As the 75-year-old crooner steps up as this year's hopeful, we take a look at the UK's hits and misses

Even by his own perverse standards, Luke Haines's album about wrestling seems obscure. But his interest is sincere, not ironic, he tells James McNair

The Monkees have reportedly scrapped their reunion tour due to fall outs between the group.

They go wherever they want to, and they do what they like to do. To that end, The Monkees have announced that they will be cancelling the rest of their reunion tour.

The late Linda McCartney didn’t just marry a Beatle and try to turn the nation on to vegetarianism, she was also an accomplished photographer.

The second, semi-ironic burst of Monkeemania, caused by the reformation of the "Prefab Four" in 1986, is itself a nostalgic memory now. These days, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork get back together every few years on some pretext or other – the band's 45th anniversary this time. (Mike Nesmith, the richest, most talented ex-Monkee, appeared in 1996 and then left them to it.) All the contradictions in their strange career play out precisely tonight.

Rock 'n' roll photography doesn't get much more intimate than Linda McCartney's Life in Photographs, a collection of subtle portraits from the 60s to the 90s that blends candid moments from music's good, bad, and beautiful with a warm family album-style record of the McCart-ney clan.

The former E.S.T. drummer makes his solo debut with an instrumental prog-suite in which the death of bandmate Esbjorn Svensson looms large.

Manufactured pop groups have been a curse, a guilty pleasure and an occasional delight ever since The Monkees started aping The Beatles in the mid-Sixties.

Looking on the bright side – literally – of his spectacularly horrible trousers, John Daly said, "the good thing is that if you get dressed in the dark, any shirt is going to match." Really John? Surely you mean that no shirt is going to match.

A respected singer-songwriter whose most enduring recordings were penned by others, Crispian St Peters remains an enigma of mid-1960s pop music. He scored two Top Ten entries in 1966; the second of these, "The Pied Piper", was also a huge success in North America. Moreover, an attendant album, Follow Me, elicited covers of St Peters compositions by such disparate artists as Ken Dodd, Darrell Glenn and, most spectacularly, Marty Kristian – whose "I'll Give You Love" (which St Peters also produced) was a hit in Australia.

Shang a Lang! Most of those associated with the Bay City Rollers are either dead or pushing retirement age, but, almost 40 years after their heyday, the Rollers are still rolling.

Last Shop Standing lifts the lid on an industry in tatters. Graham Jones has worked at the heart of record retailing since the golden era of the 1980s. He was there during the years of plenty and has witnessed the tragic decline of a business blighted by corruption and corporate greed. Last Shop Standing is a hilarious yet ahrrowing account by a man who has been there and sold that.

Gordon Waller was the lead singer of the 1960s pop duo, Peter and Gordon. In 1964, they had a UK No 1 with "A World Without Love", but as with the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits and the similarly named and styled Chad and Jeremy, they had greater success in America.