John Harris (critic)

Last updated

John Rhys Harris (born 1969) is a British journalist, writer and critic. He is the author of The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock (2003); So Now Who Do We Vote For?, which examined the 2005 UK general election; a 2006 behind-the-scenes look at the production of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon ; and Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll (2009). His articles have appeared in Select , Q , Mojo , Shindig! , Rolling Stone , Classic Rock , The Independent , the New Statesman , The Times and The Guardian .

Contents

Early life

Harris was raised in Wilmslow in north Cheshire; his father was a university lecturer in nuclear engineering, [1] and his mother a teacher who was the daughter of a nuclear research chemist. He became fixated by pop music at an early age.

Harris attended the comprehensive Wilmslow County High School (at the same time as members of the band Doves [2] ), then went to Loreto College, Manchester, a Roman Catholic sixth form college sited between the University of Manchester and Old Trafford. [3] He applied to study Modern History at Keble College, Oxford, but was rejected, and claimed his membership of left-wing organisations had not won him many favours with such a traditional and conservative college. [3] He spent three years studying philosophy, politics and economics at another Oxford college, Queen's, between 1989 and 1992.

Media career

In 1991, Harris joined Melody Maker . Between 1993 and the summer of 1995, he wrote for the NME . In 1995, he was named editor of Select magazine after a brief stint with Q .

In 1995, Harris resumed his career as a freelance writer, writing about pop music, politics and a variety of other subjects. His articles have appeared in Q, Mojo , Rolling Stone , The Independent , the New Statesman , The Times and The Guardian . He presented a BBC Four documentary on the musical movement, The Britpop Story .

In addition to writing, Harris often appears on television programmes concerned with late 1980s/early 1990s British pop music, as well as being a regular pundit on BBC Two's Newsnight Review . In 2010 he created the video series Anywhere but Westminster [4] for The Guardian , documenting the political feelings of people around the country. In December 2018 Harris wrote and presented a four-part BBC Radio 4 series, Tyranny of Story.

Harris is the editor of the companion book, published on 12 October 2021, of the documentary The Beatles: Get Back . The illustrated book compiles conversations recorded during the sessions of the album Let It Be . [5] In addition, he hosted a short promotional film for the project called The Beatles, Get Back and London: On the Trail of a Timeless Story. He also contributed a chapter in the hardcover book accompanying the release of the Let It Be: Special Edition that same year. [6]

Personal life

Harris lives in Frome, Somerset. [7] He has been a ethical vegetarian since the mid-1980s. [8]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the US-led grunge music and to the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the backbone of a larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blur (band)</span> English rock band

Blur are an English rock band formed in London in 1988. The band consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bass guitarist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut album, Leisure (1991), incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegaze. Following a stylistic change influenced by English guitar pop groups such as the Kinks, the Beatles and XTC, Blur released the albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a widely publicised chart battle with rival band Oasis in 1995 dubbed "The Battle of Britpop".

<i>Definitely Maybe</i> 1994 studio album by Oasis

Definitely Maybe is the debut studio album by English rock band Oasis, released by Creation Records on 29 August 1994. The album features Noel Gallagher on lead guitar, backing vocals and as chief songwriter, Liam Gallagher on lead vocals, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs on rhythm guitar, Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan on bass guitar and Tony McCaroll on drums.

Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels, by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced.

<i>NME</i> British music journalism website and former magazine

New Musical Express (NME) is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a free publication, before becoming an online brand which includes its website and radio stations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oasis (band)</span> English rock band (1991–2009)

Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as the Rain, the group initially consisted of Liam Gallagher, Paul Arthurs (guitar), Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll (drums), with Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher joining as a fifth member a few months after their formation. Noel became the de facto leader of the group and took over the songwriting duties for the band's first four albums. During the course of their existence, they had various line-up changes, with the Gallagher brothers remaining the only stable members.

Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge, shoegaze, and Britpop subgenres in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.

<i>Parklife</i> 1994 studio album by Blur

Parklife is the third studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 25 April 1994 on Food Records. After moderate sales for their previous album Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife returned Blur to prominence in the UK, helped by its four hit singles: "Girls & Boys", "End of a Century", "Parklife" and "To the End".

