Abba

I have lost hope in contemporary pop music. As someone who used to keep his finger on the pulse of new releases, and who went to gigs as often as I could, the absence of innovation has been one of the great disappointments of the past couple of decades. There really isn’t anything much out there, bar, of course, the sainted Taylor Swift. But ever since David Bowie’s death eight years ago (eight years...), the music industry seems to have been in a desperate downward spiral, where flair, originality and chutzpah are sorely missed. Surely it’s time that a new act could supply such things, complete with flute solos, songs sung in Albanian and an orchestral overture? No, I am not making it up.

One of the biggest talking points in pop these past couple of years has been how successful old musicians have become at making money. Swathes of stars have simply auctioned off their past: rather than collecting the royalties on their publishing and their recordings year by year, they have just sold the whole lot. Last year Bruce Springsteen collected half a billion dollars for selling the rights to his recordings and publishing to Sony. Bob Dylan got a similar amount for selling his recorded catalogue to Sony and his publishing to Universal. Abba have been in on the act, too. But not selling: a company founded by Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba has been buying up other artists’ catalogues.

So the madness continues. Planes full of passengers are going everywhere. Theatres full of ghosts are going bust. My first press night since March took place at a monumental Victorian building in Wandsworth where concerts are staged in an open-air courtyard. The entry process was less fussy than I’d expected. I didn’t need my phone and there was no ‘track and trace’ nonsense. A masked official aimed a ray gun at my face and showed me a reading — 36.4ºC. I’d passed the temperature test. He then pointed me towards a hand sanitiser. ‘Is it compulsory?’ I said politely. A look of fear crossed his eyes, as if violence were about to erupt, and he meekly repeated his request that I soap down my mits.