No Tags

So we had another idea for a movie canon.After blinking our way through The Moment – the recent mockumentary about Charli XCX by director Aidan Zamiri – we got thinking about a certain kind of music film that exists between the margins of biopic and rockdoc. Not real, not exactly fake… and all the more incisive for it.We came up with a handful of movies – some of them HIGHLY recommended! – which dramatise rather than document the artist’s status as a ‘star’: their negotiations with fame and celebrity, their discomfort with being the centre of attention, their feelings of being trapped inside the machine.In our conversation about these films – including Pavements, The Nowhere Inn, Spice World, A Hard Day’s Night and Slade in Flame – we think about the irreversible vibe shift that marks 21st century humour, and identify the influence of film and TV comedy, from the Goon Show to Charlie Brooker.The canon is a slim one so far – at least compared to our adventures in Big Beat Cinema, the made-up movie niche coined by Finn and mapped out over two NT episodes and a list last year. But we’ve built a Rockufiction Letterboxd list nonetheless and are all ears for your suggestions. A reminder of the criteria: A film about a musician or band in which they play themselves, generally to comic effect. A blurring of reality and fiction. Not a biopic. Not a documentary.This episode contains some spoilers but not too many. If you need to skip the Charli chat for any reason, it’s from 17:00–29:00. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Some of the most exciting dance music around right now is coming out of Baltimore.Reenergised by a younger generation of artists putting a fresh spin on the Baltimore Club sound, the city is producing stacks of great new records – and we keep hearing dazzled on-the-ground reports from our cool DJ friends (yes, we have them!) about the shows they’ve played there.Kade Young and JIALING are two of the central figures in the city’s new school, known for running events and releasing a stream of club bangers via their label WOE. They had plenty to tell us about why Baltimore is the real engine room of US dance music right now, and why its importance remains undersung. As well as clueing us into the local scene in 2026, they offered an insider perspective on the last 20 years of Baltimore Club.We also managed to record the entire episode without making a joke about The Wire, so well done us. (Come at JIALING, you best not miss.)Before that, for this show’s intro, we offer our recent scene reports: Tom’s trip to see Tony Njoku’s All Our Knives are Always Sharp at the Southbank Centre, and Chal mucking in at the SMUT Press night at the Distillery.We also tackle the elephant in the big room: Fred Again and Thomas Bangalter’s back-to-back at Alexandra Palace. Was this an event for the ages? Should the man behind ‘Club Soda’ be lowering himself to making mash-ups with a bloke with eight hyperlinked family members on Wikipedia? Or are they both in fact nepo baby posh men? Find out inside! Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Taganistas may know Lil Internet from his music videos (Beyoncé, Diplo), his high-concept DJ mixes, or his ever-present voice on Twitter. Since 2017 his main focus has been New Models – a website, podcast and active Discord.But the reason we asked Lil Internet to join us on No Tags is his latest music project – a brand new, rule-based genre he’s calling gencore. Showcased across two mixes released in 2024 and 2025, gencore is completely AI-generated from Udio. More controversially, Lil Internet proposes that gencore marks an evolution – or maybe even the endstate – of the hardcore continuum.Obviously this was catnip to us. We spent a great hour with Lil Internet talking about the AI music landscape, how Udio’s quirks give AI music ‘soul’, moral boundaries and Bandcamp’s AI ban.And for the first 30 minutes of the show, we each pick a Winter Olympics sport, compare our gunmanship, and offer some recommendations – including Otto Benson, 6amsunset and They Are Gutting a Body of Water.We do No Tags for the love, but if you enjoy the show and want to show a little love back, you can do so for £5 per month. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Reports of the death of nightlife may be greatly exaggerated. In recent months we’ve heard of new clubs opening in Peckham and Brixton, an audio upgrade at Tola and plans for a DIY venue in Catford. Even the Old Blue Last is good again!Yet the official figures paint a depressing picture, with hundreds of venues lost, and thousands of jobs. So which story is right? To inspect the situation, Party Lines author Ed Gillett returns to the podcast fresh from his contribution to the London Nightlife Taskforce report.The report's 23 recommendations are the result of a year-long consultation following the axing of the night czar role previously held by Amy Lamé. Ed talks to us about noise, crime, gentrification, the closure of Corsica Studios, and his concern that the discourse of decline might be doing more harm than good.Plus, Chal reports back from the Green Party Party at Heaven, a fundraiser-slash-rally for Zack Polanski’s insurgent electoral movement. Are we really letting Lobsta B lead the green revolution? Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

