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Disco thumps back to life in this pulsating exploration of the culture and politics of the glitterball world.
W. W. Norton & Company
April 2010
On Sale: March 29, 2010
366 pages
ISBN: 0393066754
EAN: 9780393066753
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In the 1970s, as the disco tsunami engulfed America, the
once-innocent question, “Do you wanna dance?” became
divisive, even explosive. What was it about this
much-maligned music that made it such hot stuff? In this
incisive history, Alice Echols captures the felt experience
of the Disco Years—on dance floors both fabulous and tacky,
at the movies, in the streets, and beneath the sheets.
Disco may have presented itself as shallow and
disposable—the platforms, polyester, and plastic vibe of it
all—but Echols shows that it was inseparable from the
emergence of “gay macho,” a rising black middle class, and a
growing, if equivocal, openness about female sexuality. The
disco scene carved out a haven for gay men who reclaimed
their sexuality on dance floors where they had once been
surveilled and harassed; it thrust black women onto center
stage as some of the genre’s most prominent stars; and it
paved the way for the opening of Studio 54 and the viral
popularity of the shoestring-budget Saturday Night
Fever, a movie that challenged traditional notions of
masculinity, even for heterosexuals.
As it
provides a window onto the cultural milieu of the times,
Hot Stuff never loses sight of the era’s defining
soundtrack, which propelled popular music into new sonic
territory, influencing everything from rap and rock to
techno and trance. Throughout, Echols spotlights the work of
precursors James Brown and Isaac Hayes, dazzling divas Donna
Summer and the women of Labelle, and some of disco’s lesser
known but no less illustrious performers such as Sylvester.
After turning the final page of this fascinating account of
the music you thought you hated but can’t stop dancing to,
you can rest assured that you’ll never say “disco sucks” again.
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