Paul Morley (born March 26, 1957) is an English music journalist, who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful and relatively notorious periods, and has since written for a wide number of publications.

He was the first presenter of BBC2's The Late Show, and has appeared as a music pundit on a number of other programmes. He was a co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of Z.T.T. Records, and The Art of Noise.

He is the author of Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city. The book is an authoritative, scholarly and highly idiosyncratic journey through the history of pop; it seeks to trace the connection between Alvin Lucier's experimental audio recording, "I am sitting in a room" and Kylie Minogue's "Can't get you out of my head". A synthetic Kylie features as the central character of the book. His other books include Ask: The Chatter of Pop (a collection of his music journalism) and Nothing, a biographical book reflecting on his father's suicide and that of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.

Further reading

• Paul Morley: Words and Music: a history of pop in the shape of a city. Bloomsbury, 2003. ISBN 0-7475-5778-0