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Bob Stanley

Bob Stanley

Bob Stanley wrote for Melody Maker and Mojo, before going on to form Saint Etienne. He has had a long parallel career as a music journalist writing for amongst others NME, Melody Maker, Mojo, The Guardian and The Times. After leaving school, Stanley worked in various record shops. While working at Virgin Records in Peterborough he met Andrew Midgley, who later fronted the 1991 side-project Cola Boy. Stanley and Midgley produced a fanzine called Pop Avalanche in 1986. They then produced their own fanzines; Stanley wrote four issues of Caff with childhood friend Pete Wiggs. In 1987 he sent one to James Brown, then live reviews editor for NME. This led to Stanley's first commissioned work, a review of a Johnny Cash show in Peterborough. After two years he moved to Melody Maker, where he wrote regularly until Saint Etienne became a full-time occupation in 1991. He wrote occasionally for The Face and Mojo in the 1990s. In the 2000s he has returned to journalism and contributes regularly to The Times and The Guardian. He has also written liner notes for many reissues, including box-sets by Joe Meek, Sandie Shaw and The Searchers. In 2007 with Paul Kelly he edited Match Day, a book of football programme artwork. He is currently working on his second book, due to be published in 2012.

List of articles in the library by artist

Adam & The Ants: Stand And Deliver by Adam Ant (Sidgwick & Jackson)

Book Review by Bob Stanley, Times, The, September 2006

STUART GODDARD attempted suicide, aged 21, in 1975. He woke up in Friern Barnet hospital and discharged himself. When he got home to his wife ...

Mark Eitzel: Dark Side of the Loon

Interview by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, January 1991

"YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER JUST LEFT. He made me laugh, he said Americans don't like having their photo taken and I'd better act for the camera. I ...

Felt: Too Much Monkey Business

Interview by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, December 1989

THE RECENT ME AND A MONKEY ON THE MOON LP WAS FELT'S LAST SHOT, THE COMPLETION OF A 10-YEAR PLAN, THE PRE-DESTINED END OF THE ...

Billy Fury: Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, MOJO, February 1995

"There's only ever been two English rock 'n' roll singers – Johnny Rotten and Billy Fury." – Ian Dury, 1978 ...

La's, The: Interview with The La's

Interview by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, June 1989

THE LA'S ARE NOTHING if not perfectionists. After two years work they've just completed their debut LP - no wonder they look knackered as they ...

Pixies, The: The Pixies: Bossanova (4AD)

Review by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, August 1990

ONE THING that's always bugged me about The Pixies is the universal acclaim for their LPs – how come no one ever gripes about the ...

Shadows, The: The Shadows: Let's Go To Work

Retrospective and Interview by Bob Stanley, MOJO, June 2004

TONY MEEHAN, 15, is kicking his heels in Kilburn one late '50s afternoon when his friend Dave Rees suggests a trip to Soho. He may ...

Slowdive: Younger than Yesterday

Interview by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, March 1991

"A LOT OF BANDS are so precious about influences, thinking they're massively original. I don't think we are." ...

Sparks: Talkin' About My Generator

Interview by Bob Stanley, Times, The, June 2004

SPARKS PUT the fear of God into preteens with their debut Top of the Pops appearance. As pretty boy Russell Mael flashed his baby blues ...

Dusty Springfield: The Legacy of Dusty Springfield

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, Times, The, April 2009

The greatest girl singer of the Sixties would be 70 this month, but her legacy is evergreen ...

Tanita Tikaram: The Sweet Keeper

Review by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, January 1990

THE CONNECTION between pop stars and new towns in the Eighties – someone should have done a thesis on it. We had Depeche Mode in ...

World of Twist

Interview by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, August 1990

MOST ENIGMATIC and downright peculiar of the 1990 Manchester shockwave are World Of Twist. All they have in common with their Manc contemporaries is that ...

List of genre pieces

Top Of The Noughties Pops

Essay by Bob Stanley, Guardian, The, December 2009

Can Bob Stanley listen to every No 1 song from the noughties and escape with his sanity intact? He recalls a musical decade that ranged ...

Where Were You In C86?

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, Times, The, October 2006

THE EIGHTIES HAVE – like the stack-heeled Seventies before them – been repackaged and filed away as an era of Duran Duran, Dynasty and mobile ...

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