Just the other day I overheard one of my kids watching a YouTuber called Nathan Zed and was instantly gripped. It was called “How Trying Became Cool Again,” and focused on pop cultural moments like Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl show, Doechii’s Tonight Show performance, Chappell Roan’s giant pink pony at the Grammys and Tyler, The Creator’s… well, just about everything.

Is there such a thing as a boundary between pop and alternative any more? The presence of strange characters like Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish and Lola Young in the mega mainstream suggests not – and so does trajectory of Jessica Smyth aka Biig Piig.

There’s a real bind for Kylie Minogue. Her core audience want disco pop, people like me slag her off if she branches out from disco pop and goes country, she does disco pop well… but it’s really, really hard to do disco pop relentlessly well all the time.

Going to the theatre can be a little like going to church. One communes on the individual level, one’s faith in the stories underpinned by a psychological connection, but also on the collective level, belief rising on a tide of shared emotions. Those complementary sensations, in an ever more individualised, screen-and-earplugs world, are rare – and an example of why people pay big bucks for Glastonbury, Taylor Swift and Oasis.

Some performers are born to perform. It seems obvious, but it’s not a given in the music world. Some just want to make sound, some want to compose, not all are in it to connect directly to an audience. Rob Gallagher, however, is all about that connection, and he’s never stopped doing it. It was there in his band Galliano’s genial funk from 1988 through 1997: his London beat poetry always felt like it was addressing you direct, and the band came to live above all on the live stage where he could speak to the crowd.

I won’t give it loads about the atmosphere and attendees at We Out Here – suffice to say that in its fifth edition, it has maintained all the strengths I mentioned last year, with the added benefit of slicker-operating infrastructure having ironed out any remaining wrinkles in its new Dorset site. The navigability, sound levels, smooth running bars etc were all just a little better, which only added to the good vibes that have been there from the start.

Joe Goddard’s torrent of creativity rarely fails to amaze. As well as eight albums as a crucial part of Hot Chip, he has made two in the 2 Bears duo with Raf Rundell, one as Hard Feelings with Amy Douglas, and there’s been various other collaborations besides (A Pulse Train, Extra Credit, Greco-Roman Soundsystem, Lightbox Of Magic Unknowledge), not to mention dozens of remixes and a none too shabby DJ career too.

Jon Savage's The Secret Public How The LGBTQ+ Aesthetic Shaped Pop Culture 1955-1979 accompanies the titular author/historian/journalist’s book of almost the same name. The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955–1979) and this 41-track double CD each track exactly what their titles say, drilling into what has often paralleled or underlain yet repeatedly influenced a constantly evolving mainstream.

This album has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor Future Nostalgia came along just as the Covid crisis was properly kicking into gear, and it became, in its way, era defining. As we said at the time, it was “the sound of a musician finding their own voice and revelling in it”: Lipa hitting a groove as a very charming avatar of disco/house glitterball vibes, just at the point we most needed them in our lives.  

A few records changed music. One such was “The Love I Lost (Part 1)” by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes. Issued as a single by the Philadelphia International label in August 1973, its release introduced what would become a major characteristic of disco music. This was the first time a particular groove was heard; the percussive use of the drum kit’s cymbals with an emphasis on the hi-hat.