Indie rock

Lady Gaga’s show was to begin at 7.30  prompt, we were told. No opening act. And at 7.30 something did happen: the big screen over the stage started showing a film of Ms Gaga, clad in scarlet finery, writing on a scroll with a peacock-feather quill, while the PA played opera’s greatest hits. For more than an hour the film ran, an impassive Gaga doing nothing but writing. An hour. It was nearly as dull as a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and it’s a miracle it took 45 minutes for the handclaps to start ringing around the arena. Was she about to do a Madonna – who had to keep

Quite when the concept of coolness became a thing is uncertain, even to etymologists. As early as 1884, an academic paper noted the expression ‘Dat’s cool!’ among African-Americans. But it’s about 100 years since ‘cool’ entered the lexicon as an unambiguous description of something to aspire to (via jazz, inevitably), and it’s still a crucial concept in the world of pop: it’s being cool that meant the Strokes could attract 50,000 or so people to east London, even though most of those present were at primary school when the band released their two first two albums, which are the two on which their reputation rests, and songs from which comprised