Music reviews & criticism

Praise for the Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die exhibition:

"A fascinating look at how punk and new wave music met the eye" New York Times

"An absolute joy" Financial Times

The largest unique collection of printed memorabilia from the punk and post-punk movements.

Extracted from five hundred years of musical history, this is a fascinating collection of stories about classical music's most unusual concerts and characters.

The definitive book on the world's most beloved musical, TheSound of Music Companion charts the incredible and enduring story of Maria von Trapp and her story over the last hundred years – from Maria's birth in Vienna in 1905 to the 50th anniversary of the film's release in 2015.

From deeply suspect sexual politics to crackpot religions, musicians’ elevated position in popular culture allows them to hold forth freely on subjects about which they know precious little. Mind The Bollocks collects some of the finest nuggets of wisdom ever to fall from their foul, ill-educated mouths.

'The NME mattered to all those generations who grew up with music at the centre of their universe.The NME never had a truer chronicler than Pat Long.' Tony Parsons

Since it was founded in 1952, the New Musical Express has played a central part in the British love affair with pop music.

Even the greatest songwriters (and Spandau Ballet) have had the odd bad day at the office. Or more likely, a bad few minutes in the studio toilets scribbling the first words they can think of on the back of their tranquiliser prescription shortly before the vocal has to be recorded.

Crap Lyrics is a humorous celebration (and occasionally, condemnation) of over 120 of the most ridiculous hooks, lines and stinkers from pop poetry through the modern ages.

In 1903, Victorian composer Cecil Sharp began a decade-long journey to collect folk songs that captured the spirit of Great Britain. A century later, writer, presenter and journalist Will Hodgkinson sets out on a similar journey.