London calling

The Beatles are No 1 with the execrable piece of grave-robbing, Now and Then.

- Andrew Anthony

It was announced recently that the UK's global share of music had declined from 17% in 2015 to 12% last recorded year. The drop reflects the improving reach of nations such as South Korea, with its K-pop phenomenon, and it still leaves Britain holding on to a significant slice of the international market.

But I can't help feeling that the British music scene is not as vibrant or influential as it once was. Of course, every generation tends towards nostalgia when it comes to popular culture, and I can recall thinking as a teenager in the late 1970s that I'd missed out on a golden era of British music - the Beatles, the Stones et al - 10 years earlier. In fact, I was living through a wonderful period in its own right but didn't have the perspective to realise it. I grew up in Camden Town, which was, and remains, a music hub in London. I went to a school in Chalk Farm, opposite the legendary Roundhouse, where just about every music act from Jimi Hendrix to Split Enz has played.