Savage, Jon 1953

Jon Savage is a writer, broadcaster and music journalist known for his cultural commentary on British social history. Born in Paddington, London, on 2 September 1953, Savage graduated from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1975, where he read Classics. He started his journalism career writing fanzine articles about British punk and joined Sounds in 1977. At Sounds, Savage interviewed punk, new wave and electronic music artists. Savage left Sounds for Melody Maker in 1979 where he continued to interview artists recording and performing in the punk, new wave and electronic music genres. In 1980, Savage joined the staff of the new pop culture magazine The Face. He developed his writing on pop culture with articles for The Observer and the New Statesman over the next decade.

Savage’s journalism, beginning with his appointment at Sounds in 1977, is strongly connected to the Factory Records story. Savage was the first journalist to review Joy Division both live and as recording artists. Since those first reviews, Savage has been involved in documenting the Joy Division and Factory stories through articles in Sounds, Melody Maker, Mojo, and The Observer Music Monthly. He has acted as a consultant on the Matt Greenhalgh documentary film about Joy Division and on the Anton Corbijn dramatisation Control, as well as working with Deborah Curtis on her book Touching From a Distance. In 2019, Savage wrote This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else, an oral history of Joy Division.

In 1991, Savage wrote England’s Dreaming, charting the rise of punk in the UK and US during the 1970s. The book became the basis for the BBC2 documentary Punk and the Pistols, broadcast in 1995 and subsequently updated with a new introduction in 2001.

Savage produced Teenage: The pre-history of youth culture in 2007. This work of cultural commentary provides a history of the concept of teenagers from the 1870s to the 1940s. In the book, Savage dates the beginning of the concept of teenagers to 1945.

In 2015, Savage published 1966, a commentary on and social history of the popular music and cultural turmoil of that year.

Savage is also known for curating compilations of pop songs, some based on track lists from his publications.