Biography
Early life and Blissed Out (1990)
Reynolds was born in London in 1963 [2] and grew up in Berkhamsted. [3] Inspired by his younger brother Tim, he became interested in rock and specifically punk in 1978. [4] In the early 1980s, he attended Brasenose College, Oxford University. After graduating, in 1984 he co-founded the Oxford-based pop culture journal Monitor with his friends and future Melody Maker colleagues Paul Oldfield and David Stubbs along with Hilary Little and Chris Scott. [2]
In 1986, Reynolds joined the staff of Melody Maker , where his writing was marked by enthusiasm for a wave of neo-psychedelic rock and hip hop artists that emerged in the mid-1980s (including A.R. Kane, My Bloody Valentine, Public Enemy, Throwing Muses and the Young Gods). During this period, Reynolds and his Melody Maker colleagues set themselves in opposition to what they characterized as the conservative humanism of the era's indie rock, soul, and pop music, as well as the unadventurous style and approach of most music criticism. [5] Pieces from this late Eighties era would form the remixed collection Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, published in 1990. [1]
Freelance and Energy Flash (1998)
In 1990, Reynolds left the staff of Melody Maker (although he would continue to contribute to the magazine until 1996) and became a freelance writer, splitting his time between London and New York. In the early 1990s, he became involved in rave culture and the electronic dance music scene, particularly that of the UK, and became a writer on the development of what he would later conceptualise as the "hardcore continuum" along with its surrounding culture such as pirate radio. [1] Much of this writing was later published in Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (1998), a history of the breakbeat, house, techno and later rave genres like jungle music and gabber. The book was published that same year in America in abridged form, with the title Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.
During this time, he also theorized the concept of "post-rock", using the term first in a Melody Maker 1993 feature about Insides and then in a more developed form in a May 1994 thinkpiece for The Wire and in a review of Bark Psychosis' album Hex , published in the March 1994 issue of Mojo magazine. [6] In late 1994, Reynolds moved to the East Village in Manhattan. In 1995, with his wife, Joy Press, Reynolds co-authored The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll, a critical analysis of gender in rock. In 1998 Reynolds became a senior editor at Spin magazine in the US. In 1999, he returned to freelance work.
In 2013, a second expanded update of Energy Flash was published, with new material on the rise of dubstep to worldwide popularity and the EDM or Electronic Dance Music explosion in America.
Rip It Up and Start Again (2005) and Retromania (2011)
In 2005, Reynolds released Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984 , a history of the post-punk era. [7] In 2007, Reynolds published Bring the Noise: 20 Years of Writing about Hip Rock and Hip Hop in the UK, a collection of his writing themed around the relationship between white bohemian rock and black street music. In 2008, an updated edition of Energy Flash was published, with new chapters on the decade of dance music following the appearance of the first edition. In 2009, a companion volume to Rip It Up and Start Again was published, Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews, containing interview transcripts and new essays.
In 2011, Reynolds published Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past, a critical investigation into what he perceives as the current situation of chronic retrogression in pop music, with a focus on the effects of the internet and digital culture on music consumption and musical creativity. [8]
Shock and Awe (2016) to present
Reynolds's eighth book, a history of the glam rock era, Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, was published in October 2016. [9]
In addition to writing books, Reynolds has continued freelancing for magazines, giving lectures, writing liner notes, and appearing in music documentaries. He resides in Los Angeles. [10]
Gothic rock is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, and the Cure.
Synth-pop is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late 1970s.
The Raincoats are a British experimental post-punk band. Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London.
Throbbing Gristle were an English music and visual arts group formed in Kingston upon Hull by Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti, later joined by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson and Chris Carter. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. Evolving from the experimental performance art group COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle made their public debut in October 1976 in the COUM exhibition Prostitution, and released their debut single "United/Zyklon B Zombie" and debut album The Second Annual Report the following year. P-Orridge's lyrics mainly revolved around mysticism, extremist political ideologies, sexuality, dark or underground aspects of society, and idiosyncratic manipulation of language inspired by the techniques of William S. Burroughs.
