Sweeter the second time around
There’s a real weight to some lyrics once you’re nearer the end than the beginning
Confessions of an aging pop queen
Madonna once assured us that being an adult woman was something to aspire to
Like a homecoming
A haunted house
Better Slayyyter than never
Like the first Strokes album if Max Martin had produced it
The ballad of Robbie and Harry
Sometimes, the struggle can become the art
Paris cinema
There are no songs or movies about Paris in the winter
Get into the groove — why vinyl rocks
On the best sound in popular music
Roxy Music but they’re all Kate Bush
The Last Dinner Party are a proper rock band, but the spell is too easily broken
Girls don’t just wanna have fun
“Blue Velvet” is a sinister, savage take on male violence and a feminine urge for vengeance
Literate, satirical, witty and romantic
Neil Hannon is one of the true greats of songwriting
Most Read
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
A shameful Bill
Labour is spectacularly failing the British people on immigration
Going Green
A day out with Zack Polanski and friends
Against Northernism
“Northernism” is a superficial form of cultural branding, not a serious political project
The big crunch
How university expansion failed to prepare Britain for the future
Reclaiming Christian nationhood
Linking the Christian faith to our national identity is not radical (or American)
Quinlan Terry
He kept the flame of classicism alive at a time when it burnt very low
The Blob playbook
How activist charities subtly shape policy
In defence of lunchtime drinks
Hannah Spencer is being a tedious puritan
Why there will probably be no early election
It would be all but impossible to build an attractive but realistic manifesto
Itamar Ben-Gvir, heel
The Israeli demagogue is a bleak but interesting model of a modern politician
A country at war with itself
Washington politics can
best be understood through the history
of bitter factional in-fi ghting within both
the Democratic and Republican parties
The emperor’s new AI
A satirical X account is doing what the media class has failed to do, and report on the great AI delusion
It is time to cut pensions
The economic burden on younger people is unsustainable
Keeping the faith
Brexit triumphalists can’t understand how other people living in the UK in 2026 do not share their enthusiasm
Infamous five
To most of us, the Cambridge Five are just names