Digby Warde-Aldam

I had a fair idea of what I was in for when I went to see The Fall at Brixton’s Electric last Friday. They’re a middle-aged band from Manchester, just like the Stone Roses, or the various incarnations of New Order. In journalese, this almost makes them ‘Heritage Rock’. I can’t remember when people started using this term, but it’s gone from the repertoire of niche music writing to being A Thing. You can’t go a week without some old beat combo or other announcing their re-formation, and in return they get a sort of protected status. Old rock music has become to the British what films about unfaithful middle-class couples are to the French. That is, culturally important but not very interesting. Consummately psychotic: Mark E.

This week has seen the Prime Minister playing Mary Whitehouse again. On Monday he announced that, as of October, music videos on sites like YouTube and Vevo are to carry age classifications similar to those already in place for feature films. You can read the subtext on his ‘deeply concerned’ brow: 'if this is what it takes to get a majority…' In principle, it’s hard to object too much. CDs (if anyone still buys them) carry parental guidance stickers, and a lot of comic books have a ratings system. Video games and DVDs follow the same British film classification board traffic-light system as cinema releases. Unless you take particular issue with any of this, you can’t really do much but shrug. But then you clock how ineffectual the whole thing is.

Disco, the tackiest of music subcultures, is the nostalgia choice de nos jours. The sudden revival is a sort of pop gentrification. You want proof? They play Baccara’s 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie' in Pret A Manger. Sister Sledge, too. Sledge were never the naffest of the movement’s megastars, but that’s not saying much. Roland Barthes was a fan, whatever that implies. 'How many people do you think are here as an ironic statement?' a friend asked as we stood in Camden’s Jazz Cafe waiting for the Sledge to take the stage. It was a good question. Who actually comes to a disco revival gig? And can such a thing exist outside of inverted commas? The first answer was: hipsters, Peter Stringfellow lookalikes and - wow - normal people.

Time was when the former Smiths singer surfaced only once every five years or so to do the Carry On Morrissey routine. But the more you ignore him, the closer he gets. Barely half a year after he colonised the books pages, he’s back. Is that a collective groan I hear? The release of a new Morrissey record really shouldn’t be a big deal. Since the mid-90s, his albums have worked to a formula that bolted sanctimonious, self-pitying lyrics to sub-Oasis guitar fluff. In his Autobiography, he repeatedly blames conspiratorial suits for keeping him from the top of the charts. This is sweet, but just not true. The problem, alas, was that the songs stunk. But hang about.

What’s the difference between Kanye West and the space cadets of Speakers’ Corner? Without having access to their bank statements, the biggest distinction between the two parties is that when Mr West (‘Yeezus’ to his friends) played a gig in London on Friday, he was standing on a state-of-the-art stage set rather than a stolen classroom chair. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to make a distinction. You won’t find many differences in their public speech, that’s for sure. ‘I am Shakespeare in the flesh!’ he once declared, before dropping the false humility and admitting that he was in fact ‘God’s vessel.

Pop humpty-dumpty Michael Jackson has a new album out today. If that statement seems odd, you don’t know the half of it; five years after his death, Jackson is only on album number two. Compared to a trooper like Tupac – who still manages a couple of albums per year, despite having copped it in 1996 – his posthumous output is actually pretty sluggish. Record labels have always had a talent for cashing in on their dead charges. The zombie discs that result are generally made up of songs the 'artist' was too embarrassed to release when he recorded them. Michael Jackson's new one, Xscape goes one further. It’s a cut 'n' paste job of unused demos and vocal off-cuts remixed by some producers who were quite cool circa 2002.

I like Europe, even if this may not be the place to admit it, and I like this moment, when our brothers are forced to make fools of themselves in a language none bar the Irish can speak convincingly. Sauf les Français, obviously. ‘Ukraine will win. Europe has solidarity. You’ll see,' says my European flatmate. But after the first batch of votes, it becomes clear that either Ukraine’s entry wasn’t very good, or Putin actually takes the competition seriously. Having missed both Maria Yaremchuk’s Tick-Tock and the inner machinations of the Kremlin’s ministry of culture, my guess is one or both of those things. Many horrors were committed in the process of the panels’ announcements. Azerbaijan begging approval from mother Russia.

When Chicago DJ Frankie Knuckles died last week, a novelty number by a Brylcreemed Aussie pop punk group had just reached number one. It displaced Duke Dumont & Jax Jones’s I Got U and ended a three week-run of house singles at the top of the charts. I suspect the following statement may piss off dance nerds, but it’s fair to say that Knuckles had as much claim as anyone to having ‘invented’ house music thirty odd years ago. Essentially, he took the kitsch out of disco and turned it into a synthesiser-heavy global brand. Was it worth the effort, though? Frankie Knuckles and the other Chicago house pioneers made some genuinely great music.

George Michael and Kylie Minogue have albums out this week. And while they might both be distinctly second-division these days, they’re both still rather remarkable. George Michael got famous for not being Andrew Ridgeley, and has since redefined the status of adult-oriented pop. He has also written the only Christmas song in history worth playing all year round and made the Hampstead branch of Snappy Snaps a tourist destination. I like him a lot. Minogue, meanwhile, is cheesy, knowing and resolutely budget in the international diva stakes. As Aldi is to Waitrose, so Kylie is to Beyoncé. But she’s made some terrific records – have you given up pretending you don’t like Can’t Get You Out of My Head yet?