Turn the beat around : the secret history of disco /

Few pop-music genres have so dominated the charts and airwaves as disco at its height; fewer still have subsequently been so reviled. Shapiro considers disco as much more than glitzy dance music with fashion ramifications. Emerging at a time when gay sexuality and rights were exploding and African Americans were entering the post Civil Rights era, disco combined elements of the subcultures of both. Shapiro describes how disco grew from roots stretching from World War II, became a worldwide phenomenon, and ended in a homophobic, racist backlash. High points in passing include Shapiro's incisive disquisition on how Saturday Night Fever had more popular culture impact than any movie since Gone with the Wind. Shapiro cites record producer Nile Rodgers: Those songs are powerful . . . just as relevant and as valid . . . as when the Sex Pistols . . . Pink Floyd or the Beatles are delivering a message. Let the pop-culture wars begin anew, with Shapiro's deeper, more balanced take on disco vitally informing the discussion. --Mike Tribby Copyright 2005 Booklist

This book's deceptively salacious subtitle will lead many an E! network watcher to believe that music writer Shapiro (The Rough Guide to Hip-Hop) is going to spill the beans on who did who and in what VIP room. But the gossip-minded are going to leave this book a little disappointed, for Shapiro has performed a near-miracle in rescuing one of the most mocked musical genres of the 20th century from the clutches of the Village People, Zodiac medallions, and Studio 54's velvet rope. Disco, he argues, was democracy and revolution coupled with ecstatic celebration; the bodies on the dance floor became the stars and the tastemakers of a never-ending party, a "polymorphous, polyracial, polysexual mass affirming its bonds in a space beyond the reach of church, state or family." Shapiro traces disco as far back as the swing kids in Nazi-occupied France, all the way to its supposed death in Chicago's "disco riots" and triumphant reemergence in myriad strains of house, hip-hop, and postpunk squall. Previously, disco was covered only in frothy pictures books and all-too-brief tomes (e.g., John-Manuel Andriote's Hot Stuff); this audacious and engrossing book is the definitive record. Recommended for larger public and academic libraries.-Matthew Moyer, Jacksonville P.L., FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.