Since they formed in 1989, The Beautiful South have become on of the biggest selling acts in the UK. Their greatest hits album compilation was, for a while, the fastest selling release in the UK, and their album Blue is the Colour sold 1.5 million copies. They have also run up 17 hit singles.

Investigating areas as diverse as travel literature, fiction, dialect, the stage, radio, television, feature film, music and sport, this book assesses the portrayal of the North of England within the national culture and how this has impacted upon attitudes to the region and its place within notions of Englishness. The relationship between these cultural forms and the construction of regional identity has received only limited consideration and this fascinating work provides not only much new information, but also a map for future writers. The North, although seen ultimately as other and the subject of much critical comment, is also shown here as capable of stimulating the creative imagination and invigorating English culture in sometimes surprising ways.

After discovering a derelict record plant on the edge of a northern English city, and hearing that it was once visited by David Bowie, Karl Whitney embarks upon a journey to explore the industrial cities of British pop music. Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Coventry, Bristol: at various points in the past these cities have all had distinctive and highly identifiable sounds. But how did this happen? What circumstances enabled those sounds to emerge? How did each particular city - its history, its physical form, its accent - influence its music? How were these cities and their music different from each other? And what did they have in common? Hit Factories tells the story of British pop through the cities that shaped it, tracking down the places where music was performed, recorded and sold, and the people - the performers, entrepreneurs, songwriters, producers and fans - who made it all happen. From the venues and recording studios that occupied disused cinemas, churches and abandoned factories to the terraced houses and back rooms of pubs where bands first rehearsed, the terrain of British pop can be retraced with a map in hand and a head filled with music and its many myths.

This text presents a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on popular music, from the early 20th century to the present day.

Indexes the Times, Sunday times and magazine, Times literary supplement, Times educational supplement, Times educational supplement Scotland, and the Times higher education supplement.

Cut through the haze of rock reference with the updated second edition of this illustrated encyclopedia. There are over 1800 entries on the stars who have shaped rock history, whether they were destined to become icons or bygones, influential or infamous. Each entry provides essential facts and opinion on songwriters, musicians and producers and includes a sidebar of star-rated recommended albums. There are over 600 images to complement the text and a full album listing for each act at the back of the book.

The Nineties has been a thrilling and varied decade for pop, with a renaissance of both rock and roll and pop music. Along with new acts like the Spice Girls, Oasis, Beck, Bjork and Nirvana, there has been an explosion of dance music and the emergence of powerful new genres like drum'n'bass and thrash metal. All the entries have been created from the massive data-base of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, first published in 1992, which is the acknowledged champion of contemporary music reference books.