Colin Larkin (writer) - The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

In 1989 Larkin formed Square One Books to create a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Popular Music, and to publish music related books. He published additional music biographies including those on Graham Bond, R.E.M., Eric Clapton, The Byrds, Frank Zappa and a further book on Bob Dylan, Oh No, Not Another Bob Dylan Book.

In a pre-internet age, the work required to create an encyclopaedia of popular music was considerable. Aided by a team of contributors, a fast-growing library of music magazines, books and the music itself, an eventual 2000 vinyl singles, 3000 vinyl albums, 4000 music biographies and 30,000 CDs, Larkin began compiling the Encyclopedia.

In 1992 the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music went into print. It was quickly recognised as monumental: Rolling Stone described the work as "musical history in the making", in The Times they called it "a work of almost frightening completeness". Musician Jools Holland called it "without question the most useful reference work on popular music".

Square One developed their own in-house software using 4th Dimension.

Over 50 separate titles followed the creation of the Encyclopedia's database, and in 1997 Larkin sold Square One Books to American data company Muze. Larkin became full time editor-in-chief and ran the encyclopedia as a cottage industry, with a team of fewer than ten contributors, who in terms of wordcount were "producing an Agatha Christie novel a month".

From September 2008 Larkin ceased all involvement with Muze Inc. or any of its related companies following the closure of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music as a stand alone product and his subsequent redundancy. On 15 April 2009, it was announced that most of the assets of Muze Inc. were purchased by Macrovision.

In May 2011 Omnibus Press released the Amazon Kindle edition of the Encyclopedia Of Popular Music, using the text of the 2007 edition.