We all know that hardcore will never die – but do we really know what hardcore is? As a music journalist for 15 years and raver for much longer, Holly Dicker is no stranger to documenting dance music’s heaviest, gnarliest and speediest niches – but in Dance or Die: A History of Hardcore, she attempts to finally answer that big question.

From the pioneering hardware assault developed in Frankfurt and Berlin, to London’s grubbiest squat raves, Dutch intercity gabber rivalries and Scotland’s ‘tartan techno’ explosion, Dance or Die is a historical map of hardcore in its many forms.

Holly dials in from – where else? – Rotterdam to talk us through the crucial rave tales collected in her book, as well as revealing her personal history with hardcore and offering her thoughts on where the scene went wrong post-Covid.

Feeling like a hardcore Taganista? Help the pod by giving us a (good!) rating on your podcast app of choice, leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts, or liking this post on Substack. You can also subscribe to our paid tier for £5 per month and become a member of our own NT Hard Crew. Thanks to this month’s new subscribers!

We all know what happened to the sorcerer’s apprentice, right?

Mickey Mouse got hold of a spell book before he was smart enough to use it, conjured a broom that just wouldn’t quit, and nearly got sucked into a whirlpool. Yet, tragically, no one can remember what the moral of this story was supposed to be!

This week we batten down the hatches in preparation for the #slopwave – at least, that was the plan a couple of months ago when we first started worrying about the volume of mass-produced AI gibberish coming down the pipes. Now it kinda feels too late? Like microplastics in the brain, we’re already compromised.

Still, we start by tackling the current wave of AI slop infiltrating country music, the lo-fi beat scene, City Pop and faux-vintage soul before turning to deeper conundrums about AI-generated art. Could an AI music app like Suno ever produce a hit? Is Suno really so much worse than using a loop library like Splice? And will AI ever create anything as meaningful as Mr Blobby? These questions and more on a slopulent edition of No Tags.

We’re not pretending to be experts here – just listen to that new No Tags theme song for proof! – so we’d love to hear from people who either work in AI or operate in a field that’s started to feel the slop. If that’s you, drop us an email or a comment.

And they said music journalism was dead. It’s list time, losers!

When it comes to round-up episodes we like to draft in No Tags’ very own fifth Beatle, Henry Bruce-Jones. Minimal intro required here: we discuss our favourite music of 2025 so far, from the new wave of weird UK rappers to the changing faces of mainstream pop – plus rap oldheads, surveillance electro, minimal techno reboots and more. We didn’t include any of the records already discussed on the pod this year – including aya’s hexed and FKA twigs’ Eusexua – but they’re all still in the running for AOTY, of course.

Below is a time-stamped rundown of everything we discussed, so feel free to skip ahead if certain corners aren’t your bag.

We like to see No Tags as a conversation between us and you, so let us know your own most loved (and most hated) releases and trends of the year in the comments below, or maybe drop us a reply on Insta or send an email?

If you like what we’re doing on No Tags (over 50 episodes deep now!), a really helpful way to support is by leaving us a rating on your podcast app of choice, or leaving us a 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. Thanks to this month’s new subscribers!

Running order

Pop Corner (07:40)

Rap Corner (38:25)

The UK ‘Underground’ (1:05:22)

Dance Music Corner (1:27:04)

Percies (1:41:42)

Who’s on your Mount Rushmore of pop?

That’s the question of the week. After welcoming Jeff Weiss back to London for a live show about his tremendous novel-slash-memoir, Waiting For Britney Spears, we got to thinking about our own pop album percies. 2007’s Blackout is certainly up there – ‘a lost weekend of one-more-gram indulgence’ that ‘embodied the hedonistic sleaze of the late Bush years,’ as Jeff sums it up in the book.

Waiting For Britney… is a celebrity biography like no other – a gonzo account of Jeff’s time as a rookie in the world of Hollywood gossip rags, back when celebrities still had mystique and Brit still had a full head of hair. There is scandal and there are laughs, but never at the expense of its stricken central character. The words ‘leave Britney alone!’ never sounded more reasonable.

At the end of June, Jeff blessed us with his presence at Young Space in East London, where we talked to him about paparazzi, poptimism, fedoras, K-Fed, and the chaotic energy of LA in the early 2000s, the era that feminism forgot. Plus, a working theory: why Britney, Kanye and Trump are the quintessential 21st century Americans.

If you like what we’re doing on No Tags, please forward this email to someone else who’d like it, subscribe on your podcast app of choice – or better yet, leave us a nice review. And if you’re really into what we’re doing, please consider subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month.

It’s Glastonbury weekend, and we’re back with the Big Questions.

Not a sentence we expected to be saying on No Tags, but we kick off by talking about Will Smith – specifically his recent appearance with London streamer du jour DJ AG. The Fresh Prince is in the middle of a generationally cringe promo run and we’ve been wanting to discuss AG’s streams for a while now, so these two forces colliding over a dubstep remix of the Men in Black theme felt like the perfect opportunity.

If you’re looking for something more high-brow, well, you still have to get through Tom’s full review of the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll – aka Final Destination: Cotswolds. Once we’re through that, it’s onto higher ground, debriefing recent experiences at Polyphonic Eating with Yu Su, Warp Records’ ‘happening’ at The Barbican and a No Tags night out at Corsica for Hodge and Peverelist. Music writers who still go to clubs? Perish the thought!

