The rude health of popular music

It’s often claimed that popular music has died a death, never again to be resurrected; that the masses will abandon all sense of communality and that the long-reigning pop sensibility will collapse upon itself into its disparate component parts. At least by me it has. So I found myself curiously aroused (not like that, you dirty trollops) upon watching the latest top forty run-down through the tellybox.

Yes, alright – not every one of the songs currently featured are decent or tuneful or reasonably-crafted, but a significant number more than usual seem to be. Or I’m getting weak. Let me tweeze out the highlights.