With Margot Robbie belting out one of their songs on screen and an inspiring new documentary, It’s Only Life After All, the folk rock duo are gaining new recruits to their fiercely devoted fanbase

In 1990, as her duo Indigo Girls were heading to platinum-selling success in the US, Amy Ray founded her own label called Daemon Records, formed as “a supportive network for each other within it, almost like a co-op,” she says. She internalised this “ecosystem idea” from Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye and the Washington DC punk scene, as well as the 90s riot grrrl movement.

But the inspiring new documentary, It’s Only Life After All, makes it clear that Ray also learned quite a bit about the power of community from Indigo Girls themselves: the folk band she co-founded in Atlanta with high-school choir buddy Emily Saliers. The duo twice broke into the US Top 10, won a Grammy, and sold millions of albums in the late 80s and early 90s, and today remain a reliable, busy touring and recording act – even earning a high-profile spot in the Barbie movie. Community is woven into every aspect of their lives and careers: the women are principled activists and queer icons who have a fiercely devoted fanbase, and take great care to nurture these relationships via their art and direct action.

OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Rodrigo’s second UK tour showcases a confident star at ease with all-out punk-rock and intimate pop alike

Toilet sinks are streaked with purple glitter and lost hair ribbons decorate the foyer. Olivia Rodrigo has not yet arrived, but the Hydro already feels like a teen girl’s bedroom. On stage, Guts – the title of her Grammy-nominated second album – is spelled out by towering, melting candles. A soldout crowd, clad in homemade merch, scream when the T teeters and falls; they know it means the show’s about to start.

Expectations are sky-high for the American singer-songwriter’s second UK tour, not least because her original opening night was rescheduled due to ongoing technical problems with Manchester’s new Co-op Live arena . Rodrigo’s previous visit, in 2022 , intentionally played to small venues that could barely meet demand; a smart decision she has described as “ultimate practice” in stagecraft, designed to balance out her rapid rise to fame in 2021.

Reviled by the band when it came out and widely thought of as miserable, the film – restored to its original format – actually offers light and insightful moments

The most surprising thing about the reissue of Let It Be is that it commences with footage shot not in 1969 but last year: an interview between Peter Jackson and the film’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg. If nothing else, this suggests that Lindsay-Hogg is a good sport, given that Jackson’s eight-hour 2021 docuseries The Beatles: Get Back substantially retold the version of events depicted in Lindsay-Hogg’s film about the Beatles’ 1969 recording sessions at Twickenham Studios and in the basement of their Apple HQ.

Furthermore, Get Back made Lindsay-Hogg himself look like a bit of a ninny, ceaselessly cajoling the Beatles to perform a filmed live performance in an amphitheatre in Tripoli – “Torchlit! In front of 2,000 Arabs!” – undaunted by various Beatles telling him to stick his idea, and indeed the Beatles apparently splitting up in front of him: his reaction to George Harrison quitting the band midway through filming was to recommence badgering a shattered and tearful-looking Paul McCartney about the amphitheatre gig. No wonder Jackson introduces him with the line: “I guess people might be asking themselves why you might be here talking to me.”

In an interview shortly before his death last week, the frontman of the Dicks remembered how ‘defying anybody’ led to some of the best US punk of the 80s – and mayonnaise-filled condoms

Between its vitriolic hatred of cops, Nazis, the Klan and the bourgeoisie, and the ecstatic joy of losing oneself to gloryholes and porno stores, few punk albums sounded like the Dicks’ Kill from the Heart when it was released in 1983 – and as it gets reissued this month, few still do.

Frontman Gary Floyd – who died last week aged 71 – was loudly, proudly, brilliantly out and the Dicks were fondly described as a “commie faggot band” by punk fanzine Maximum Rocknroll, even if plenty of others would have spat those words at them. Floyd didn’t care. “I always felt that if you don’t like me because I’m gay, fuck you. You’re wrong,” he told me in February from his home in San Francisco, as he was looking forward to the album reissue.

