This record is a heck of a metatextual experience to listen to. In releasing his debut album, 24 year old Finneas O’Connell is attempting to step out of the shadow of one of the biggest pop cultural behemoths of our time – his own sister, Billie Eilish, who he also writes and produces for – and mark out a creative lane of his own. And he’s documenting this in many of these songs, which touch repeatedly on his experience of fame, struggles with identity and the like.

There I was, gleefully prepared to give this a good kick-in but, annoyingly, it’s defied my expectations. I’ve come to associate James Blake’s singing with the worst excesses of I’m-so-vulnerable-me, post-Jeff Buckley, falsetto-voice-breaking, and his public persona with joylessly prescriptive and enfeebled ultra-wokeness.

Grand, sweeping romanticism with strong Celtic leanings is the order of the day lately, in a way it hasn’t been since the 1980s heyday of U2, Waterboys, Bruce Springsteen, Dexys and Simple Minds. The likes of Lewis Capaldi, Dermot Kennedy, Declan McKenna, Ed Sheeran in “Castle on the Hill” mode and Fontaines D.C. when they show their softer side are all taking yearning songs of big dreams colliding with small realities all the way to the bank.

When The Specials returned with their chart-topping 2019 album Encore, it was a wonderful surprise. As well as being their first in nearly four decades (excluding material by alternately named intermediary incarnations), it proved they were more than an endlessly touring heritage night out for ageing rude boys. Critics of their reappearance on the tour circuit claimed they were washed up without the band’s original driving force, Jerry Dammers.

Ben Howard is a man of very few words, unless of course, there’s a guitar accompanying them.

For those amongst you who listened obsessively to the soundtrack of Call Me By Your Name, the idea of an album by cult singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens of ‘film music’ will probably fill you with deep joy. Although this isn’t a collection of music made for film.

Hilarious, potty-mouthed and mesmerisingly beautiful, Nadine Shah is on superb form at the Ramsgate Festival of Sound’s closing evening show. And aside from the banter there is, of course, that remarkable voice – hugely powerful and somehow perfectly suited to this enchanting outdoor venue. In fact, this is the first time the Winterstoke Sun Shelter has been used for a gig – I doubt it will be the last. It was simply magical.

The release into a world in lockdown of Bob Dylan’s first original album in almost a decade caught everyone by surprise last year. Rough and Rowdy Ways drew widespread and universal praise. Its coming was heralded by a single, “Murder Most Foul”, a lengthy song, released without fanfare, addressing the Kennedy assassination which was, of course, the subject of great textual exegesis.

Scottish singer-songwriter Dorothy Allison pretty much defines cool. Her band One Dove was the first to snare Andrew Weatherall as producer after his success with Screamadelica, and together they created Morning Dove White: an extraordinary album that fused country and western melancholy with deep dub and electronica.

It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 50 years since I splurged a day’s Saturday pay on For Everyman, Jackson Browne’s second album. The title track alone was worth it. A couple of years on and Late for the Sky yielded “Before the Deluge” and “Fountain of Sorrow”. He’s written some great songs – and let’s not forget that “Take It Easy”, co-written with Glenn Frey, gave the Eagles their first hit.