A review by caddysnack
Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes
3.0
New York in the mid to late 70s was one of the most creatively active and diverse periods in American history, and it's probably the number one destination for my time machine To Do list. So I expected to really love this book, but it lacks strong narrative and is an uninspired read. It's hard to say how much of that is due to the writer, because it's a necessarily overwhelming period to cover. I did find that his musical descriptions were not helpful, and I ended up skipping sections on genres I didn't care about (well, one: jazz) because his writing couldn't engage me. I think anyone interested in this period who already has a strong familiarity with it would be better off reading more focused books rather than this overview.
My favorite part of the book involved this quote from Robert Palmer, NY Times, responding to negative reviews of disco as "part of a general refusal to see disco partying as anything but mindless escapism when, in fact, a good case could be made for it as a vital tribal rite, an affirmation of high spirits and shared delight, a coming together to let loose that in no way ignores the problems of everyday life, but relieves them. Maybe we need a whole new aesthetics for the disco one that includes the ritual as well as the music."
My favorite part of the book involved this quote from Robert Palmer, NY Times, responding to negative reviews of disco as "part of a general refusal to see disco partying as anything but mindless escapism when, in fact, a good case could be made for it as a vital tribal rite, an affirmation of high spirits and shared delight, a coming together to let loose that in no way ignores the problems of everyday life, but relieves them. Maybe we need a whole new aesthetics for the disco one that includes the ritual as well as the music."