Only people with the intellect of a small worm like Taylor Swift

DOES anyone else find the thud of Taylor Swift's inexorable march to sequinned leotard world domination slightly ghoulish, intimidating and, dare I say it, depressing? As her Eras tour gathers ever-increasing gravity-defying momentum, I find myself wondering what on earth the ubiquity and homogeneity of her music says about the state of popular music today.

- Anna van Praagh

Growing up, we had Madonna, who combined electrifying performances with a truly trailblazing agenda of barrier-breaking subject-matter. She embraced gay pride, sex, challenged the Catholic church, supported the Aids movement, and completely and utterly reinvented the way society perceived women. Her music was interesting, experimental and varied.

Admittedly the intellectually challenged of my generation also embraced Take That and the Spice Girls, but the rest of us also had The Prodigy, Elastica, The Cure, Blur, Pulp, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Nirvana. Crucially, we had so many options of what we could like and dislike and so much of it was alternative. Not only was the music thought-provoking and imaginative, but the lyrics were meaningful and caught the spirit of a generation.