Product Description

Manchester, its bands, its fashions, its attitude, has defined pop culture for the best part of four decades. Joy Division, The Fall, Buzzcocks, New Order, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Oasis.

These were the bands that shaped two generations of teenagers and changed the course of pop music. "Manchester: Looking for the Light through the Pouring Rain" is a portrait of these individuals, the city, and their times. Whether it be on a rain-soaked stage in Brazil, a rented room in Whalley Range, or on the dance floor of the legendary Hacienda, Kevin Cummins' exquisite photographs capture the anarchic energy of the Manchester pop moment.

This stunning visual record of the city and its pop history is complemented by four textual contributions from Paul Morley, Stuart Maconie, Gavin Martin and John Harris. What is it about that city that makes it the Memphis of the UK?

Cummins' photographic record of the past 30 years captures the highs, the lows and the transcendent pop moments of Manchester's most famous sons.

Contains over 250 photographs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #810 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

About the Author
Kevin Cummins was photographer on the NME for two decades. He now takes pictures for The Times, Guardian, and others.

Customer Reviews

Manchester Light Found.
Think of the most iconic photo's of the Manchester music scene over the last 30 years and they are probably in this book. Why? Because Kevin Cummins took them all! This book is an amazing pictorial journey through Manchester music history and what stands out is that many of these great images are already part of your sub-concious. From the early shots of the Factory Gang and Joy Division, to the NME Stone Roses front cover. . .they are all here. The stills are all linked together by a wonderful first hand commentary from leading figure in the Manchester music world.

This is the most wonderful collection of images and a must for anyone who was involved the scene, wanted to be or anyone serious about music.

A must buy book.

Radish.

All the streets are crammed with things
Leafing through this wonderful book for the first time, numerous snapshots of the years in which my musical interests were formed came to mind - from album covers to NME articles to posters on the bedroom wall and beyond. Strange men from a strange, dark town that - at the time - I had never visited and seemed a world away. Frankly the photos stand on their own - telling not just the story of these bands that bestrode British music for the best part of two decades, but also of the people and the city that created them.

The cleverly structured commentary from just about everybody who was anybody in Manchester in this period turns this book from a coffee table book of the first order (and I use that description hesitantly as it really doesn't do the book justice) into a must-have item for anyone who wants to understand British music from the late seventies into the nineties or, like me, just loved most of these bands.

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
There must be over 250 photographs. Some of them you've seen a hundred times and some feel new. But never have they been reproduced so beautifully. Of course they have looked good illustrating articles in magazines or on the cover of a publication (slightly obscured by copy) but here they are shown in all their glory. Well selected and beautifully ordered within the book to surprise and excite as you turn the pages. And as well as the familiar faces there are photographs of the surroundings - the bleak unlovely and unloved Arndale shopping centre, the Hulme Crescents, the car-free terraced streets. But far more than a trip down memory lane, this book helps you to re-examine those key moments in British musical history from punk and new wave to the rave culture, Brit Pop and beyond.

The book is beautifully designed to include bits of ephemera dotted throughout the text. You feel you could pluck that Hacienda membership card from the page. And was it really so cheap to go to gigs? And the text, whilst written by people who worked with Cummins at the time he took the photographs, is not just a rehash of old pieces but instead each writer has taken the time and trouble to re-examine what the music and the pictures meant and what their legacy is. As a consequence the words add a totally new dimension to the photographs. Paul Morley's piece is a fascinating examination of himself at that time. Almost like eavesdropping a session with his therapist. But it's gorgeous and has such resonance. In a similar way, Stuart Maconie looks back and writes about himself with a sophistication he possibly didn't have at the time. The lad from Wigan hanging out with the big boys in Manchester. A fabulous read. And then the pieces by the musicians themselves offer another fascinating insight into what it all meant then and how they see it now. Johnny Marr comes across as the genius he is, Peter Hook sounds sad and angry. But not half as angry as Mark E. Smith.

But it is the pictures that tell their own story. And through them you can tell yours.