This is a music autobiography to remember. This is the story of Martyn Ware.The Human League and Heaven 17 were among some of the most pioneering bands of the 1980s, with Ware having played an integral role in each of their numerous successes. A young lad from the heart of post-war Sheffield, Ware formed The Human League a few years out of school in his early twenties. Described by David Bowie as 'the future of music', it wasn't long before the band become known fo...

This is a music autobiography to remember. This is the story of Martyn Ware.The Human League and Heaven 17 were among some of the most pioneering bands of the 1980s, with Ware having played an integral role in each of their numerous successes. A young lad from the heart of post-war Sheffield, Ware formed The Human League a few years out of school in his early twenties. Described by David Bowie as 'the future of music', it wasn't long before the band become known fo...

A TIMES AND ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR'Beautifully written and brutally honest' LYDIA LUNCH'A compassionate, relatable love story' MIKI BERENYI'Lyrical, affectionate and often painfully raw' RUPERT THOMSONAs a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures, 'Budgie' became one of the era-defining drummers in the much-mythologised po...

*The Sunday Times Bestseller*The brand new memoir from James Acaster: cult comedian, bestselling author of Classic Scrapes, undercover cop, receiver of cabbages.PERFECT SOUND WHATEVER is a love letter to the healing power of music, and how one man's obsessive quest saw him defeat the bullshit of one year with the beauty of another. Because that one man is James Acaster, it also includes tales of befouling himself in a Los Angeles s...

I was only sixteen when I bought an electric guitar and joined a band. A year later, I formed an all-girl band called the Marine Girls and played gigs, and signed to an indie label, and started releasing records.Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within a...

Modern pop began in 1952 when the first British chart was published and the first 7" singles were released. It ended (perhaps) in 1995 when Robson and Jerome reached the top of the charts with the first number one not to be available on vinyl since 1953. The internet age ushered in the death rites of over 40 years of pop.A Complete History Pop describes the journey that leads from 'Rock Around the Clock' to 'Crazy in Love'. Raw, thrilling, surprising and sometimes downrigh...

Bernard Sumner pioneered the post-punk movement when he broke onto the scene as a founding member of Joy Division, and later as the front man of New Order. Heavily influencing U2 and The Cure while paving the way for post-punk revivalists like Interpol, Sumner's has left an indelible mark on punk and rock music that endures to this day.Famously reluctant to speak out, for the first time Sumner tell his story, a vivid and illuminating account of his childhood in Manchester, the early...

**A SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN & TELEGRAPH MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022****INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE MONTH****GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY****FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022' PICK**'Incredibly moving.' - Guardian'Entertaining.' - Telegraph'Most books about pop stars focus on the way we turn average human beings into dem...

Guy Pratt's life as bass player to the stars. The book behind the successful comedy show.Guy Pratt came of age just as playing bass became cool, with the likes of Paul Simonon and Bruce Foxton. Having dallied with Funkapolitan, Pratt suddenly found himself on Top of the Pops and supporting David Bowie with smooth Australian outfit Icehouse.At a ludicrously young age Guy Pratt became a sought after bass player to the stars, finding himself crawling from stud...

"A wise, breezy, supersmart memoir" from the legendary guitarist and cofounder of the seminal British band The Smiths ( The Guardian).Johnny Marr was born in 1960s Manchester to Irish emigrant parents and knew from an early age that he would be a musician. Forming his first band at thirteen, Marr spent his teenage years in public housing, playing guitar, devouring pop culture, and inventing his own musical style.It wasn't until the e...

And then there was David Bowie, the uber-freak with the mismatched pupils, the low-tech space face from the planet Sparkle. This was Bowie's third appearance on TOTP but this was the one that properly resonated with its audience, the one that would go on to cause a seismic shift in the Zeitgeist. This is the performance that turned Bowie into a star, embedding his Ziggy Stardust persona into the nation's consciousness.With a tall, flame-orange cockade quiff (stolen from a ...

The more I thought about it, the more I realised my career has been unusual. How did I manage to do everything wrong but still end up on the front cover of magazines, headlining world tours and achieving Top 5 albums? How did I attract such obsessive and fanatical fans, many of whom take everything I do or say very personally, which is simultaneously flattering but can also be tremendously frustrating? Even this I somehow cultivated without somehow meaning to. My accidental career.