He grew up in Leeds and in the early 1980s was a student at the University of Oxford where he was a close friend of fellow journalist Simon Reynolds.
The two were part of the Oxford-based collective that in 1984 launched the pop journal Monitor and then in 1986 both joined Melody Maker as staff writers.
'[1] Stubbs has written for Vox magazine, the NME (late 1990s and early 2000s), and as editor of The Wire,[2] Uncut, The Guardian, The Times and the football magazines Goal and When Saturday Comes, where in the guise of the "Wing Commander", Stubbs covered England's ill-fated World Cup campaign, followed by their failure to qualify for Euro 2008; the reports were sufficiently popular for Stubbs to augment them with further characters.
[citation needed] In 2009, his book on 20th century avant-garde music was published, entitled Fear of Music: Why people get Rothko but don't get Stockhausen (Zero Books, Winchester: UK, 2009),[4] which was the subject of an evening of lectures at the Tate Britain.
He was among 42 who contributed essays to the bestselling The Atheist's Guide To Christmas, which also featured Richard Dawkins, Derren Brown, David Baddiel and Charlie Brooker.