LONGLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE
Tom Watkins is the famously entertaining pop Svengali with killer commercial instincts and prodigious talent for design who propelled the Pet Shop Boys, Bros and East 17, among others, to global stardom. His fingerprints are all over 80s and 90s pop, and he’s decided the time has come for a tell-all autobiography.
Funny, unstoppable and outspoken, a razor sharp, and greatly respected businessman, marketing visionary, designer and art collector, Tom takes us through his extraordinary and colourful life into the inner-circle of 80s pop-culture.
From his humble boyhood in post-war South-East London, to his teenage misdeeds and the birth of Rock and Roll; his days as a design student under the tutelage of Terence Conran and Rodney Fitch, to the excesses of the 80s and 90s where he became one of the original boy band innovators – the driving force behind the pop icons plastered on the walls of teenage girls’ bedrooms.
Expect a gripping, gossipy, meticulously researched memoir of the coke-fuelled 80s, layered on top of an insightful and intelligent journey through a recent but very different age, from the singular perspective of a man who played a huge role in defining the era.
Tom Watkins is the famously entertaining pop Svengali with killer commercial instincts and prodigious talent for design who propelled the Pet Shop Boys, Bros and East 17, among others, to global stardom. His fingerprints are all over 80s and 90s pop, and he’s decided the time has come for a tell-all autobiography.
Funny, unstoppable and outspoken, a razor sharp, and greatly respected businessman, marketing visionary, designer and art collector, Tom takes us through his extraordinary and colourful life into the inner-circle of 80s pop-culture.
From his humble boyhood in post-war South-East London, to his teenage misdeeds and the birth of Rock and Roll; his days as a design student under the tutelage of Terence Conran and Rodney Fitch, to the excesses of the 80s and 90s where he became one of the original boy band innovators – the driving force behind the pop icons plastered on the walls of teenage girls’ bedrooms.
Expect a gripping, gossipy, meticulously researched memoir of the coke-fuelled 80s, layered on top of an insightful and intelligent journey through a recent but very different age, from the singular perspective of a man who played a huge role in defining the era.
