Occasionally – very occasionally, mind – a group’s self-awareness is acute. The Pet Shop Boys always had a keen sense of themselves, probably because they didn’t become famous until they were approaching their thirties.

Tame Impala hail from Perth, in Western Australia, and perhaps have the distance to know exactly who they are. They describe themselves as a band that makes “steady-flowing psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music that emphasises dream-like melody”(music which sits on the edge of ethereal “dream pop”).

They formed in 2008, and owe rather a lot to the half century of pop that came before them. And even though they come from Perth, the most isolated city in the world, they appear to have heard most of the good stuff they came in the wake of. “I can’t stress enough how insignificant Tame Impala is,” said band leader Kevin Parker a few weeks ago. He created Impala’s 2010 debut, Innerspeaker, largely by himself – writing, playing and eventually recording himself at a house near Perth.

Tame Impala sound like the Grateful Dead might have sounded if they’d been born in Japan, hired George Harrison as a singer, Burt Bacharach as a songwriter and George Martin as their producer. And then formed a supergroup with Big Star. Oh, and then spent a month in Ibiza with a bunch of Spiritualized and Air CDs.

Miles from civilisation? Well, while their music is a weird, if oddly topical, mix of the old and the new, Innerspeaker’s cover is about as zeitgeisty as possible, looking not a little like Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. Self-awareness in excelsis.

Dylan Jones is the editor of ‘GQ’

The biggest back story surrounding the opening of Charles Saatchi's brilliant new gallery space in Chelsea (see also In the Frame, page 10) was whether or not Sotheby's were ever going to take it. They had been looking for another venue to show contemporary work in London but apparently dithered so much that the 70,000sqft site was eventually suggested to Saatchi by property consultants Pilcher Hershman. Saatchi bit – and London now has a gallery to rival his original space up in St John's Wood.

I'M NOT altogether sure about fashion-show reports. Whenever I read a review of a catwalk presentation I was at, I often wonder if we were watching the same show. Were those smart green trousers really "a blow against the conservative mediocrity of 21st-century penitence"? How stupid of me; I thought they were just a pair of smart green trousers.

They were the ultimate Eighties pop group, the young guns who took us to the edge of heaven. Then they decided to go go. Dylan Jones says thank you Wham!

`The single most powerful fashion metaphor of the century,' American Vogue has called it. Most men have at least one in their wardrobes - many women, too. It's helped shape the images of several generations of post- war stars, from Marlon Brando and Paul Newman to Bruce Springsteen and Damon Albarn. The white T-shirt and its iconography, by Dylan Jones

The bimonthly Arena had no rivals in 1986. Ten years on it had to raise the tempo, says the magazine's group editor Dylan Jones

The knives are out at the ailing 'Observer'. Time to sell or close? Dylan Jones reports

Bangkok - Burmese troops were yesterday poised to attack the final stronghold of Karen separatist guerrillas, prompting hundreds of villagers to flee into Thailand.