The Story of Pop Music

Why did prehistoric people start making music? What does every postwar pop song have in common? A "masterful" tour of music through the ages (Booklist, starred review).

London 1982. As the new romantic youthquake of 1981/1982 faded, and after what felt like a lifetime since punk’s last gasp, a tiny nightclub opened its doors in London’s Soho. Drawing to it a new generation of misfits and miscreants with a penchant for polysexual hedonism, for dressing up and showing out, The Batcave became the dark heart of alternative club culture, just like The Roxy and The Blitz before it.Art school students, ex-punks and psychobillys, boys and girls, gays, straights, don’t-knows and don’t-cares, Camden and Kensington Market stallholders, professional squatters, kids on the dole, kids in bands, nocturnal music journalists, edgy fashionistas, androgynous randoms and even a smattering of bona fide popstars – from Nick Cave to Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond, Robert Smith, Killing Joke and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. All were welcome to pile in, gawp at the hair, ripped, torn, bleached and rubberised fashions, and death-mask make-up and take in the dancefloor’s heady musical mix of beats-heavy post-punk pioneers, outsider icons like Wayne County and The Cramps, and a teetering pile of lusty glam rock singles from the likes of T. Rex and The Sweet.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is arguably the most important album in the mind-blowing career of David Bowie. Released in 1972, it's the record that set the mercurial musician on course to becoming one of the best-known pop stars on the planet. In just over a year, Bowie's messianic Martian invaded the minds of the nation's youth with a killer combination of extraterrestrial rock 'n' roll and outrageous sexuality, all delivered in high-heeled boots, multi-coloured dresses and extravagant make-up.

Throughout the 70s, Folk Heritage and its offshoots released limited-edition pressings of albums by various bands and singers, most of whom were active on the thriving north-west England folk club circuit. With most releases limited to 200 copies or less, and only available from the folk club where the performer was resident, many of the albums have gone on to become hugely collectable. ‘Before The Day Is Done’ assembles the cream of the label’s roster during its late 60s/early 70s heyday.