From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson

Paul Morley

Faber&Faber

It's late at night. Imagine tuning your radio to, let's say, Radio 3, in one of those places with wayward reception There are bursts that reveal the programme to be a vigorously expressed account of the genesis and evolution of pop music 'Cage took the silences in the air around us, and spread them through his music' But then is this the John Cage who 'eventually ended up as a character in 'Ally McBeal' or the musician behind the completely silent 4'33? And talking of 'completely silent' - 'The Sound of Silence' - 'the thing about Simon & Garfunkel is that their songs were 96% heartwarming, with very little of the remaining 4 % anything like mindblowing. More sort of mind sucking'. And then there are bursts of the music itself, it's meanings, its hidden depths, its obvious shallowness. On the surface this book is essentially an explanation and a justification of tracks that might be included on a two-disc discography of seminal moments in pop music history, but Paul Morley is a man obsessed, and he's about to share his obsession with us, the reader, in pursuit of 'the sexily philosophical things crawling through the moist, scratchy undergrowth of rock and roll'.

Words and Music : A History of Pop in the Shape of a City

Arts & Photography

Music

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Has pop burnt itself out? Inspired by the video for Kylie Minogue's hit single 'Can't Get You Out of My Head', acclaimed rock journalist Paul Morley is driving with Kylie towards a virtual city built of sound and ideas in search of the answer. Their journey bridges the various paradoxes of twentieth-century culture, as they encounter a succession of celebrities and geniuses - including Madonna, Kraftwerk, Wittgenstein and the ghost of Elvis Presley - and explore the iconic and the obscure, the mechanical and the digital, the avant-garde and the very nature of pop itself.

Paul Morley grew up in Reddish, less than five miles from Manchester and even closer to Stockport. Ever since the age of seven Morley has always thought of himself as a northerner. What that meant, he wasn't entirely sure. It was for him, as it is for millions of others in England, an absolute, indisputable truth. Forty years after walking down grey pavements on his way to school, Paul explores what it means to be northern and why those who consider themselves to be believe it so strongly. Like industrial towns dotted across great green landscapes of hills and valleys, Morley breaks up his own history with fragments of his region's own social and cultural background. Stories of his Dad spreading margarine on Weetabix stand alongside those about northern England's first fish and chip shop in Mossley, near Oldham. Ambitiously sweeping and beautifully impressionistic, without ever losing touch with the minute details of life above the M25, The North is an extraordinary mixture of memoir and history, a unique insight into how we, as a nation, classify the unclassifiable.

The North

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

BRAND NEW, Exactly same ISBN as listed, Please double check ISBN carefully before ordering.

The Age of Bowie

Simon Schuster(uk)

Author and industry insider Paul Morley explores the musical and cultural legacies left behind by “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” Respected arts commentator and author Paul Morley, an artistic advisor to the curators of the highly successful retrospective exhibition David Bowie is for the Victoria &amp; Albert Museum in London, constructs a definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, influenced others, invented the future, and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten. Morley captures the greatest moments from across Bowie’s life and career; how young Davie Jones of South London became the international David Bowie; his pioneering collaborations in the recording studio with the likes of Tony Visconti, Mick Ronson, and Brian Eno; to iconic live, film, theatre, and television performances from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, as well as the various encounters and artistic relationships he developed with musicians from John Lennon, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop to Trent Reznor and Arcade Fire. And of course, discusses in detail his much-heralded and critically acclaimed finale with the release of Blackstar just days before his shocking death in New York. Morley offers a startling biographical critique of David Bowie’s legacy, showing how he never stayed still even when he withdrew from the spotlight, how he always knew his own worth, and released a dazzling plethora of personalities, concepts, and works into the world with a single-minded determination and a voluptuous imagination to create something the likes of which the world had never seen before—and likely will never see again.

Arts & Literature

Simon & Schuster Pb

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Books by Paul Morley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Paul Morley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson

Words and Music : A History of Pop in the Shape of a City

Words and Music : A History of Pop in the Shape of a City

The North

The Age of Bowie

The Age of Bowie