<i>Modern Life Is Rubbish</i> 1993 studio album by Blur

Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second studio album by English alternative rock band Blur, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure (1991) had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour. After the group returned from an unsuccessful tour of the United States, poorly received live performances and the rising popularity of rival band Suede further diminished Blur's status in the UK.

<i>(Whats the Story) Morning Glory?</i> 1995 studio album by Oasis

(What's the Story) Morning Glory? is the second studio album by English rock band Oasis. Released on 2 October 1995 by Creation Records, it was produced by Owen Morris and the group's lead guitarist and chief songwriter Noel Gallagher. The structure and arrangement style of the album was a significant departure from the band's previous album, Definitely Maybe (1994). Gallagher's compositions were more focused in balladry and placed more emphasis on "huge" choruses, with the string arrangements and more varied instrumentation contrasting with the rawness of the group's debut album. Morning Glory was the group's first album with drummer Alan White, who replaced Tony McCarroll.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British rock music</span> Rock music from the United Kingdom

British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the world.

<i>Dog Man Star</i> 1994 studio album by Suede

Dog Man Star is the second album by English alternative rock band Suede, released in October 1994 on Nude Records. The album was recorded in London at Master Rock studios in early 1994, and was produced by Ed Buller. It was the last Suede album to feature guitarist Bernard Butler; growing tensions between him and singer Brett Anderson ended with Butler leaving the band before recording was complete. As a result, some tracks on the album had to be finished with the assistance of session musicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Good Rocking Tonight</span> 1947 single by Roy Brown

"Good Rocking Tonight" is a jump blues song originally released in 1947 by its writer, Roy Brown and was covered by many recording artists. The song includes the memorable refrain, "Well I heard the news, there's good rocking tonight!" The song anticipated elements of rock and roll music.

<i>Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties</i> 1994 book by Ian MacDonald

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties is a book by British music critic and author Ian MacDonald, discussing the music of the Beatles and the band's relationship to the social and cultural changes of the 1960s. The first edition was published in 1994, with revised editions appearing in 1997 and 2005, the latter following MacDonald's death in 2003.

British pop music is popular music, produced commercially in the United Kingdom. It emerged in the mid-to late 1950s as a softer alternative to American rock 'n' roll. Like American pop music it has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, as well as that of the Singles Chart usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs. While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, particularly borrowing from the development of rock music, and utilising key technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. From the British Invasion in the 1960s, led by The Beatles, British pop music has alternated between acts and genres with national appeal and those with international success that have had a considerable impact on the development of the wider genre and on popular music in general

Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Travis, Keane, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Robin Denselow is a British writer, journalist, and broadcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spencer Leigh (radio presenter)</span> BBC Radio presenter

Spencer Leigh is a BBC radio presenter and author, with particular expertise in the development of pop and rock music and culture in Britain.

Peter Doggett is an English music journalist, author and magazine editor. He began his career in music journalism in 1980, when he joined the London-based magazine Record Collector. He subsequently served as the editor there from 1982 to 1999, after which he continued in the role of managing editor. He has also contributed regularly to magazines such as Mojo, Q and GQ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Savidge</span> British writer

Jane Savidge is a British writer and public relations agent.

References

  1. Harris, John (7 October 2005). "Blast from the past". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  2. Harris, John (5 November 2000). "A cheerful use of misery and adversity". The Independent .
  3. 1 2 Harris, John (27 May 2000). "He glanced at my CV, then muttered: 'I don't think you'd be happy at Keble'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 23 December 2010.
  4. "Anywhere but Westminster". The Guardian.
  5. Harris, John (26 September 2021). "Beatles on the brink: how Peter Jackson pieced together the Fab Four's last days". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  6. Williams, Richard (26 November 2021). "The Beatles – Let It Be Special Deluxe Edition". Uncut. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  7. Harris, John (5 May 2019). "Don't look to national politics for hope: you'll find it thriving in local councils | John Harris". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  8. Harris, John (17 February 2013). "No more excuses. The only defensible option is to go vegetarian". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  9. Bragg, Billy (22 January 2005). "Nowhere else to go?". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2022.