Affected

It may be a touch rash to suggest that Oneohtrix Point Never are challenging, say, Lady Gaga for influence and ubiquity all of a sudden. Nevertheless, more and more psychedelic records I’m sent seem to follow levitational synth patterns rather than more rockist jams, and there’s even been a few weird instances of PRs dropping the Oneohtrix name as an eyecatching influence, when the actual music sounds nothing like him (last week: a very lame pop-dubstep thing with faint ethereal trim).

The Truckers’ ninth provides a country-soul twist in the tale...

The past few days I’ve been reading, on Rob Young’s recommendation, Alexandra Harris’ Romantic Moderns, an excellent survey of how British artists and writers in the mid-20th Century tried to reconcile a modernist impulse with the residual lure of English cultural traditions.

Father-daughter dysfunction in Hollywood, from none other than Sofia Coppola. Intimate and very funny...

Back to what he does best – and on the perfect label...

Brooding Celtic country from Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody – Peter Buck, Jacknife Lee and M Ward saddle up...

Both bands donate memorabilia to help ‘Music Beats Mines’

The veteran rock star has doubts about the band's 2005 award

Apologies for not coming up with the annual skree of indignation when the Mercury shortlist was announced a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered to get worked up about it this year, not least because it would’ve been quite a struggle to come up with a dozen British albums I could genuinely enthuse about that have come out in the last 12 months.

“You’re a good-looking audience,” says Chrissie Hynde, before launching into “Back On The Chain Gang”. “Just what I’d expect. This is for your dad.” It is perhaps interesting to note that a lot of Hynde’s between song banter this evening is predicated around mostly wry, self-deprecating references to her past. She dedicates “Kid”, for instance, to late band members Pete Farndon and Jimmy Honeyman-Scott, finishing with “Put the kettle on, we’re not far behind you.” It is, you might think, particularly apt then that The Pretenders choose to cover Dylan’s “Forever Young”.