Jon Savage

Jon Savage (born 1953) is a self-styled 'cultural commentator' and music journalist, best known for his award winning history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, England's Dreaming (1991).

Savage wrote and published a fanzine called London's Outrage in 1976, and in 1977 began working as a journalist for Sounds (magazine). "Sounds" was, at that time, one of the UK's three major music papers, along with the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Savage interviewed punk, New Wave and electronic music artists for "Sounds" until 1979, when he moved to "Melody Maker", and then in 1980 to the newly founded pop culture magazine The Face.

Throughout the 1980s, Savage wrote for The Observer and the New Statesman, providing high-brow commentary on popular culture.

England's Dreaming, published by Faber in 1991, was lauded as the definitive history of punk music, and remains the single most comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon. It was used as the basis for a television programme, "Punk and the Pistols", shown on BBC2 in 1995.

Savage continues to write on punk and other genres in a variety of publications, most notably Mojo magazine.

Several compilation CDs based on his tracklistings have also been released, including "England's Dreaming" (2004) and "Meridian 1970" (2005), the latter of which puts forward the argument that 1970 was a high-point for popular music, contrary to critical opinion.