Morley is also credited with steering the marketing and promotion of the phenomenal early success of ZTT's biggest act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Although it has never been confirmed, it is generally accepted that it was Morley who authored the provocative slogans on the band's T-shirts (e.g. "Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed", "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself").

For a period of time, Morley produced and managed Manchester punk band The Drones. However, Morley first came to wider attention with a brief appearance in the video for ABC's "The Look of Love" (in which he mimes the words "what's that?" in a call-and-response routine with singer Martin Fry), but he achieved genuine notoriety as co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of ZTT Records, and electronic group Art of Noise.

He was the first presenter of BBC Two's The Late Show, and has appeared as a music pundit on a number of other programmes. For the short-lived Channel 4 arts strand Without Walls he wrote and presented a documentary on boredom. Morley still regularly appears on BBC 2's Newsnight Review programme.

He was the focus of BBC2's How To Be A Composer, in which he spent a year at the Royal Academy of Music attempting to learn to compose classical music, despite being unable to read music or play an instrument.

Morley is the author of Words and Music: the history of pop in the shape of a city. The book is a 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. The book was later turned into the hour-long epic musical track "Raiding the 20th Century" by DJ Food, which features Morley reading from his book and speculating on the cultural significance of the mashup, amidst the sounds of those very mashups.

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, and unhappy parts of his teenage life such as the time he spent at Stockport Grammar School.

Morley has teamed up with The Auteurs' James Banbury to form the band Infantjoy and in 2005 released an album entitled Where The Night Goes on Sony BMG. An album, With, featuring collaborations with Tunng, Isan and Populous amongst others, was released in October 2006 on Morley and Banbury's own label ServiceAV.

Morley is a lifelong fan of the jazz musician John Surman recently performing an extensive interview with the artist for The Guardian newspaper.

Morley was married to Claudia Brücken with whom he has a daughter.

The Cure played a version of their song "Grinding Halt" with new lyrics parodying Morley's writing style after an unfavourable review of their debut album Three Imaginary Boys.