Alice Echols is Barbra Streisand Professor of contemporary gender studies and professor of history at the University of Southern California. A former disco deejay, she is the author of four books including Hot Stuff and the acclaimed biography of Janis Joplin, Scars of Sweet Paradise.
"Engrossing…Hot Stuff is not just about disco; it re-examines the
‘70s as a decade of revolution."
*James Gavin - The New York Times Book Review*
"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*
"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 Los Angeles Times*
"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."
*Atlantic Monthly*
"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 - San Francisco Chronicle*
"Exhilarating, perceptive… an important work of cultural and
musical resuscitation, written with a scholar’s acumen but a fan’s
ardor."
*Melissa Anderson - Newsday*
"Quietly dazzling."
*Peter Terzian - Los Angeles Times*
"[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 - Time Out New York*
"Persuasively argued… [a] stimulating rethinking of well-trod
terrain."
*Bookforum - Michaelangelo Matos*
"Thoroughly entertaining."
*Thomas Rogers - Salon*
"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."
*Christine Stansell, Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor,
The University of Chicago*
"[A]n intriguing critical study of the complex relationships and
the nontraditional development of the genre. A definite purchase
for…pop-music enthusiasts."
*Library Journal*
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