The Weeknd is a global megastar, one of the biggest music sensations of the age. Last year, his compilation, The Highlights, was the second best-selling album in the world, and he has 27 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, which is a record. His latest album is the third part of a trilogy which started, back in 2020 with After Hours.

It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that will align with the others on January 29^th?

English singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, aka FKA Twig, describes via X, that "eusexua is a practice, eusexua is a state of being, eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience".

Rooted in South African electronic styles such as kwaito, amapiano and gqom, the music of Moonchild Sanelly also shows a rich in awareness of US and European hip hop and pop.

My Spotify Wrapped this year is somewhat at odds with my Album of 2024. A ‘Van Life Folie Americana’ phase of Spring (presumably due to the actual VW trip to the Costa Brava at Easter) followed by the ‘Cinnamon Softcore Art Deco’ moment in early Summer – which I largely owe to Lana del Rey live at Reading Festival prep, has been trumped by an underdog that should Spotify have picked up on, would have read something like ‘Eclectic, Unhinged, Buenos Aires Basement Rave’ chapter.

Amid the electro-rock crunch of “Sorry, Etc”, Lauren Mayberry spits out, “I killed myself to be one of the boys/I lost my head to be one of the boys/I bit my tongue to be one of the boys/I sold my soul to be one of the boys”. The singer for successful Scottish indie-tronic trio CHVRCHES says her debut solo album explicitly expresses her feminine/feminist aspect, while also embracing pop.

What’s to be said about an album that’s half well-executed body-moving, dancefloor pop and half sickly, slick schmaltz? It’s as if the creator is covering off all possible fanbases, those with taste and those lacking it.

Grandiloquent indie-synth-pop outfit Bastille have been around for over a decade. Three of their four albums have been chart-toppers (the other one still made Top 5 and went Gold). They are no flash in the pan.

The bar staff at Saint Luke’s will rarely have had an easier night than this one. Such was the youthful nature of the crowd for Isabel LaRosa that there was little for them to do, beyond handing over occasional cans of Coke.

The atmosphere felt like a school disco, from constant sing-a-longs to whatever was blaring out over the PA (and a mass dance routine when Chappell Roan’s "Hot to Go" kicked in) to gaggles of arm-locked girls hurrying back and forth across the floor ahead of the main event.

When the first solo album by Tangerines Dream’s Peter Baumann was released in the US in 1977, its promotion was striking. Press advertising (pictured below left) said “he possesses the infinite vision that has made his group one of the most important contributors to mystagogic lore.”

Those with long memories will remember Sean Dickson (as Hi FI Sean is known to his Mum) as the vocalist and driving force of 80s indie guitar types the Soup Dragons, and David McAlmont from his Brit Pop era hit with Bernard Buttler, “Yes”. That all happened a long time ago but, unlike many of their contemporaries, neither of these two can be accused of being stuck in a creative rut since their glory days.