No fun

"Pop music should be the fun bit of life, the bit that eases the daily grind of work, the general horror of the news cycle or the combat of social media comments." The operative word is "should". As Kate Solomon reports in this piece for the Guardian, the experience of trying to get tickets for the forthcoming Taylor Swift tour was an "exhausting slog". Factor in their eyewatering cost and the online jousting of uberfans trying to outdo each other, and it's little wonder that pop fandom has left her and others feeling like "overwhelmed and manipulated" cash cows.

It's only fair to note, though, that the increasingly bureaucratic nightmare that is buying gig tickets - pre-registration, presales, promotional codes, queues on online platforms groaning under the weight of demand etc - isn't a phenomenon that's exclusive to the sphere of pop. I still harbour hopes of one day going back to Glastonbury after more than a decade away - but it's such a ballache to get tickets that I'm not sure I've got the patience. Even Green Man seems to be going the same way.

Still, for Solomon, all will apparently be forgiven and forgotten the moment Swift sets foot on the stage: "the payoff of actually seeing her will certainly be heightened by getting through this rigmarole". Personally, that experience and the fact that it's cost a fortune would make me set the bar for enjoyment significantly higher, perhaps to such a level that I couldn't help but feel disappointed/cheated. Each to their own, though. I'll stick with Clwb and the Moon, thanks.

As if the ticket-buying ordeal wasn't exasperating enough, it turns out that some Swifties - well, one, at least - have made the traumatising discovery that, owing to a manufacturing cock-up, their vinyl copy of the re-recorded Speak Now is actually a pressing of a new compilation featuring industrial pioneers Cabaret Voltaire.

Admittedly, I'm not Swift's target demographic, to put it mildly, but (at the risk of enraging the poptimists) what I've heard of her music is dull, formulaic fluff. If this introduces some of her fans to something a little more challenging, then all good. Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder certainly thinks so: "It's possibly the most subversive thing we've ever done."