- Hardcover: 432 pages
- Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd (25 Jun 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1845135407
- ISBN-13: 978-1845135409
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 16 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 205,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
Product Description
Review
`Familiar Manchester music saga retold in epic detail' 4 STARS -- Q Magazine
`...detailed history unfolds the tangled tale of how Factory produced music that helped to shape the scene way beyond Manchester's Hacienda' -- Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'...a very good way to immerse in its strange and inspirational story' 4 STARS
-- Mojo
"Shadowplayers is an immaculately researched history of a label born in 1978 with Joy Division and whose later peaks- New Order, the Hacienda's acid house hedonism and Happy Mondays- are as interesting as the famous, financially induced troughs" - Ben East -- Metro Scotland
"Shadowplayers offers a meticulously researched year-by-year account of the label's beginnings, its triumphs and eventual dissolution. Nice brings an encyclopaedic zeal to his recollections of such fleeting musical oddities as Crawling Chaos, Swamp Children, Biting Tongues and The Wendys, alongside Factory's more famous players." --The Independent
Factory was no Motown, you're reminded of the distictly patchy nature of much of their musical output but this is an extraordinary story, well told.
-- Word Magazine
Shadowplayers is an immaculately researched history of a label born in 1978 with Joy Division
-- Metro Scotland
`Knockout Read' --The Coventry Telegraph, 8th June 2011
`...detailed history unfolds the tangled tale of how Factory produced music that helped to shape the scene way beyond Manchester's Hacienda' -- Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'...a very good way to immerse in its strange and inspirational story' 4 STARS
-- Mojo
"Shadowplayers is an immaculately researched history of a label born in 1978 with Joy Division and whose later peaks- New Order, the Hacienda's acid house hedonism and Happy Mondays- are as interesting as the famous, financially induced troughs" - Ben East -- Metro Scotland
"Shadowplayers offers a meticulously researched year-by-year account of the label's beginnings, its triumphs and eventual dissolution. Nice brings an encyclopaedic zeal to his recollections of such fleeting musical oddities as Crawling Chaos, Swamp Children, Biting Tongues and The Wendys, alongside Factory's more famous players." --The Independent
Factory was no Motown, you're reminded of the distictly patchy nature of much of their musical output but this is an extraordinary story, well told.
-- Word Magazine
Shadowplayers is an immaculately researched history of a label born in 1978 with Joy Division
-- Metro Scotland
`Knockout Read' --The Coventry Telegraph, 8th June 2011
Product Description
In 1978, a ‘Factory for Sale’ sign gave Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson a name for their fledgling Manchester club night. Though they couldn’t have known it at the time, this was the launch of one of the most significant musical and cultural legacies of the late twentieth century. The club’s electrifying live scene soon translated to vinyl, and Factory Records went on to become the most innovative and celebrated record label of the next thirty years. Always breaking new musical ground, Factory introduced the listening public to bands such as Joy Division, whose Unknown Pleasures was the label’s first album release, New Order, Durutti Column and Happy Mondays. Propelled onwards by the inspirational cultural entrepreneur, Tony Wilson, Factory always sought new ways to energise the popular consciousness, such as the infamous Hacienda nightclub, which enjoyed a chequered 15-year history after opening in 1982. Factory’s reputation as a cultural hub was also bolstered by its fierce commitment to its own visual identity, achieved through the iconic sleeve designs and campaigning artwork of Peter Saville. However, the lofty reputation of Factory’s musical and artistic ventures were only sporadically converted into commercial success, and when London Records pulled out of a takeover bid in 1992 because of the absence of contracts, the fate of Factory Communications Ltd was sealed. But the label’s downfall has done nothing to quell interest in the Factory legend, as films such as 24-Hour Party People and Control attest. Yet despite this perennial interest, the definitive, authentic story of Factory Records has never been told – until now. Shadowplayers is the most complete, authoritative and thoroughly researched account of how a group of provincial anarchists and entrepreneurs saw off bankers, journalists and gun-toting gangsters to create the most influential record label of modern times. Based on both archive and contemporary sources, the book tells the full story of Factory’s heroic struggles, its complex web of inventive, idiosyncratic and tragic personalities, and ultimately, the acclaimed and much-loved music it produced. James Nice is an author, journalist and record-label owner. He once worked for Factory Benelux and now administers much of the former Factory catalogue.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Spectacle of the Alternative,
By
This review is from: Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records (Hardcover)
