Simon Reynolds

Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his career at Melody Maker in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture. and grew up in Berkhamsted. Inspired by his younger brother Tim, he became interested in rock and specifically punk in 1978. In the early 1980s, he attended Brasenose College at the University of Oxford. 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. Pieces from this late Eighties era would form the remixed collection Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, published in 1990.

Freelance and Energy Flash (1998) 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. 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.

Rip It Up and Start Again (2005) and Retromania (2011) In 2005, Reynolds released Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984, a history of the post-punk era. 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.

Shock and Awe (2016) to present Reynolds's eighth book, a history of the glam rock era, Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, was published in October 2016.

In June 2026 White Rabbit Books released the publication of Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention Of Rock, 1984–1994, a new book covering "the rise of shoegaze, slacker rock, grunge and dream pop", according to The Quietus.

In addition to writing books, Reynolds has continued freelancing for magazines, giving lectures, writing liner notes, and appearing in music documentaries. He resides in Los Angeles.

Critical style Reynolds' writing has blended cultural criticism with music journalism. He has written extensively on gender, class, race, and sexuality in relation to music and culture. Early in his career, Reynolds often made use of critical theory and philosophy in his analysis of music, deriving particular influence from thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In discussing the relationship between class and music, Reynolds coined the term liminal class, defined as the upper-working class and lower-middle-class, a group he credits with "a lot of music energy". Reynolds has also written about drug culture and its relationship to various musical developments and movements. In the 2000s, in tandem with fellow critic and blogger Mark Fisher, Reynolds made use of Jacques Derrida's concept of hauntology to describe a strain of music and popular art preoccupied with the disjointed temporality and "lost futures" of contemporary culture.

Personal life Reynolds is married to American writer Joy Press. Their child Kieran Press-Reynolds was born in 2000. Kieran is a music critic who has written for GQ, Pitchfork, and Dazed, and has been described as a digital culture reporter by Time magazine.

Year-end critics' polls Reynolds has voted in a number of year-end critics' polls, most often for The Wires Rewind and for The Village Voices Pazz & Jop. Since 2011, when The Wire renamed its year-end poll from Records of the Year to Releases of the Year, Reynolds has cast several votes for songs rather than album-length releases. Reynold's full voting ballots and year-end commentaries for a variety of magazines, going back to the late 1980s, can be found at Reynolds's Faves/Unfaves blog.

Year Artist Release Source 1991 World of Twist Quality Street Reynolds's blog (ballot for The Wire) 1994 Tricky "Aftermath" Reynolds's blog (ballot for The Wire) 1995 Tricky Maxinquaye Reynolds's blog (ballot for The Wire) 1999 Position Normal Stop Your Nonsense Reynolds's blog (collecting writings from The Village Voice and Uncut) 2000 Isolée Rest The Wire 2001 Pulp We Love Life The Wire 2002 The Streets Original Pirate Material The Wire 2003 Dizzee Rascal Boy in da Corner The Wire 2004 Dizzee Rascal Showtime The Wire 2005 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Worn Copy The Wire 2006 Scritti Politti White Bread Black Beer The Wire 2007 Black Moth Super Rainbow Dandelion Gum The Wire 2008 Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend The Wire and Pazz & Jop 2009 Tie: Micachu and the Shapes / Dirty Projectors Jewellery / Bitte Orca In Pazz & Jop, Reynolds allocated equal points to both albums. 2010 Tie: Rangers / Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Suburban Tours / Before Today In Pazz & Jop, Reynolds allocated equal points to both albums. 2011 Metronomy The English Riviera Pazz & Jop 2013 Sage the Gemini featuring Iamsu! "Gas Pedal" The Wire 2014 Tinashe featuring Schoolboy Q "2 On" The Wire 2015 Future "Fuck Up Some Commas" The Wire 2016 eMMplekz Rook to TN34 The Wire 2017 Travis Scott "Goosebumps" The Wire 2018 Migos Culture II The Wire 2019 Baron Mordant Mark of the Mould The Wire

Selected publications Books Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock. London: Serpent's Tail (Aug. 1990). . The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'N' Roll, with Joy Press. London: Serpent's Tail (Jan. 1995). . Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan (2008). . Hardcover ed. (abridged). Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. Boston: Little, Brown (1998). . Softcover ed.: London: Routledge (1999). . Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. London: Faber & Faber (Apr. 2005). . U.S. ed.: Penguin (Feb 2006). . Full text. Bring The Noise: 20 Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip-Hop. London: Faber & Faber (May 2007). . Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews. London: Faber & Faber (Feb 2009). . U.S. ed.: Soft Skull Press (Sep 2010). . Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber & Faber (Jun. 2011). . Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century. London: Faber & Faber (Oct. 2016). . Futuromania: Electronic Dreams from Moroder to Migos. Minimum fax (Nov. 2020). . Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention Of Rock, 1984–1994. London: White Rabbit Books (Jun. 2026).

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). .

Music compilations Energy Flash (1998) Rip It Up and Start Again (2006)