous innocence

The director, who has died aged 78, rewired cinema with nightmare logic, an underground ethos and weird, wondrous innocence

David Lynch’s final two features mapped a haunted Hollywood of curdled innocence and back-alley eeriness. Mulholland Drive (2001) seemed the ultimate LA noir, till Inland Empire (2006) dug into deepest Lynch. The eighteen fallow big-screen years preceding his death this week show the loneliness of his vision in his medium’s conformist capital, which he nevertheless adored. “It’s kind of a trick in the light [that] is magical,” he said of his adopted hometown’s allure. “It gives you the indication that anything is possible. It’s critical for me to feel that light.”

Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and few jokes

★★ ELLEN DEGENERES, NETFLIX Former chatshow host’s bizarre take on cancellation

Former chatshow host’s bizarre take on cancellation

Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow The Ellen DeGeneres Show attracted Hollywood stars and politicians and she was paid millions for it. But then, in 2022, it was cancelled amid accusations there was a toxic atmosphere on set created by senior members of her team. This is the context of For Your Approval, which the comic says is her last stand-up appearance.

The Substance review - Demi Moore as an ageing Hollywood celeb with body issues

★★★ THE SUBSTANCE Demi Moore as an ageing Hollywood celeb with body issues

Coralie Fargeat's second feature packs a visual punch but lacks substance

If you like a body-horror movie to retain a semblance of logic in its plot line, then The Substance – grotesque, gory and finally insubstantial – may not be for you.

Moby, O2 review - ebullient night of rave'n'rock'n'Johnny Cash

★★★ MOBY, O2 Ebullient night of rave'n'rock'n'Johnny Cash

The millennial electronic star returns with his first European tour in over a decade

Sometimes a gig suddenly and completely elevates. Such is the case tonight when Moby, on his first UK tour in 12 years, plays “Extreme Ways”, his 2002 anthem for hedonism and its desperate consequences. What has been an adequately entertaining night blossoms into something more riveting. The 20,000-strong O2 crowd, previously mostly seated, rise en masse, move and sing along. The place is a-buzz.