Colin Larkin

Larkin was born in Dagenham, Essex.^[7] He spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables, that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music.^[8]

Larkin studied at the South East Essex County Technical High School and at the London College of Printing, where he took typography and graphic design.^[7]

Larkin's company Scorpion Publishing published John Gorman's trilogy of Labour history, Banner Bright,^[9] To Build Jerusalem and Images of Labour.^[10] Music books at this time included Johnny Rogan's Timeless Flight: The Definitive Story of the Byrds^[11] and Bob Dylan, His Unreleased Recordings.^[12][7]

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 and Frank Zappa.^[13]

In a pre-internet age, the work required to create an encyclopedia 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 3000 vinyl singles, 3500 vinyl albums, 4500 music biographies and 38,000 CDs,^[14] Larkin began compiling the Encyclopedia.

In 1992, the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music went into print.^[15] Rolling Stone described the work as "musical history in the making",^{[citation needed]} and The Times called it "a work of almost frightening completeness".^{[citation needed]} Musician Jools Holland called it "without question the most useful reference work on popular music".^{[citation needed]}

Square One developed their own in-house software using 4th Dimension.^[16]

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.^[16] 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".^[14]

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.^{[citation needed]} On 15 April 2009, it was announced that most of the assets of Muze Inc. were purchased by Macrovision.^[17]

In 2008, Larkin launched a new website whose original inspiration had come from the All Time Top 1000 Albums, initially called 1000Greatest.com. This would later change its name to become the multi-media rating site and iPhone app, btoe.com (Best Things On Earth).^{[citation needed]} Larkin closed down this website in August 2018 and re-directed the content to Musopedia.com. He is CEO and editor-in-chief of Musopedia Ltd.

Larkin wrote the liner notes for the Rolling Stones' curated project Confessin' the Blues.^[18]

In November 2020, Larkin released his latest book, Cover Me – The Vintage Art of Pan Books: 1950-1965. His first non-music book, it was a celebration of the classic Pan Books paperbacks, incorporating full-colour reproductions of over 300 of the original cover artworks.^[19] The book was nominated for the H. R. F. Keating Award in 2021 and reached the shortlist final eight.^[20] A paperback edition was published in May 2022.^[21]

• Official website
• Founder, Editor & Writer of the World's Greatest Reference Book on Popular Music Comes to goNORTH!
• Shoot the Designer
• Interview With Colin Larkin
• Article in USA Today