HMLTD announced today via a live streamed interview with Ann Marie Alanes that they are moving into the crypto sphere with a new interactive project named Leaving. They are by no means the first musicians to dabble in this area, Imogen Heap released an NFT single as long ago as 2015 and has since been heavily involved in the medium with her Creative Passport project. However it remains so far a world predominantly dominated by visual artists, most notably poking its nose above the parapet of tech news into the mainstream consciousness when digital artist Beeple sold a single NFT piece for $70 million last month, so it's interesting to see a band like HMLTD moving into this space

Has there ever been a more perfect trip through the infinity mirrors of pop alter-ego than the love letter to Hannah Montana penned by Miley Cyrus this week?

(Everything you never needed to know about the Village People but will be glad I told you anyway.)

My favorite new releases from the week ending 18/12/2020.

Like everything Miley has done since Can't Be Tamed (a record that has more in common with Plastic Hearts than you might imagine), there is a perfect concoction of visuals, artwork and fashion orbiting the music.

Signed to Alan McGee's label and supporting The Happy Mondays at the Creation Festival next year, the band have some pretty strong Britpop credentials. The chuggy chorus of Spaceman certainly fits this bill, but in its best moments the verses have a melodic hook that's strangely reminiscent of Aztec Camera.

Dirt Royal, a well loved fixture of the South Coast music scene who have supported the likes of Sham 69 and 100 Yard Stare, have a spiky garage punk sound that, along with the requisite amount of snottiness and raucous energy, also firmly knows its way around a good pop tune.

My favorite new releases from the week ending 22/11/2020

A riotous injection of day-glo, bubblegum pop punk right where we need it!

My favorite releases from the week ending 15/11/2020

Kylie and disco go together like glitter and sequins. No other genre of music so closely matches her particular brand of classy but saucy, so this should be a triumph, and it very nearly is.

My favourite releases from the week ending 08/11/2020

Halcyon is an aptly named album, bringing as it does a much needed breath of carefree optimism and melodic dreaminess to the chillier end of 2020.

Is "pandemic pop" a recognised genre term yet? Because if not then I think this is it.

I Don't Know How But They Found Me (or iDKHOW as it's stylised) are exactly the kind of band who will annoy almost as many people as they will be adored by, and Razzmatazz is exactly the kind of album you would expect a band like that to make.

Usually when sponsored ads stalk me on Instagram it leads to antipathy but in the case of the promo clip for sumptuous, retro tinged single ‘Mushroom Cloud’ it was an instant obsession.

After doing a three album (and one movie) tour of duty of the Gaga version of a midlife crisis (Jazz! Country! Brunette hair! JUST A REGULAR GIRL!)  and proving unequivocally that Gaga trying to be normal is just as weird as Gaga trying to be weird, Chromatica has now beamed down to earth in all it’s tecno-pinkness to bestow us with some classic Stefani bangers.

Notes On a Conditional Form (or NOACF as its merch-ified) is a beast of an album spanning 22 tracks and despite being written whilst on one of their seemingly never ending tours it is an ambitious and uncompromising release.

Maria Brink has always been a mesmerising live presence, a heady mix of Courtney Love, Lady Gaga and Marilyn Manson topped off with her own unique vision, that has rarely been captured on record in all its glory. However, there is a rawness to Mother that gets closer than anything since Blood and succeeds in doing justice to what the band are capable of without the watering-down process of studio recording getting in the way.

I first encountered HMLTD via their gothic epic Satan, Luella & I - one of those tracks so masterful that if the band never released another note they would still have made a worthwhile contribution to pop culture. Since then I have been awaiting this album with curiosity and interest.