A stack of new interviews are coming down the No Tags pipes right now, but first we return to a conversation from our sold-out event at the ICA last month.If you couldn’t make it down, or if you were there but forgot to take notes, this episode is a keeper. London-based rave researcher Anjali Prashar-Savoie set out her vision of a ‘club commons’ – a radical, positive and participatory kind of nightlife, as inspired by her research into the history of queer scenes in the UK, from lesbian sound systems with a creche on the side to George Michael-themed free parties.The interview section begins at 41m. Before that we spend some time reporting on our New Year jollies, our seasonal “locking in” progress, and recent film-watching (Into The Abyss, Marty Supreme, The Smashing Machine).Then a conversation about the growing magnetism of Substack, a nine-year-old newsletter platform that’s suddenly having a moment with musicians and celebs. Does the Troye Sivan newsletter herald a new intimacy in fan-artist relations? Or is this just another example of Brands Saying Bae? (With apologies to Shawn Reynaldo, who wrote his own First Floor newsletter on this subject a few days after we recorded ours. Soz.)If you missed it, the ICA event was also a book launch for No Tags Vol 2: Conversations on underground music culture, featuring interviews from the last year of the podcast and four brand new essays. The book is available from our Shopify, and from select bookshops and record shops.In other news! Chal has written about Britney Spears and her memoir for the latest issue of the London Review of Books. (It also references Jeff Weiss’s 2024 book Waiting For Britney Spears, which we interviewed him about last summer.) And Tom has more dance music out on his label Local Action. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Sneaking in at the last possible moment, it's the No Tags best of 2025 show! As is tradition, we’re joined by Henry Bruce-Jones to look back on the year in tunes and spotlight some lesser-feted records that you need to hear.We tried to avoid going over the same releases that we covered on the Best Music of 2025 So Far episode from July, so if you’re wondering where the love is for Smerz, aya, Jim Legxacy or numerous other albums from the first half of the year, we probably talked about them back then.Scroll down for a time-stamped rundown of the episode – the full version is available on Substack, along with our personal Best of 2025 lists. But we want to hear your highlights as well! Tell us your most loved (and hated) releases, films or trends of the year, and let us know if we missed anything crucial via the comments.In case you forgot, our second book is out now.We’ve been running No Tags for over two years now. We do it around other jobs, we have no corporate backing, no sponsorship and we don’t even run ads on the podcast. If you’d like to show your thanks, it really helps if you leave us a positive review over at Apple Podcasts. You can also like or share this post on Substack, which makes a big difference – and if you really love the pod, you can subscribe to our paid tier for £5 per month.Happy new year!Running order:People Making Music In A Room: feeo, The Necks, Water From Your Eyes, Kelela, Shell Company & Older Brother, Rat Heart, Blawan, DJ Travella, Dijon, Alex GDance Corner (33:16): Slikback - 'Data', Beatrice M - ‘Midnight Swim’, Facta - ‘Jets’, K-Lone - ‘Someone Else’, Anthony Naples - ‘Compact’, Efdemin - ‘Signal to Noise’, Car Culture - ‘Nothingburger’, Jump Source - ‘On’ (ft. Martyn Bootyspoon), Minor Science - ‘Mortals’, Ploy - ‘It’s Later Than You Think’, Hodge - ‘Tom’s Tweaks’, Nikki Nair - ‘Sheeps’, Slikback and Skrillex - ‘Kixa’, Debba - ‘Electrolyte’ (Wordcolour Remix)Rap Corner (1:09:18): EsDeeKid, Jawnino & Surf Gang, RoosterPop Corner (1:31:44) Lily Allen, Addison Rae, UnderscoresNo Rules! (1:42:12) Los Thuthanaka, Coldsteel, Camille Keller, ear, weed420, d.silvestre, Oli XL, Jennifer WaltonAmbient afters (2:00:03) Oneohtrix Point Never, Klein, 7038634357, Begena Songs from Ethiopia. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

