Mr Bob Stanley

'An absolute landmark/joy/gossip-fest/door to Narnia: the history of pop music before rock'n'roll. Fascinating. I can't recommend it enough.' - CAITLIN MORAN 'An encyclopaedic introduction to the fascinating and often forgotten creators of Anglo-American hit music in the first half of the Twentieth Century.' - NEIL TENNANT 'A perfect guidebook, filled with smart thinking and the kind of communicable enthusiasm that...

"Mark E Smith provided me with an alternative education, looping me into Camus, and Arthur Machen, and William Blake, and Can, and dub and old garage punk and rock'n'roll." - Stewart Lee Over a prolific forty-year career, the Fall created a world that was influential, idiosyncratic and fiercely original - and defied simple categorisation. Their frontman and lyricist Mark E....

This is not a book about a rock band. This is not even a book about Mark E Smith. This is a book about The Fall group - or more precisely, their world. Over a prolific forty-year career, The Fall created a world that was influential, idiosyncratic and fiercely original; it was an education. Who wouldn't want to be armed...

'Stanley is both a fine writer and an impassioned celebrant of pop in all its mongrel, misfit glory.' STUART MACONIE, THE TIMES There have been many books on pop music, but none have attempted to chart its entire story, from the dawn of the charts in the fifties to pop's digital switchover in the year 2000, from Billy Fury and...