Grace Jones

Paul Morley

"Memoir from model and actress Grace Jones"--Provided by publisher.

I'll Never Write My Memoirs

A history of popular music as told through a ficitionalized journey featuring real life, fictional and composite characters from the world of popular music.

A History of Pop in the Shape of a City

Words and Music

A celebratory and beautiful mixture of memoir, social history and cultural observation, Paul Morley's North is a unique portrait of Northern England and almost everything within it

(And Almost Everything In It)

The North

Chris Blackwell

My Life in Music and Beyond

Islander

A celebratory and beautiful mixture of memoir, social history and cultural observation, Paul Morley's The North is a unique portrait of Northern England and almost everything within it.

The north (and almost everything in it)

Age of Bowie

A cultural critic describes the greatest moments of the life of pioneering musician David Bowie and explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, influenced others, and invented the future.

The Age of Bowie

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 & 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 P Staff

The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson

From Manchester with Love

Bill Bailey

Joachim Pissarro

Cliff Lauson

Martin Creed

To celebrate the opening of the artist's first large-scale retrospective, Hayward Publishing is releasing a special edition of 250 copies of its Martin Creed: What's the point of it? exhibition catalogue.Each copy will feature a new version of Creed's iconic torn paper piece, as well as a handwritten 'certificate' of authentication, written onto the pages of the book and individually signed by the artist.Embodying the artist's immediate and irreverent approach, the Martin Creed: What's the point of it? 'special Edition' represents a highly affordable opportunity to purchase a singular piece by this world-renowned artist.Published alongside an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London (29 January - 27 April 2014).

What's the Point of It?

Martin Creed Special Edition

The Bakerloo Line

Earthbound

'Exhilarating' - Sunday Times 'Funny and moving' - Jarvis Cocker Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all. Paul Morley had stopped being surprised by modern pop music and found himself retreating into the sounds of artists he loved when, as an emerging music journalist in the 70s, he wrote for NME. But not wishing to give in to dreary nostalgia, endlessly circling back to the bands he wrote about in the past, he went searching for something new, rare and wondrous – and found it in classical music. A soaring polemic, a grumpy reflection on modern rock, and a fan's love note, A Sound Mind rejects the idea that classical music is establishment; old; a drag. Instead, the book reveals this genre to be the most exciting and varied in music. A Sound Mind is a multi-layered memoir of Morley's shifting musical tastes, but it is also a compelling history of classical music that reveals the genre's rich and often deviant past – and, hopefully, future. Like a conductor, Morley weaves together timelines and timeframes in an orchestral narrative that declares the transformative and resilient power of classical music from Bach to Shostakovich, Brahms to Birtwistle, Mozart to Cage, travelling from eighteenth century salons to the modern age of Spotify. 'His passion for centuries of music – both celebrated and obscure – is infectious' - Irish Independent

How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite its Entire History)

A Sound Mind

Joy Division: Piece by Piece is the definitive collection of writings on the legendary cult band. In addition to collecting all Morley's classic works about the band from the late 1970s/early 1980s, this unique book includes his eloquent Ian Curtis obituary and his hindsight pieces on the significance of the group, framed by an extensive retrospective essay. Contemporary elements include Morley's critique of the films '24 Hour Party People' – which told the story of the band's record label, Factory – and 'Control', for which the author visited the set during production. Most movingly, Morley includes the original text that grew into his literary work Nothing, which parallels the suicide of Curtis with that of his own father. He also evokes the zeitgeist and the 'psycho-geography' of Manchester, which combined to produce the most uniquely intense rock group ever.

Piece by Piece

Joy Division

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.

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.

Words & Music

For readers of Mozart in the Jungle and Year of Wonder, a new history of and guide to classical music. Paul Morley made his name as a journalist covering the rock and pop of the 1970s and 1980s. But as his career progressed, he found himself drawn toward developing technologies, streaming platforms, and, increasingly, the music from the past that streaming services now made available. Suddenly able to access every piece Mozart or Bach had ever written and to curate playlists that worked with these musicians' themes across different performers, composers, and eras, he began to understand classical music in a whole new way and to believe that it was music at its most dramatic and revealing. In A Sound Mind, Morley takes readers along on his journey into the history and future of classical music. His descriptions, explanations, and guidance make this seemingly arcane genre more friendly to listeners and show the music's power, depth, and timeless beauty. In Morley's capable hands, the history of the classical genre is shown to be the history of all music, with these long-ago pieces influencing everyone from jazz greats to punk rockers and the pop musicians of today.

How I Fell in Love With Classical Music (and Decided to Rewrite Its Entire History)

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A handsome six footer with a warm and engaging personality, Davie Jones has all it takes to get to the show business heights including . . . talent.' David Bowie at 17 in May, 1964 writing his own press biography. Respected arts commentator Paul Morley, one of the team who curated the highly successful retrospective exhibition for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, David Bowie Is . . . constructs the definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, invented the future and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten. Morley will capture the greatest moments of Bowie's career; from the recording studio with the likes of Brian Eno and Tony Visconti; to iconic live performances from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, as well as the various encounters and artistic relationships he developed with rock luminaries John Lennon, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. And of course, discuss in detail his much-heralded, and critically-acclaimed comeback with the release of Black Star just days before his shocking death in New York. Morley will offer 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 mobile Bowies into the world with a bloody-minded determination and a voluptuous imagination to create something amazing that was not there before.

Metapop. Storia del pop dal big bang a Kylie Minogue

Paul Morley knew Joy Division intimately. He not only wrote extensively and evocatively of the “mood, atmosphere and ephemeral terror” that enveloped the group and their doomed front man, Ian Curtis, but he was present when Curtis suffered his life-changing epileptic seizure following a London concert in April 1980 and was the only journalist permitted to view Curtis’ corpse. Joy Division: Piece By Piece encompasses his complete writings on the group, both contemporary and retrospective. In addition to collecting all of Morley’s classic works about the band, the book includes his eloquent Ian Curtis obituary and hindsight pieces on the group’s significance, framed by an extensive retrospective essay, as well as his reviews of the films 24 Hour Party People and Control. Morley, who emerged from Manchester at the same time as Joy Division, effortlessly evokes that city’s zeitgeist and psycho-geography to tell the story of this uniquely intense group.

Piece by Piece : Writing about Joy Division 1977-2007

Michael Jackson died on June 25 2009 in LA, from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication (according to Wikipedia). The one-time King of Pop was preparing for one last assault on the mainstream with a 50 night run of shows at the O2. His exhaustion, paranoia and ill-heath were an open secret. He had lived many lives and inhabited many bodies; PT Barnum, Fred Astaire, and Peter Pan in one mortal coil. His death was mourned by hundreds of millions of fans but it was almost as if he had been dead for some time already. And in his death, we relived the dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and perversions that we had all projected on to him as a celebrity for four decades. Paul Morley's short biographical portrait of Michael Jackson looks at how we turned the most outrageous child star talent of the late 20th century into a monster; and how his decline soundtracked the end of Pop and the end of American Imperialism.

Paul Morley

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