He barely knows what he's doing: Oliver Anthony, at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, reviewed

What does a chubby, bearded American feller wearing a plaid shirt and singing about his dog and truck have in common with a chic, sonically adventurous Irish art-pop star? Both, last year, were inadvertently parachuted into the battlefields of the culture wars.

Oliver Anthony recorded a song called ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ – Virginia, not Surrey – that was picked up by MAGA-types from an obscure country music YouTube channel, became a talking point in the Republican presidential primary debates and ended up entering the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1 last August.

While the music is appealing enough, Anthony is an appalling lyricist. He trades in clichés

That same month, Roisin Murphy commented on a post on Facebook using her personal account, saying that puberty blockers were Big Pharma exploiting ‘little mixed-up kids’. Her comment was screenshotted and circulated online, resulting in thousands of people – many of whom had probably never heard of her until then – screaming at each other over whether she was a vicious transphobe or a feminist heroine.