Facing the music

The Spectator’s pop critic looks back on 20 years

It suddenly occurs to me, with a jolt, that I have been writing about pop music for The Spectator for 20 years. This makes me the fifth (or possibly sixth, since I am bound to have forgotten someone) longest continuously serving columnist on the magazine, which isn’t bad going, as one or two columnists I know have been carried out of here feet first, promising to file their next one by Tuesday lunchtime with their last worldly breath. It’s all the more bizarre as it stems from something said a quarter of a century ago by a friend of mine called Peter, who these days doubles as a highly respected indie rock guitarist and a rather more louche publisher of philosophy books. ‘I have two ambitions in the world,’ said Peter, possibly after a few drinks. ‘I want to be the rock critic of The Spectator, and I want to be the cricket correspondent of the NME.’