Simon Reynolds

Reynolds was born in London in 1963[2] and grew up in Berkhamsted.[3] Inspired by his younger brother Tim, he became interested in rock and specifically punk in 1978.[4] In the early 1980s, he attended Brasenose College, Oxford University. After graduating, in 1984 he co-founded the Oxford-based pop culture journal Monitor with his friends and future Melody Maker colleagues Paul Oldfield and David Stubbs along with Hilary Little and Chris Scott.[2]

In 1986, Reynolds joined the staff of Melody Maker, where his writing was marked by enthusiasm for a wave of neo-psychedelic rock and hip hop artists that emerged in the mid-1980s (including A.R. Kane, My Bloody Valentine, Public Enemy, Throwing Muses and The Young Gods). During this period, Reynolds and his Melody Maker colleagues set themselves in opposition to what they characterized as the conservative humanism of the era's indie rock, soul, and pop music, as well as the unadventurous style and approach of most music criticism.[5] Pieces from this late Eighties era would form the remixed collection Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, published in 1990.[1]

In 1990, Reynolds left the staff of Melody Maker (although he would continue to contribute to the magazine until 1996) and became a freelance writer, splitting his time between London and New York. In the early 1990s, he became involved in rave culture and the electronic dance music scene, particularly that of the UK, and became a writer on the development of what he would later conceptualise as the "hardcore continuum" along with its surrounding culture such as pirate radio.[1] Much of this writing was later published in Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (1998), a history of the breakbeat, house, techno and later rave genres like jungle music and gabber. The book was published that same year in America in abridged form, with the title Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.

During this time, he also theorized the concept of "post-rock", using the term first in a Melody Maker 1993 feature about Insides and then in a more developed form in a May 1994 thinkpiece for The Wire and in a review of Bark Psychosis' album Hex, published in the March 1994 issue of Mojo magazine.[6] In late 1994, Reynolds moved to the East Village in Manhattan. In 1995, with his wife, Joy Press, Reynolds co-authored The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll, a critical analysis of gender in rock. In 1998 Reynolds became a senior editor at Spin magazine in the US. In 1999, he returned to freelance work.

In 2013, a second expanded update of Energy Flash was published, with new material on the rise of dubstep to worldwide popularity and the EDM or Electronic Dance Music explosion in America.

In 2005, Reynolds released Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984, a history of the post-punk era.[7] In 2007, Reynolds published Bring the Noise: 20 Years of Writing about Hip Rock and Hip Hop in the UK, a collection of his writing themed around the relationship between white bohemian rock and black street music. In 2008, an updated edition of Energy Flash was published, with new chapters on the decade of dance music following the appearance of the first edition. In 2009, a companion volume to Rip It Up and Start Again was published, Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews, containing interview transcripts and new essays.

In 2011, Reynolds published Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past, a critical investigation into what he perceives as the current situation of chronic retrogression in pop music, with a focus on the effects of the internet and digital culture on music consumption and musical creativity.[8]

Reynolds's eighth book, a history of the glam rock era, Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, was published in October 2016.[9]

In addition to writing books, Reynolds has continued freelancing for magazines, giving lectures, writing liner notes, and appearing in music documentaries. He also operates a blog, Blissblog along with various satellite blogs such as the book-focused outlets Energy Flash, Retromania and Shock and Awe, and the drivel blog Hardly Baked. Reynolds also maintains an archive for his writing, the blog ReynoldsRetro. He resides in Los Angeles.[10]

• Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock. London: Serpent's Tail (Aug. 1990). ISBN 1852421991.
• The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'N' Roll, with Joy Press. London: Serpent's Tail (Jan. 1995). ISBN 1852422548.
• Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan (2008). ISBN 978-0330454209.
  • Hardcover ed. (abridged). Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. Boston: Little, Brown (1998). ISBN 0316741116.
  • Softcover ed.: London: Routledge (1999). ISBN 0415923735.
• Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. London: Faber & Faber (Apr. 2005). ISBN 0571215696.
  • U.S. ed.: Penguin (Feb 2006). ISBN 0143036726. Full text.
• Bring The Noise: 20 Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip-Hop. London: Faber & Faber (May 2007). ISBN 978-0571232079.
• Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews. London: Faber & Faber (Feb 2009). ISBN 978-0571235490.
  • U.S. ed.: Soft Skull Press (Sep 2010). ISBN 1593762860.
• Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber & Faber (Jun. 2011). ISBN 978-0571232086.
• Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century. London: Faber & Faber (Oct. 2016). ISBN 978-0571301713.
• k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher. Edited, with a foreword, by Darren Ambrose. Repeater Books (Nov. 2018). ISBN 978-1912248285.
• Futuromania: Electronic Dreams from Moroder to Migos. Minimum fax (Nov. 2020). ISBN 978-8833890920.

Book contributions

• "Ecstasy is a Science: Techno-romanticism." In: Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth. Edited by Karen Kelly and Evelyn McDonnell. New York University Press in collaboration with Dia Center for the Arts (1999). ISBN 0814747264.