Challenging the conventional reading of disco as a genre that defined the 1970s, riled punks and rappers in equal measure, and owed its downfall to corporate exploitation and homophobic opposition, Tim Lawrence argues for it to be understood as a convergent cultural practice rooted in countercultural politics and the melting pot demographics of NYC. Developing an argument sketched out in Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79, he maintains that disco embodied the emergence of a new form of postindustrial creativity that carried the promise of a flexible, cooperative, participatory social democratic settlement. This form of disco suffered its first near-death experience not in 1979, when the national backlash against disco reached its peak, but in 1984, with the setback traceable back to 1975. How come?

Tim Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies in University of East London’s School of Arts and Digital Industries, where he teaches music. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016).