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were an American no wave band, based in New York City, who formed part of the city's no wave movement.
I Just Can't Stop It is the debut studio album by British ska band the Beat, released on 23 May 1980 by Go-Feet Records in the United Kingdom. It was released the same year in the United States on Sire Records under the band name The English Beat". In Australia, it was released on Go-Feet under the band name The British Beat.
The Wire is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots.
Pink Flag is the debut album by the British post-punk band Wire. It was released in November 1977 through Harvest Records. The album was critically acclaimed on release, and has since been highly influential; today it is regarded as a landmark in the development of post-punk music.
Neo-psychedelia is a genre of psychedelic music that draws inspiration from the sounds of 1960s psychedelia, either emulating the sounds of that era or applying its spirit to new styles. It has occasionally seen mainstream pop success but is typically explored within alternative music and underground scenes.
Garage punk is a rock music fusion genre combining the influences of garage rock, punk rock, and often other genres, that took shape in the indie rock underground between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands drew heavily from 1960s garage rock, stripped-down 1970s punk rock, and Detroit proto-punk, and often incorporated numerous other styles into their approach, such as power pop, 1960s girl groups, hardcore punk, blues, early R&B and surf rock.
Spiral Scratch is an EP and the first release by the English punk rock band Buzzcocks. It was released on 29 January 1977. It is one of the earliest releases by a British punk band. Spiral Scratch and the album Time's Up are the only Buzzcocks studio releases with original singer Howard Devoto, who left shortly after the EP's release to form one of the first post-punk bands, Magazine.
Acid house is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesizer-sequencer, an innovation attributed to Chicago artists Phuture and Sleezy D circa 1986.
New pop is a loosely defined British-centric pop music movement consisting of ambitious, DIY-minded artists who achieved commercial success in the early 1980s through sources such as MTV. Rooted in the post-punk movement of the late 1970s, the movement spanned a wide variety of styles and artists, including acts such as Orange Juice, the Human League, and ABC. The term "rockist", a pejorative against people who shunned this type of music, coincided with and was associated with new pop.
Post-punk is a broad genre of music that emerged in 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experimental approach that encompassed a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-rock influences. Inspired by punk's energy and do it yourself ethic but determined to break from rock cliches, artists experimented with styles like funk, electronic music, jazz, and dance music; the production techniques of dub and disco; and ideas from art and politics, including critical theory, modernist art, cinema and literature. These communities produced independent record labels, visual art, multimedia performances and fanzines.
Half Machine Lip Moves is the third studio album by American rock band Chrome. It was released on March 15, 1979 by Siren Records.
R.I.P. is the third studio album by British electronic musician Actress. It was released on 23 April 2012 on Honest Jon's Records.
Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984 is a book by Simon Reynolds on the post-punk musical genre and era. It was first released in the UK in April 2005 by Faber & Faber. The US edition was published by Penguin Books and released in February 2006. It is a shorter version, with several chapters either removed or condensed, and without the large number of illustrations in the UK edition. Reynolds notes this was for space and cost reasons.
Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One) is the second studio album by English rock band Alternative TV. It was released in March 1979 by record label Deptford Fun City. The band followed a more experimental and avant-garde approach than on The Image Has Cracked (1978).
Electronic rock is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music, featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s when rock bands began incorporating electronic instrumentation into their music. Electronic rock acts usually fuse elements from other music styles, including punk rock, industrial rock, hip hop, techno and synth-pop, which has helped spur subgenres such as indietronica, dance-punk and electroclash.
Rewind is the annual year-in-review issue of The Wire, a British music magazine founded in 1982. The year-end issues have been published every January since 1986, adopting the current "Rewind" title in 1997. Each year-end issue has included an annual critics' poll, collating critics' ballots into a list of the year's best releases. The polls survey writers affiliated with the magazine.
