Manchester Unspun: Pop, Property and Power in the Original Modern City: How a City Got High on Music

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But as an impeccably connected and longstanding adopted Mancunian, Spinoza is uniquely well-placed to prosecute it.

He was one of the people who set up City Life, Manchester’s slightly edgier version of Time Out magazine. The results were spectacular and for the launch event, our team found themselves fielding interviews from Nicky Campbell on BBC 5 Live, fending off national newspapers and dealing with a Channel 4 News crew preparing a five minute slot for that evening’s bulletin.

The event was in a tent in the newly opened Festival Square, as part the Manchester International Festival. Shaun Ryder and Liam Gallagher respectively stand up for more traditional Mancunian values by throwing a bottle at the mirror behind the bar and smashing an upmarket vase. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. He is someone who not only had a seat at the table throughout most of the events he recounts, but was responsible for writing the press release. It is an insider's tale of deals done, government and corporate decision-making, nightclubs, music and entrepreneurs.

Andy Spinoza's book is readable and informative account of the changes that Manchester has undergone over the last forty years. Elegantly interweaving his own biography with that of the city, Spinoza narrates with panache the story of how the place once known as Cottonopolis has reinvented itself. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In 2022, the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library acquired his collection of print and memorabilia as part of its launch of the British Pop Archive.

His remarkable account traces Manchester's gradual emergence from its post-industrial malaise, centring on the legendary nightclub the Hacienda and the cultural renaissance it inspired. There's so much in this book to savour, that I can honestly see scholars of history and architecture studying it in decades to come. Challenged by a heckling Mark E Smith to define what the word means, Wilson is obliged to confess he can’t, conceding: “I just like the slogans. He founded alternative magazine City Life in 1983 and spent ten years as a gossip columnist for the Manchester Evening News.