First Direct Arena, Leeds
TikTok phenomenon Somewhere Only We Know inspires much hugging and joy, but the band led by a revived Tom Chaplin are more than just a one-hit wonder

After the chart-steamrollering success of their 2004 debut album Hopes and Fears, singer Tom Chaplin’s marital breakdown and drug and alcohol addiction meant things had gone badly awry by the time Keane took an “indefinite hiatus” 10 years ago. However, here they are, packing out arenas at least partly due to the startling second life of debut single Somewhere Only We Know, a TikTok phenomenon which has notched up a-billion-and-a-half streams.

The band, who reformed in 2019, seem as surprised as anyone to be here. “Hopes and Fears … 20 years. It’s incredible,” beams Chaplin, and yet Keane have grown into their own skin. The singer is a far more accomplished frontman than the rather earnest, self-conscious performer he once was. With his rake thin physique, short grey hair, Rishi Sunak length trousers and voice that soars into the choruses, Chaplin owns the stage as effortlessly as if he was in front of his bedroom mirror. The band are note perfect, but have the endearing body language of four childhood friends who have had their ups and down and are relishing a second chance.

Touring the UK until 11 May; then Europe and festivals into the summer

The novelist on a comedic TikTok sensation, the importance of a good suit and his favourite educational app

Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968, grew up in a working-class Ayrshire family and studied English at Strathclyde University. His first book was The Missing (1995), which told the story of people who disappeared. In 2003 he was included on Granta’s list of best young British novelists. He has written 10 books, including Our Fathers and Mayflies , with three of his novels being Booker nominated. His most recent, Caledonian Road , a state-of-the-nation tale, is published by Faber. He will be talking at Hay festival on 30 May.

She’s set to depose Taylor Swift from No 1 and has the most-streamed song in the world this week – the culmination of a decade of slow-burn success

Capped with one of the most brilliantly nonsensical chorus lines in pop history – “That’s that me, espresso” – Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso is the most streamed song in the world this week, deposed Taylor Swift as the UK’s No 1 single yesterday and is shaping up to be the critics’ pick for the song you won’t be able to escape this summer.

Since its release in mid-April, this irresistible shot of nu-disco has been steadily climbing the charts to become one of the only tracks holding its own against the tidal wave of songs from Taylor Swift’s double-disc The Tortured Poets Department. Carpenter was recently released from Swift’s Eras tour juggernaut, having supported the superstar on her dates in Latin America, Australia and Singapore. Anointed by Swift as a “sweet angel princess”, she is now rising through the ranks to become pop royalty in her own right.

For two years, a viral joke mocking the singer’s dancing threatened to overshadow her record-breaking success – but the laser-focused star had the last laugh. And now she has her sights set on building a media empire

The London hotel room is huge, with a grand piano in one corner. In the middle is a stash of crisps, nuts and drinks, laid out as if we were in a high-end store. And on a sofa I can just about make out Dua Lipa, lost in the vastness. She could be a top footballer – red hair tied back, fresh-faced, wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a striped top. I’m trying to think what club it is. Barcelona?

She laughs. “No, I designed it. It’s merch.” I look closely. On the front, it says Training Season – the title of the second single from her forthcoming album, Radical Optimism. Ah, that makes sense; she is playing for FC Dua Lipa. Over the next hour, Lipa makes it clear that she’s a devoted fan of FC Dua Lipa, gives her all to it, and can only see it growing exponentially. Something I wouldn’t dare to disagree with.

Guitarist whose string of hit records in the late 1950s and early 60s were noted for their twangy sound

For many reaching the state of teenagehood during the late 1950s, in the temporal space between Elvis and the Beatles, the throb of Duane Eddy’s electric guitar – deep, dark and, above all, twangy – represented the wordless evocation of American dreams, the expression of a yearning for blue jeans, neon lights, candyfloss, and cars with chrome tailfins.

Eddy, who has died aged 86, exploited the popularity of instrumental music in that era to create a string of hits, which started in 1958 with Rebel-Rouser and went on to include Peter Gunn , Shazam , Forty Miles of Bad Road and Because They’re Young .