20-618: Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music . Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book All Time Top 1000 Albums , and edited the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz , the Guinness Who's Who of Blues , and the Virgin Encyclopedia of Heavy Rock . He has over 650,000 copies in print. Larkin
40-475: A "surprisingly small scale cottage industry", stating "There are now fewer than 10 contributors on the team...People don't believe it's done on such a small scale, but in terms of words we are producing an Agatha Christie novel a month..." The Encyclopedia of Popular Music covers popular music from the early 1900s, including folk , blues , country , R&B , jazz , rock , heavy metal , reggae , electronic music and hip hop . "Each biography contains
60-648: A flying ace in the First World War. The Pan Books logo, showing the ancient Greek god Pan playing pan-pipes, was designed by Mervyn Peake . The later version was by Edward Young who also designed the logo for Penguin. A few years after it was founded, Pan Books was bought out by a consortium of several publishing houses, including Macmillan, Collins , Heinemann , and briefly, Hodder & Stoughton . It became wholly owned by Macmillan in 1987. Pan specialised in publishing paperback fiction and, along with Penguin Books ,
80-415: A month". From September 2008, Larkin ceased all involvement with Muze Inc. or any of its related companies following the closure of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music as a stand-alone product and his subsequent redundancy. On 15 April 2009, it was announced that most of the assets of Muze Inc. were purchased by Macrovision . In 2008, Larkin launched a new website whose original inspiration had come from
100-456: A multi-volume Encyclopedia of Popular Music , and to publish music-related books. He published additional music biographies including those on Graham Bond , R.E.M. , Eric Clapton , the Byrds and Frank Zappa . In a pre-internet age, the work required to create an encyclopedia of popular music was considerable. Aided by a team of contributors, a fast-growing library of music magazines, books and
120-431: A new company, Square One Books, to publish the encyclopedia. The first edition of the encyclopedia "pushed Larkin to the brink of bankruptcy ". It was a four-volume set and went into print in 1992. There have been three further editions of the multi-volume encyclopedia and dozens of single-volume spin-offs of five concise versions of the main encyclopedia, including four editions of jazz. In 1995, Microsoft licensed
140-520: A thorough synopsis of the performer and their body of work, following their career from beginning to end. The 4th Edition is 10,000 pages long in 10 separate volumes with over 8 million words and 27,000 entries. The nature of popular music and jazz is such that it is ever changing, evolving and growing and therefore needs a new edition much more frequently than more static subjects." Guinness Publishing , Virgin Publishing and Omnibus Press have produced
160-402: Is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre- internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual expertise and a hideous amount of legwork". He financed and founded
180-575: The All Time Top 1000 Albums , initially called 1000Greatest.com. This would later change its name to become the multi-media rating site and iPhone app, btoe.com (Best Things On Earth). Larkin closed down this website in August 2018 and re-directed the content to Musopedia.com. He is CEO and editor-in-chief of Musopedia Ltd. Larkin wrote the liner notes for the Rolling Stones ' curated project Confessin'
200-780: The Amazon Kindle edition of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music . The text for this edition has not been updated and the Kindle edition has the same content as the 2007 edition. Pan Books Pan Books is a British publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers , owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany . Pan Books began as an independent publisher, established in 1944 by Alan Bott , previously known for his memoirs of his experiences as
220-461: The Blues . In November 2020, Larkin released his latest book, Cover Me – The Vintage Art of Pan Books: 1950-1965 . His first non-music book, it was a celebration of the classic Pan Books paperbacks, incorporating full-colour reproductions of over 300 of the original cover artworks. The book was nominated for the H. R. F. Keating Award in 2021 and reached the shortlist final eight. A paperback edition
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#1732852684951240-641: The South East Essex County Technical High School and at the London College of Printing , where he took typography and graphic design. Larkin's company Scorpion Publishing published John Gorman's trilogy of Labour history, Banner Bright , To Build Jerusalem and Images of Labour . Music books at this time included Johnny Rogan 's Timeless Flight: The Definitive Story of the Byrds and Bob Dylan , His Unreleased Recordings . In 1989, Larkin formed Square One Books to create
260-535: The most useful reference work on popular music". Square One developed their own in-house software using 4th Dimension . Over 50 separate titles followed the creation of the Encyclopedia's database, and in 1997 Larkin sold Square One Books to American data company Muze . Larkin became full-time editor-in-chief and ran the encyclopedia as a cottage industry , with a team of fewer than ten contributors, who in terms of wordcount were "producing an Agatha Christie novel
280-441: The music itself, an eventual 3000 vinyl singles , 3500 vinyl albums , 4500 music biographies and 38,000 CDs, Larkin began compiling the Encyclopedia . In 1992, the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music went into print. Rolling Stone described the work as "musical history in the making", and The Times called it "a work of almost frightening completeness". Musician Jools Holland called it "without question
300-531: The spin-offs on each subject and Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums is produced as a companion volume. The large single volume of the Concise edition of The Encyclopedia of Popular Music is in its 5th edition as of 2007 . The total sales of the EPM series since 1992 is over 650,000 copies. In 2006, Oxford University Press began to publish the full 4th edition of the encyclopedia online. In May 2011 Omnibus Press released
320-444: The text for their CD-ROM, Microsoft Music Central , which sold 497,000 copies. In 1997, Larkin's company, along with the Encyclopedia, was sold to the data company Muze Inc. (the UK name was changed to Muze UK), because Larkin wanted "to guarantee its future" in the fast changing world of information and communications technology. He became full-time editor-in-chief on the project, running
340-702: Was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams . During the 1950s and 60s, Pan Books editions were noted for their colourful covers, which have made many of them collectables, particularly the Fleming and Charteris novels. Around 2,000 different pieces of cover artwork were commissioned by Pan between 1955 and 1965. Many of these artists remain largely unknown today. They include Rex Archer (1928–?), SR Boldero (1898–1987), Roger Hall , Edward Mortelmans , John Pollack (1918–1985), Sam Peffer , Dave Taylor (1921–1985), and Carl Wilton. The Pan imprint continues to publish
360-454: Was born in Dagenham , Essex . He spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables , that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music. Larkin studied at
380-678: Was one of the first popular publishers of this format in the UK. Many popular authors saw their works given paperback publication through Pan, including Ian Fleming , whose James Bond series first appeared in paperback in the UK as Pan titles. So too did Leslie Charteris 's books about The Saint , Peter O'Donnell 's Modesty Blaise , and novels by Edgar Wallace , Agatha Christie , Erle Stanley Gardner , Peter Cheyney , Georgette Heyer , Neville Shute , John Steinbeck , Josephine Tey and Arthur Upfield . Pan also published paperback editions of works by classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens . Another notable title published by Pan
400-833: Was published in May 2022. Encyclopedia of Popular Music The Encyclopedia of Popular Music is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin . It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the Grove Dictionary of Music , which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms. It is published by the Oxford University Press and was described by The Times as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music , and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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