The definitive book on "the most culturally sophisticated label in the history of recorded sound". James Nice delivers the actual story of Factory; facts not myths. With a chapter for every year and two chapters for 1980 - bands, stories and connections previously overlooked are all featured. So often reduced to Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and The Hacienda the story here is expanded so that The Wake warrant numerous entries in the index and The Durutti Column story is woven throughout the text and links to Belgian label Les Disques du Crepuscule are explored.Based on numerous author interviews the story from 1976 -1992 is comprehensively covered with no artist considered too small to have their part in the unfolding story portrayed.The book may become darker and darker as the end approaches but you still leave it inspired by Factory's love of beauty and 'art over commerce' and wondering why people demand so little these days from their bands and labels.James Nice is never afraid to be objective and critical and consequently the love and admiration that the author obviously feels for the subject carries a lot of weight. When something is praised you know it is deserved. Shadowplayers is the much needed literary equivalent to Matthew Robertson's Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album and should be read by anyone with an interest in the musical landscape of the late seventies, eighties and early nineties and anyone intrigued by those who choose to take the path less travelled.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At last - a real book about Factory,
By
This review is from: Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records (Hardcover)
Finally someone has written a real history of Factory Records that doesn't fall into the trap of unquestioningly re-hashing the myths. James Nice has produced a history of the Manchester label that gives a more substantial version of events than those previously published. Nice includes the part played by the 'lesser' lights among the Factory artists - Section 25, Stockholm Monsters, etc. - and isn't afraid to be critical of the decisions made by the company.As a thorough and relatively academic work, 'Shadowplayers' offers a nice counterpoint to the entertaining, but one-dimensional version of events in 'Twenty Four Hour Party People' etc.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, fascinating, in some ways horrifying,
By Peter Lee (Manchester ,United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records (Hardcover)
This is a fantastic book. It's a chunky brick of a thing, encased in a shocking pink cover with tastefully embossed silver bits, but what matters is the content. And oh, what content.The book tells the story of Factory Records from 1976 - when the Sex Pistols first played in Manchester and Tony Wilson and friends founded the Factory Club in Hulme - right through to its dissolution in 1992. It's a fascinating story, impeccably researched and wonderfully written, which concentrates on the facts rather than the anecdotes. The story is, in some ways, horrifying: a record company run with good intentions but no written contracts, and business decisions often made on personal prejudices (such as Wilson's insistence that Dry Bar should be opened in Manchester's then run-down Northern Quarter rather than close to the university on account of the fact that he disliked students) and gut feelings as opposed to market research. The focus throughout is Factory rather than one particular aspect, so readers hoping for the detailed story of Joy Division, New Order or the Hacienda may be disappointed, but their stories are told excellently elsewhere. I recently read - and thoroughly enjoyed - Peter Hook's book about the Hacienda, and in some ways I see that book and this as companion volumes. In this book you'll find all Factory bands are covered almost equally, with plenty on the likes of Section 25 and The Durruti Column as well as New Order and Joy Division themselves, but as this book concentrates on the record company and its numerous spin-off projects they're almost characters rather than the story itself. Towards the end when Factory begins to collapse the story darkens, and the end is always looming on the horizon. There's a feeling of inevitability, as Wilson's doggedness to continue with projects to their bitter end sees his company fall into oblivion, spending spiralling out of control, bands relied upon to shore up business ventures at the expense of their own salaries, and the mis-management is shockingly revealed. In some respects it reads almost like a thriller. If any criticisms are to be made I'd have liked a few more pictures maybe - sometimes record covers are described as being beautiful or terrible, and a picture would have been good, but then again the internet is always at hand - and the few which are included are all in black and white, but they're sufficient. Also, I'd have liked maybe a catalogue of the FAC numbers, as several things are referred to initially by their name and number, then later just by their number, but this is just a niggle. This is a superb biography of a sadly missed record label, and a reminder of how not to run a business. Buy and read this, and if you want to know more about the likes of the Hacienda or the bands you can then read other books. Excellent.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
