Taylor Parkes

Taylor Parkes (born 30 April 1972) is a British journalist. He is best known for his music journalism which appeared in Melody Maker from 1993 to 1998, notable for a style which mixed dark humour, especially in bitterly critical pieces, with an intellectual tone, influenced by the likes of Simon Reynolds and Paul Morley.

Parkes was most closely associated with bands he considered to be unafraid of their own intelligence, including Saint Etienne, Pulp,[1] Spice Girls, Manic Street Preachers[2] and the Romo scene (which he championed along with colleague Simon Price).[3] He took a stand against what he saw as less adventurous Britpop groups of the mid-1990s. Conversely, he was for a time largely positive towards Oasis,[4] in stark contrast to Price. Parkes also occasionally championed avant-garde phenomena such as Post-rock

He also contributed to Careless Talk Costs Lives and Plan B, both edited by his former Melody Maker colleague Everett True, as well as 1990s pop-cultural magazine Ikon and early 2000s music monthly Bang.

He has since written for the football magazine When Saturday Comes[5] and The Quietus,[6] a music and pop culture website, and presents a monthly feature for the radio programme Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service on BBC Radio 6 Music.[7]