Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

Be the first to write a review

Overview

“Echols’s love of music, her acumen about popular culture, and her gifts as a leading cultural historian come together in this remarkable book. The book is fascinating, carried along by prose that is as sleek and slinky as its subject.”—Christine Stansell, author of American Moderns

“Hot Stuff describes the book as well as its subject: a thoughtful and sophisticated treatment of a significant but much-maligned music.”—Tim Taylor, professor, Departments of Ethnomusicology and ...

See more details below
Paperback
$17.95
BN.com price
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up In Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Other sellers (Paperback)
  • All (23) from $2.82   
  • New (8) from $7.34   
  • Used (15) from $2.82   
Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

Available on NOOK devices and apps  
  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK HD/HD+ Tablet
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for Windows 8 Tablet
  • NOOK for iOS
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK for Windows 8
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for Web

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

NOOK Book (eBook)
$17.51
BN.com price
(Save 35%)$26.95 List Price

More About This Book

Overview

“Echols’s love of music, her acumen about popular culture, and her gifts as a leading cultural historian come together in this remarkable book. The book is fascinating, carried along by prose that is as sleek and slinky as its subject.”—Christine Stansell, author of American Moderns

“Hot Stuff describes the book as well as its subject: a thoughtful and sophisticated treatment of a significant but much-maligned music.”—Tim Taylor, professor, Departments of Ethnomusicology and Musicology, UCLA

“Echols aims for—and thoroughly achieves—a range of higher cultural insights. . . . Using encyclopedic knowledge of the eras’ biggest stars, she shows how all sorts of musical disco styles played a ‘central role’ in broadening the contours of ‘blackness, femininity, and male homosexuality’ in America. . . . Revelatory.”—Publishers Weekly

“Without question, Alice Echols is one of America’s best cultural critics working the beat between popular and academic cultures. With characteristic stylistic verve and scholarly acumen, Echols trolls the edges of our culture’s underbelly to discern its central place in politics and economics. In Hot Stuff, she finds disco to be crucial for understanding what happened in 1970s America. Thus invariably, Echols provides a surprising take on familiar scenes by pointing out potholes and pitfalls of late twentieth-century American culture, exploring regions of experience previously overlooked or discounted. Her deep immersion in the subjects of her research, thorough oral histories, and extensive archival investigation flesh out her absolutely original critical insights.”—Paula Rabinowitz, author of Black & White & Noir

Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

James Gavin
Alice Echols, a professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University and a former disco D.J., knows that most of the music she spun is considered "mindless, repetitive, formulaic and banal." But in her engrossing new book, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture, she portrays that scene as a hotbed of social change—for gays, for women and their sexual rights, for blacks in the record industry. Other writers have done more to evoke the era's sleazy glamour and animal excitement. But Echols…has few peers among music sociologists. Scholarly but fun, Hot Stuff is not just about disco; it re-examines the '70s as a decade of revolution.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
As American studies professor and Janis Joplin biographer (Scars of Sweet Paradise) Echols succinctly states, “Nothing seems to conjure up the seventies quite so effectively as disco.” But while the decade’s weltanschauung is often dismissed as merely polyester and platform heels, Echols aims for—and thoroughly achieves—a range of higher cultural insights. Using an encyclopedic knowledge of the eras’ biggest stars, she shows how all sorts of musical disco styles played a “central role” in broadening the contours of “blackness, femininity, and male homosexuality” in America. She brilliantly explores the many ways that early disco clubs created new spaces “where gay men could safely come together in a large crowd,” at the same time often masking an early strain of the racial and class exclusion that dominated disco’s later years. She brings to light the influence of underground legends such as club deejay Tom Moulton, who first remixed popular records to make them longer for dancing and “created the model for the 12-inch, extended play disco single.” Best of all is Echols’s revelatory look at how the “critique of racism and sexism” in the film Saturday Night Fever offers “a richer portrait of the disco seventies” than its critics have granted. (Nov.)
Library Journal
Without a doubt, disco is the genre most associated with the music of the 1970s. The classic rock of the 1960s, the sounds of Motown and Phil Spector, and the soul of Stax and Atlantic made way to funkier sounds and throbbing beats. Beginning in the 1960s, Echols (American studies & history, Rutgers Univ.; Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin), who was once a disco deejay, analyzes the development of disco from the dance floor up and ends with disco's successors. Disco became a dominant force owing to the play time dance clubs gave the music rather than radio airplay. This growth through bars and clubs opened up relationships among disco and gay liberation, feminism, and African American rights. VERDICT While this is not a comprehensive history of disco, it is an intriguing critical study of the complex relationships and the nontraditional development of the genre. A definite purchase for academic libraries and pop-music enthusiasts.—Brian Sherman, McNeese State Univ. Lib., Lake Charles, LA
Kirkus Reviews
Through the lens of the music and its ethos, a former DJ examines what made the folly of the disco years so indelible. Echols (American Studies and History/Rutgers Univ.; Shaky Ground: The Sixties and Its Aftershocks, 2002, etc.) opens with the memory of one of the early zeniths of her music-programming career in the mid-1970s. She worked at the Rubaiyat discotheque in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the disco movement slowly began to influence her clientele, including "Madonna Ciccone, who is said to have danced there before dropping out of U of M and heading off to New York." Yet, the author notes, the epoch had its detractors; many dismissed the trend as a "lamentable and regrettable period in American history." That general consensus failed to thwart Barry White, whose "Love's Theme" went on to become the first disco track to crack the top spot on the Billboard pop charts. Distinguished with hints of traditional funk and soul, the "insistent and whomping" beat of the R&B and Motown sound became the "incubator of disco." From a cultural standpoint, however, Echols points out that conversely, this particular harmonious amalgam "seemed a crazy reversal of all that the black freedom movement had fought for." The author attributes much of disco's success to the homosexual community's collective embrace, spurred by gay DJs like Tom Moulton (originator of the "remix"), who not only held prominent posts in nightclubs, but also within the music promotional industry. From disco's earliest incarnations, homosexual men celebrated the "gay glitterball culture" at respected New York nightclubs. But as their popularity increased, so did a propensity toward racial and gender exclusivity. The mid-'70s becameall about "the music, mix, drugs, lights, sound systems, and an unmistakable uniformity of dress." A resurgence in male "macho" masculinity followed, though female (and male) "divas" like Donna Summer, Patti LaBelle and Sylvester dominated the charts. Echols concludes with contemporary commentary on disco's predictable resurgence since "pop music is full of unlikely turnabouts."A well-researched, culturally sensitive time capsule. Agent: Geri Thoma/Elaine Markson Literary Agency
The Los Angeles Times
“In this expertly rendered, wide-ranging history of one of pop's most exciting social and musical movements, Alice Echols thoroughly recovers the moment in which disco was born and flowered—a moment of liberation for women, gay men, and not a few straight boys; of rich experimentation in the studio and behind the DJ decks; and of joyful dancing that broke down all kinds of boundaries. Echols, one of our best chroniclers of how pop creates social change (and is, in turn, inspired by it), gets its vibe because she lived it—and because she can step back from it now and see it whole.”— Ann Powers
The New York Times Book Review
“Engrossing…Hot Stuff is not just about disco; it re-examines the ‘70s as a decade of revolution.”— James Gavin
Atlantic Monthly
“A clear-eyed encapsulation of what made this seemingly facile music so complex, compelling, and prescient… It all adds up to a thumping good read.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Thoroughly researched, scholarly credible and fiercely entertaining… [Hot Stuff] pulsates with a style as relentless as the music it analyzes and the personalities who brought that sound to the airwaves, clubs, boardrooms and bedrooms.”— Warren Pederson
Newsday
“Exhilarating, perceptive… an important work of cultural and musical resuscitation, written with a scholar’s acumen but a fan’s ardor.”— Melissa Anderson
Los Angeles Times
“Quietly dazzling.”— Peter Terzian
Time Out New York
“[Hot Stuff] reveals several unturned stones in the disco discourse, and presents an alternate account of those hazy-crazy yesteryears that’s ultimately indispensable.”— Smith Galtney
Salon
“Thoroughly entertaining.”— Thomas Rogers
Christine Stansell
“Echols' love of music, her acumen about popular culture, and her gifts as a leading cultural historian come together in this remarkable book.
The book is fascinating, carried along by prose that is as sleek and slinky as its subject.”
Ann Powers - The Los Angeles Times
“In this expertly rendered, wide-ranging history of one of pop's most exciting social and musical movements, Alice Echols thoroughly recovers the moment in which disco was born and flowered—a moment of liberation for women, gay men, and not a few straight boys; of rich experimentation in the studio and behind the DJ decks; and of joyful dancing that broke down all kinds of boundaries. Echols, one of our best chroniclers of how pop creates social change (and is, in turn, inspired by it), gets its vibe because she lived it—and because she can step back from it now and see it whole.”
James Gavin - The New York Times Book Review
“Engrossing…Hot Stuff is not just about disco; it re-examines the ‘70s as a decade of revolution.”
Warren Pederson - San Francisco Chronicle
“Thoroughly researched, scholarly credible and fiercely entertaining… [Hot Stuff] pulsates with a style as relentless as the music it analyzes and the personalities who brought that sound to the airwaves, clubs, boardrooms and bedrooms.”
Melissa Anderson - Newsday
“Exhilarating, perceptive… an important work of cultural and musical resuscitation, written with a scholar’s acumen but a fan’s ardor.”
Peter Terzian - Los Angeles Times
“Quietly dazzling.”
Smith Galtney - Time Out New York
“[Hot Stuff] reveals several unturned stones in the disco discourse, and presents an alternate account of those hazy-crazy yesteryears that’s ultimately indispensable.”
Bookforum - Michaelangelo Matos
“Persuasively argued… [a] stimulating rethinking of well-trod terrain.”
Thomas Rogers - Salon
“Thoroughly entertaining.”
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780393338911
  • Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 3/21/2011
  • Pages: 338
  • Sales rank: 600,190
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Alice Echols is a professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University. A former disco deejay, she is the author of the acclaimed biography of Janis Joplin, Scars of Sweet Paradise. She lives in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Read More Show Less

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Plastic Fantastic: The Disco Year xv

1 I Hear a Symphony: Black Masculinity and the Disco Turn 1

2 More, More, More: One and Oneness in Gay Disco 39

3 Ladies' Night: Women and Disco 71

4 The Homo Superiors: Disco and the Rise of Gay Macho 121

5 Saturday Night Fever: The Little Disco Movie 159

6 One Nation under a Thump?: Disco and its Discontents 195

Epilogue: Do It Again 233

Notes 241

Playlist 303

Photograph Credits 307

Index 309

Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)