Ian Penman
| Ian Penman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1959 Wiltshire, UK |
| Occupation | Music journalist, critic |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1977–present |
| Website | |
| apawboy |
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Ian Penman (born 1959) is a British writer, music journalist, and critic. He began his career as a writer for the NME in 1977, later contributing to various publications including Uncut, Sight & Sound, The Wire, The Face, and The Guardian. He is the author of Vital Signs: Music, Movies, and Other Manias (1998, Serpent's Tail).
Penman was born in Wiltshire, UK in 1959. He spent much of his childhood abroad in the Middle East and Africa, returning to Norfolk in 1970. Skipping higher education, Penman began writing for prominent British music magazine, the New Musical Express, in the autumn of 1977. Much of Penman's writing reflected his involvement in the nascent post-punk scene developing in London in the late 1970s.
Along with fellow NME writers such as Paul Morley and Barney Hoskyns, Penman soon developed an innovative style of music criticism dense with allusions to critical theory, philosophy, and other art mediums, and often experimental in its prose. With their increasingly esoteric writing standing in contrast to the magazine's more accessible competitors, such as Melody Maker, the NME soon began to alienate its readership; it is estimated that within several years, the magazine suffered the loss of half its circulation, in large part due to the new direction of Penman and his colleagues.
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