Paul Morley Bücher

Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Martin Creed: What's the Point of It?," held at the Hayward Gallery, London, 29 January - 27 April 2014.

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.

I never met Tony Wilson, but now I feel as though I knew him well - and I'm sorry that I didn't.'BRIAN ENO'From Manchester with Love is the perfect monument.'SUNDAY TIMES'Paul Morley's writing has been delighting and exasperating me since his NME work in the late 1970s .

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."

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.

An insightful biography of one of the world's greatest musicians, Bob Dylan, by bestselling author Paul Morley. As one of the world's greatest musicians, Bob Dylan has enriched the American song tradition for over 50 years. With a talent that has been proven in the worlds of music, radio, art and poetry, Dylan is a man of many personas. From defying pop music conventions with protest songs such as "The Times They Are a-Changin'" to releasing three of the most influential rock albums of the 60s, he has not only extended the parameters of music genres but has also showed us the fluidity his craft. To mark Bob Dylan's 80th birthday and 60 illustrious years in the arts, this insightful biography by bestselling author Paul Morley will explore the many voices of the folk icon.

'Art is my life and my life is art . . .'The story of the twentieth-century avant-garde movement is a story of difference, of the outsider, of strangeness, of individual freedom, of overcoming marginalisation through self-expression. It is also a story that can be told through the prism of one of its most renowned Yoko Ono.From her early life in aristocratic Japanese society to a self-imposed exile in New York, Ono's work built upon the histories of Dada, surrealism, Zen Buddhism, and absurdism. Finding herself at the centre of the notorious Fluxus network, she was connected to all its major proponents. Pursuing disciplined freedom and attempting to free herself from creative fetters, she carved out a legacy - despite her tumultuous personal life - as one of the most essential artists and activists of her generation.Marking the intersection of biography, cultural history and artistic meditation, Love Magic Power Danger Bliss captures the avant-garde movement and the figure at its heart in compelling, vivid detail.