We always say it, but if you like what we’re doing on No Tags, please do rate and subscribe on your podcast app of choice – or better yet, leave us a review. This stuff really does help. And if you’re really into what we’re doing, please consider subscribing to our paid tier for £5 per month.

We talk about festivals a lot on No Tags, and usually the negative stuff: monopolisation, bad owners, overpriced cheesy chips. But good can still prevail, and are hopes are pinned on Field Maneuvers: an LED beacon of hope in the darkness, and an event that puts the comfort and enjoyment of ravers first. Perish the thought!

In this episode, FM organisers Henry, Ele and Leon explain how they’ve just about stayed afloat for 12 years – or is it 13? They can’t quite remember. We talk about building a rave utopia from scratch, the influence of free party culture on FM, adapting to festival life as new parents, and the momentum behind the current boycott of KKR-owned festivals. There’s also a story about duck poo.

Before that, Chal and Tom talk about the lack of muckracking journalists in the music industry, following on from the latest First Floor newsletter, and get into a stack of listener emails on side-of-stage access, babushka hoods, Afrohouse and Keinemusik. We’ve had some golden feedback emails lately – please keep them coming!

If you’re a fan of No Tags and want to show us some love, please do drop us a like and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Substack. And if you really like what we’re doing, please do consider subscribing to our paid tier, which costs £5 per month. Planning, recording, editing and transcribing these regular podcasts is a pleasure but it’s also a lot of work, and your support truly does make a difference.

What connects Adonis resident Grace Sands, the free party explosion of summer '91, Deleuzian dancefloor philosophy, and the annual Gloucestershire cheese-rolling competition?

It's this episode of No Tags, obviously, but the connecting tissue goes much deeper, we promise. The last third of the show contains our recent conversation with Grace Sands – house DJ, free party originator, icon of London's queer underground – live in Sheffield on 9th May. In a compact Q&A before a screening of Free Party: A Folk History hosted by No Tags and local heroes Gut Level, she set out some of the early ideals of a scene which changed the course of British dance music.

We talk about our own reactions to the film, a superb documentary charting the UK’s free party movement in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, featuring members of UK soundsystems like Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Grace's alma mater DiY.

Before all that, for the first hour of the show we respond to some excellent listener feedback on recent pod topics, including who exactly goes to see Keinemusik and what makes the perfect night out. Inspired by one Taganista in particular, Chal expands her recent theory of rave with an important third axis from wiggy theorist Gilles Deleuze. Show us another podcast whose listeners write in about Plato and Love Island!

As ever, if you want to support what we’re doing on No Tags, please do drop us a like and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Substack. You can also subscribe to our paid tier, which costs £5 per month. Planning, recording, editing and transcribing these regular podcasts is a pleasure but it’s also a lot of work, and your support truly does make a difference.

Rave royalty on No Tags this week as we’re joined by Paul Woolford.

We’re both drawn to artists who are driven by a compulsion to put art into the world at all costs – and 25 years into his career, Woolford (AKA Special Request) seems to be more driven than ever. In the last six years he’s released six albums and countless singles and remixes, and he still tours relentlessly – from seasons in Ibiza to grubby late-nighters at the White Hotel.

He’s also constantly collaborating – who else can you name who’s worked with Novelist, Diplo, Alison Goldfrapp and MK? And that’s how we introduced him on stage at the British Library earlier this year, where he joined us for a live conversation as part of AVA London.

Housekeeping! If you’re into No Tags, you can show your support by liking our posts on Substack. Or why not forward this email to a friend who’d enjoy it? You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or chuck us a like on Spotify. Or if you’re feeling particularly generous (or just flash – we’ll take either), consider subscribing to our paid tier, which costs less than a pint per month and gives us the financial and spiritual fuel to keep planning, recording, editing and transcribing these regular podcasts.

Tom and Chal emerge from a proper-large-’avin-it May bank holiday weekend with a desire to explain the perfect clubbing experience. Borrowing a few ideas from Friedrich Nietzsche, we sketch out two divergent tendencies in club culture and talk about the countless variables that accelerate our rave engines. Got feedback? Obviously please write in, DM or voicenote us with critiques of our emergent theory and your Most Transcendental Rave Experiences.

After that we’ve got our film corner in its usual place, including a moment for Danny Dyer’s Marching Powder. And it's your last chance to grab a ticket for No Tags live in Sheffield this Friday, 9th May! We’ll be screening Free Party: A Folk History at the Showroom cinema before interviewing Adonis resident DJ Grace Sands, followed by a party at Gut Level.

Drop us a like and a review on Apple and Spotify. If you get a kick of what we’re doing here on No Tags, consider throwing us a fiver a month – or spread the gospel to your friends.

We’re back! And booting off a busy season of No Tags content by speaking to 'professional music fan' Derrick Gee. You’ve likely come across Derrick on your feeds already. He’s a beacon of sophistication in the murky waters of social video, and a true enthusiast for music of all kinds – from audiophile sound systems to viral TikTok trends to his favourite bossa nova recordings. He’s racked up millions of views, toured Japan and America, lured huge names onto his YouTube show – and done it all by focusing almost exclusively on music outside the mainstream. So is he a music journo? A critic? A content creator? Derrick dialled in from Sydney to talk to us about his curious content niche and how he earns a living from loving music.

If you continue to get a kick of what we’re doing on No Tags, consider throwing us a fiver a month – or spread the gospel to your friends.