It’s OK, Alexandra, you can come out now. No point in skulking around the lower reaches of the charts for weeks on end, with your download sales and your softly-softly-catchee-monkey stealth attack on the Top 10, when you’re effectively melting faces with that heat-blast of a...

I tell you what gets my goat about the Drums, right; nice tunes and all that, a decent, spirited attempt to re-create the spirit of ’80s indie; and ’80s indie was always half-obsessed with ’60s surf-pop anyway. The turn-ups and sneakers are also painstakingly accurate....

It might just be the festive season, it might be that goodwill to all men is seeping from every shop stereo system, and I’m getting a bit soft, but maybe there is something to this Pretty Reckless malarkey after all. OK, so she’s a bit of a copycat, and possibly should tone down...

Poise and mystique are wonderful: more useful to a pop star’s life than towels and hot honey drinks. Sometimes Hurts appear to have struck a deal in which they exchange everything other acts rely on – colour photography, songs about clubs, amazing choruses – for extra...

A confession: I’m not sure if I would recognise a bad Shakira song if it came along and introduced itself, wearing a name-badge and announced that it was following me on Twitter, user name @badshakirasong. I could offer a thought about whether I like it or not, I could have a go at...

The Story So Far: last time we heard from our intrepid threesome, they were bouncing about in front of a private jet, hoping to find that special someone; a partner for life, a soul-mate…or in Dappy’s case, a decent housekeeper. Their loneliness was threatening to overshadow the...