You have to admire the brazenness of The Strypes’ solution to the problem of retromania; as critics worry that slavish aping of past form and a dearth of ideas are leading us to the death of popular music, these four Irish youngsters (all 15-17) casually rock up and attempt to reignite the whole process, going back to the mother lode of early blues and R&B (via their parents' record collection) to spark a second big bang.

'I love the simplicity of John Cale's playing'

This 23-year-old Kiwi came to prominence soundtracking the advert for the latest iPod, and is just as sleek a product: a Brylcreemed dandy who jazzes up old-school rock'n'roll pastiche with scratches, samples and hip-hop breakbeats.

American pop singer Patti Page, whose 1950 hit "Tennessee Waltz" topped the charts for months, has died in Southern California, her manager said yesterday. She was 85.

Pop music is going through a prolific period. Elisa Bray reports

The Hives' fifth album has been five years in the making. It's the time it takes to make a classic, the natty rockers tell Gillian Orr

At its best, the music of former Sussex schoolfriends Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire is a swirling and seductive stew of early Jefferson Airplane and the Indigo Girls.

No one loves a side project like Jack White. But now that he's gone solo, the blues-rock maestro can, finally, do what he does best: shred that guitar

Mark Ronson, most famous for his work with Amy Winehouse, has co-created a new dance piece at the Royal Opera. He tells Elisa Bray what attracted him to it

I took my son recently to buy some football boots. This is usually a bonding thing for a father and son to do, just like passing on the baton of sport in a "my-time-has-gone-now- its-your-time-son" sort of way. When I did it with my dad, we when to Woolworth's and bought of pair of own-brand Winfield's which, if you ran fast enough – and it was muddy – looked almost like adidas boots from a distance.

At last, something good from France that doesn't feature a vocoder.

Celebrities. They're everywhere. Packing out Desert Island Discs, emoting on the interview shows, attached like a lucky charm to every programme proposal. Don't you sometimes think, 'What do actors and singers have to say that's so special?' There are times when you wish Celebrity Culture could be replaced by Clerical Culture, or Science Culture or I don't know, Poet Culture. In Shelley's time, poets were the "unacknowledged legislators of the world", but now it's the celebs who rule the airwaves. Given, though, that we must exist in Celebrity Culture, thank heaven for celebrities like Bob Geldof and Michael Sheen.