Last modified on Thu 4 Feb 2021 04.32 EST
We were passing the turnoff for Norwich prison, near the diner where other children were always having birthday parties, when the car radio jolted me from a daydream. The music was wrong, the beat stilted and crackly. Even stranger were the half-spoken vocals, which sounded the way dads do when they think you’re not listening. Barely even a song, I thought, already half in love.
It would not have shocked me, even then, to learn that Let’s Push Things Forward would cement the Streets in the annals of British pop music. Why distrust mainstream tastes? Nearly everything I adored was wildly successful. Aged 10, I faced just one threat to the sanctity of art and she was sitting beside me in the driver’s seat.