Shadowplayers

Name: Shadowplayers
Price: 36.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9780571395408

The Rise and Fall of Factory Records

James Nice

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English

Faber & Faber
20 January 2026

Rock & Pop music; Music industry

'Definitive and comprehensive, this is the actual story of Factory Records' - Peter Saville

In 1978, a 'Factory for Sale' sign gave Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson a name for their fledgling Manchester club night. Though they couldn' t have known it at the time, this was the launch of one of the most significant musical and cultural legacies of the late twentieth century. The club's electrifying live scene soon translated to vinyl, and Factory Records went on to become the most innovative and celebrated record label of the next thirty years.

Always breaking new musical ground, Factory introduced the listening public to bands such as Joy Division, whose Unknown Pleasures was the label's first album release, New Order, Durutti Column and Happy Mondays. Propelled onwards by the inspirational cultural entrepreneur, Tony Wilson, Factory always sought new ways to energise the popular consciousness, such as the infamous Hacienda nightclub, which enjoyed a chequered 15-year history after opening in 1982.

Now fully revised and expanded with a new chapter, Shadowplayers is the most complete, authoritative and thoroughly researched account of how a group of provincial anarchists and entrepreneurs saw off bankers, journalists and gun-toting gangsters to create the most influential record label of modern times. Based on both archive and contemporary sources, the book tells the full story of Factory' s heroic struggles, its complex web of inventive, idiosyncratic and tragic personalities, and ultimately, the acclaimed and much-loved music it produced.

By: James Nice
Imprint: Faber & Faber
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9780571395408
ISBN 10: 0571395406
Pages: 608
Publication Date: 20 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

James Nice manages labels Factory Benelux and Les Disques du Crépuscule and has worked with artists including Durutti Column, New Order and A Certain Ratio. He is the author of The Durutti Column: A Life of Reilly, and the curator of box sets including Use Hearing Protection: Factory Records 1978-79.

Reviews for Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records

""Shadowplayers offers a meticulously researched year-by-year account of the label's beginnings, its triumphs and eventual dissolution. Nice brings an encyclopaedic zeal to his recollections."" -- Independent ""Such a rare thing - really interesting and immensely readable. I learned a lot."" -- Peter Hook ""A monument, a life's work and a practical instruction for all jobbing music biographers."" -- Record Collector ""This book is surely the definitive study of the chaotic, praxis-driven enterprise that was Factory Communications."" -- Stephen Morris ""Shadowplayers is complete and thoroughly researched but still loaded with ridiculous yarns."" -- The Times