Middle-class problems

The National

The first new song in a decade from Britpop band Pulp, which was given away to fans on Christmas Day, is to be available more widely on Monday.

Anyone still ready to dismiss Hot Chip as geeks or middle-class ironists would be disabused of that notion as soon as the south London five-piece appear.

The influence of punk can be seen everywhere, from Primark T-shirts to the font choices of wannabe-hip advertising. But while its sound and style, once a middle finger to society, now runs throughout pop culture, there is one element that has proven particularly galvanising: that do-it-yourself attitude.

When it comes to biting power, Tyrannosaurus rex was the undisputed king, a study has shown.

Sometimes, it takes a great deal of skill, intelligence and patience to make the simplest and most immediate of pop music.

It's a challenge for even the mildest-mannered Class Warrior to remember to review The Maccabees' music, not their names: Orlando, Hugo, Felix, Rupert (and Sam), but our privately schooled heroes' third album is their best yet.

Nine years after his death, Joe Strummer is still supporting new talent

In which indie singer-songwriter Emma-Lee Moss and Ash frontman Tim Wheeler, a couple in real life, join musical forces and attempt, valiantly and with not inconsiderable success, to breathe new life into that stalest of stale old genres: the Christmas song.

Rocket From The Tombs were a Cleveland proto-punk legend that remained unrecorded in its brief existence, but would go on to provide the seed-corn from which Pere Ubu would grow.

Theatre 'Lend Me a Tenor' at London's Gielgud Theatre. It's hilarious from start to finish. Just what a musical comedy should be. Stunning score and terrific performances. A real shame that it closed so soon because nobody went to see it!

The all-too-familiar keyboard vamp which opens On Your Radar is about the clearest white flag that could be waved as regards originality: this is an album that seeks not to separate itself from the herd, but to bury itself so deeply in its midst as to be virtually invisible.

It can be argued that Mancunian self-taught saxophonist Birchall is a Coltrane copyist stuck in the run-off groove of 1960s spiritual jazz.