cover image Hot Stuff: A Brief History of Disco

Hot Stuff: A Brief History of Disco

John-Manuel Andriote, John-Manuel Andriote. Harper Paperbacks, $13 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-380-80907-3

While disco remains one of the most maligned of all musical genres (according to Andriote, as much for its roots in African-American, Latino and gay dance clubs as for its hedonistic packaging), it is a music that refuses to die (instead it is renamed or deeply influences HiNRG, techno, rave, hip-hop, jungle or just plain dance). While it lives on (either in full albums like Cher's Believe or Madonna's Ray of Light or sampled in songs by the Notorious B.I.G. and Robbie Williams), its marginalization continues with Andriote's slight history. While not as exuberantly detailed as Alan Jones and Jussi Kantonen's delightfully exhaustive Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco (A Cappella, 1999), which focused on the artists and their songs, this volume instead focuses on the social history and culture of the movement that flourished between 1974 and 1979. Kitschy, glitzy and underground, disco thrived with its core minority fans and avoided popularization (the actual long-playing 12-inch music mixes were available to club D.J.s only). Middle America didn't embrace the phenomenon until the release of 1977's Saturday Night Fever, when John Travolta and the Bee Gees made it palatable for the masses and, incredibly, ushered in disco albums by Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and Mickey Mouse. Andriote's in fine form covering the ""disco sucks"" backlash, detailing how it resulted from both an oversaturation of inferior product and homophobia. The appendix of artists and key songs is hit and miss, sometimes up-to-date (Donna Summer), more often not (Loleatta Holloway). Even with excellent writing from Andriote (Victory Deferred), fans of the music will find little new here, especially if they've already bought Saturday Night Forever. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)