Alice Jones' Arts Diary

The retiring principal of the BRIT School for performing arts has accused the Department for Education of "living in a state of fear" and denying children the vocational teaching they need for future careers in the creative industries.

Sir Elton John has issued a sombre assessment of the music industry's future, saying it is "disappearing", lamenting the fall of artists such as Duffy and Kate Nash, and criticising the cut-throat nature of recording contracts, leading musicians to be dropped from labels if they do not immediately win smash-hit success.

Singer-songwriter Kate Nash plans to address the under-representation of female songwriters in British music by launching a series of "after-school music clubs" for British schoolgirls.

"Women of the world, take over," the whimsical Scots bard Ivor Cutler once urged, his advice taken last Friday at a concert featuring women performers from different strata of the musical spectrum.

Music: My favourite track at the moment is "Rescue Me" by Skepta. I'm also really happy Kate Nash is back. I respect female artists who write their own music like I do with N-Dubz. I'm listening to everything from The Prodigy to old-school Madonna. On my iPod I've got a massive selection from grime and garage to modern R&B.

Skin-tight black lycra catsuit, severe fringed bob and jet-black eye shadow, all finished with a cropped leather biker jacket and shoulder pads. Kate Nash's new look certainly matches the scenester setting – an intimate converted warehouse tucked down a Hoxton backstreet. But as first impressions go, the crowd seem miffed. There's a dour-faced dominatrix sitting centre stage behind the keyboard, where a smiling frock-clad girl-next-door used to be.

Talk of Nash's new Riot Grrrl-inspired direction has been greatly exaggerated.

It may be an understandable reaction to the criticism of her as a "Lily Allen lite", which followed her 2007 breakthrough, or simply the influence of a naturally broadening taste in music, but on My Best Friend Is You Kate Nash seems determined to forge a new, more individual musical personality for herself.