First off, we’re plugging.The second No Tags book is here – and it looks great. ‘Conversations on underground music culture, Volume 2’ compiles the best interviews and conversations we’ve had on the second year of No Tags, plus five exclusive pieces with Emma Garland, Shaad D’Souza, Mattie Colquhoun, Nono Gigsta and Yu Su. You can order it here, and it will ship from the 10th December.Speaking of plugging, No Tags live at the ICA on 11th December is almost sold out! There are around 25 tickets left. As well as live conversations with Djrum and Anjali Prashar-Savoie and a DJ set from Finn, we’ll have copies of the book on sale – plus some predictably stupid stickers. Keep honking!From plugging to yapping, there’s a pod this week. We compile some of our listeners’ best war stories from Bloc 2012 (who’d have thought so many future Taganistas were in attendance?), before getting into some big questions: is it too far for artists to market themselves via Black Friday sales? And has graffiti run its course?We also dig into the strange story of ‘I Run’, the dance mega-hit of the moment that has been accused of using AI to plagiarise Jorja Smith. Depending on what happens now, this could represent a line-in-the-sand moment for AI and copyright, so we get into the background of the track, where the case currently stands and what might happen from here.Also: what are your top five dancefloor bangers of the 21st century? Chal submitted hers to this rundown for The Quietus, but we’d like to know what our listeners would pick. Tell us in the comments! Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

…And we’re back!Yes, first episode of No Tags for a few weeks, and while we do appreciate the concern, it’s just the two of us running this show, we both have jobs that we do it around, and sometimes we get really busy. Also Tom was in Asia for three weeks and most importantly, we were making a book.That’s right: the second No Tags book is here! Titled ‘Conversations on underground music culture, Volume 2’, it’s essentially a sequel to our first book: a compendium of the best interviews and conversations we’ve had on the second year of No Tags, with five exclusive pieces to boot. You can order it now over on our Shopify store! We’ll be launching the book on 11th December at the ICA, where we’ll be joined by Djrum, Anjali Prashar-Savoie and Finn. We’re down to the last 50 tickets for the show, and we’ll have the new book on sale on the night plus some other treats. We’re excited to see you there – get your tickets from the ICA website. Finally, there’s a pod this week!We’ve spent the last month sucking up culture like the sponges we are – and we’re not just talking about Tom’s late night ramen adventures in Tokyo. We debrief recent trips to Bang Face Weekender and Simple Things, as well as live shows from Smerz and Model/Actriz. We also share our memories (not to mention some potentially spurious speculation) about the great Bloc Weekend debacle of 2012. If you know you know.It’s a loose episode that’s heavy on the yapping, but hey – we were making a book! It’s good to be back. See you at the ICA. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Dan Hancox, a journalist and author known for his insights on grime and public spaces, joins the conversation. He shares the excitement behind releasing a long-lost interview with Burial, exploring the artist's unique anonymity in today's social media landscape. Hancox reflects on the nostalgic reunion of Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, the power of crowds, and their historical significance. He also dives into the Notting Hill Carnival's rich roots and its cultural challenges, while scrutinizing the evolution of sodcasting and public behavior. A mix of music, culture, and insightful commentary awaits!

First, a plug: tickets are now on general sale for No Tags live at the ICA in London on 11th December! There will be special guests, and there will be a new book for sale: Vol 2 is in production now.On this week’s episode we drive headfirst – Modelos in hand – into the discourse around One Battle After Another, the designated cinema event of the year. Is it PTA’s masterpiece, or has he bitten off more than he can chew?OBAA’s ubiquity got us thinking: what was the last album that felt like a monocultural event? Do albums have the power to do this anymore, or were the early 2010s our last hurrah?Finally we debrief on the news that Corsica Studios – the club that Chal and Tom have spent more time in than any other – is closing. We share some Corsica memories but also wonder: should great clubs stay open forever?If you’re a longtime enjoyer No Tags, perhaps you'd consider subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month. Thanks to everyone who’s signed up so far. Get full access to No Tags at notagspodcast.substack.com/subscribe