Affected

As I read yet another blog rave or lavish review, I keep returning to this Hercules & Love Affair album; a record I keenly want to like, but can never quite get on with. If you’ve somehow missed all the fuss thus far, it’s an opulent nu-disco album, populated by a cast of New York nightlife denizens (including, most conspicuously, Antony Hegarty), and released on James Murphy’s eccentric but generally trustworthy DFA imprint.

There's a moment during CSNY: Déjà Vu, Neil Young's document of the supergroup's 2006 Freedom Of Speech tour, when one furious ticket holder outside the Philips Arena, Atlanta spits: "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young can suck my fucking dick!"

Fun and games: perverse pop galore on band's intrepid third

Wainwright’s homage to his heroine

The many sides of Bob Dylan: provocatively, brilliantly imagined

After living with the new Hot Chip album for the best part of a week, it feels like my thoughts about it are finally beginning to coalesce. They’re a curious band, I think: a consummate, bright pop band on the one hand; a group whose songs gradually insinuate themselves over time. What initially appears slight, eventually becomes unforgettable.

The pair talk about the transformative powers of Transcendental Meditation

Californian indie four-piece embrace the pop mainstream

Conor Oberst will not be making it to the UK for V and warm-up shows

Carling Reading Festival site also 25 per cent under water