Paul Morley

Paul Morley

Paul Morley wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, when it was at its most successful and notorious - the period of Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons and Danny Baker. In 1983 Paul formed the Zang Tuum Tumb record label with record producer Trevor Horn, and in 1984 they experienced the success of Frankie Goes To Hollywood. With Trevor and Anne Dudley, he formed the group Art of Noise, and this has been an on-off project over the years. They released an album The Seduction of Claude Debussy and played a small tour of America. A sample of Art of Noise was used in Prodigy's Firestarter which was a worldwide hit.

Over the years he has been a TV critic for Blitz (1985-1988), The New Statesman (1990-1991), The Guardian (1992-3), Esquire (1994-1997), and GQ (1998-1999). He has also written magazine articles on the likes of Martin Amis, Naomi Campbell, Tony Curtis, Charlton Heston, John Major, Norman Tebbit, George Best and Gary Lineker. 

In 1985 Faber published a collection of his NME journalism called Ask - The Chatter Of Pop. He has also been represented in the Penguin Book Of Rock ’n Roll Writing and The Faber Book Of Pop.

Paul Morley was one of the original presenters of The Late Show starting in 1989, and also made two series of his own show The Thing Is for Channel 4 in the early 90s. He wrote, produced and co-directed a fifty-minute documentary on New Order for ITV and an omnibus on Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer for BBC1. He is a regular contributor to a range of magazines and newspapers, including Esquire and Observer Music Monthly, and a multi-media broadcaster. He regularly appears on the BBC2 programme Newsnight Review.

Paul’s first book, Nothing, was published by Faber & Faber. His second, Words & Music, an odyssey through British music, was published by Bloomsbury in 2003. A book about Joy Division – Joy Division: Piece by Piece – was published by Plexus in 2007. His next project will be a book on the North.

Titles

Joy Division: Piece by Piece  (Plexus, 2007)

Nothing  (Faber & Faber, 2000)

Words & Music  (Bloomsbury, 2003)