Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco

by ALAN; KANTONEN JUSSI. JONES, Jussi Kantonen

With Saturday Night Fever installed at the London Palladium, disco is now officially a tired mélange of wide collars, wider flares, rote line-dancing and Bee Gee falsetto. Wrong, say Jones and Kantonen. For them, disco was the expression of the 1970s oppressed the gays, Latinos, blacks and working-class women and men who saw in it a brief moment of weekend escapism, or a route to personal success and wealth. Thankfully they don¹t push the sociology too far. Saturday Night Forever is a book of passionate memories which summons up an almost-forgotten world of real disco-- not the anaemic populist version. Jones and Kantonen are men who spent half their lives in discotheques, the other half in specialist record shops, and who know their 12-inchers and their obscure labels inside out. Their classic discs are epics of overblown, faux-orchestral, high-BPM melodrama, entire LPs given over to one or two tracks. One regret is that there is no discography to encourage newly converted disco trainspotters to track down these mouthwatering morsels. But, for all their expertise, Jones and Kantonen never lose sight of the fact that disco's strength lay in its knowing, mischievous and fabulous camp. These are men who believe in mirrorballs. -- Alan Stewart

Genres: Music

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 1999

Reviews

[Hex75 · Rating 3 out of 5]

libro divertente, con qualche inesattezza e sopratutto qualche somiglianza con "disco days" di gavin compton: intere pagine sembrano proprio uguali!
chi ha preso da chi?

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book that's also easy to read. Lovely companion to Peter Shapiro's Turn the Beat Around.

[Max Renn · Rating 4 out of 5]

the introduction to this book tells of its origins. a book editor in the close confines of an automobile listening to two disco enthusiast friends in full blown hardcore otaku mode... and it is from this danger-ridden starting point that this book finds both its infectious appeal and its structural flaws.

i didnt like this book at first. i found it unfocused and a bit shallow, content to jump around from thought to nostalgia without really saying anything but after a while this fractured conversational tone accretes into something substantial and effervescent, quite suitable to the subject, which deserves more and better thought than it typically receives, especially from a socio-political perspective. without sacrificing respect for disco's greatest human achievement which is the sheer uninhibited joy of the spiritual pleasures of the neon-blitzed dance floor.

but in the final analysis where this book really succeeds is as an invaluable gift from some clued-up lovers to the rest of us. an invaluable collection of well-curated hard data. a guide into the sensual heart of a vanished subterranean for those that think they might remember love.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't going to admit to buying and reading this book in public but I have to say that Jones did an amazing job of portraying the global cultural impact of disco. There were not only some great reminders of songs I'd forgotten but an incredible birth-to-death synopsis of the era. If you lived & loved the disco era, it's worth the read!

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It skimmed the surface more than delved in....but it was interesting as a starter and fun (which is what I needed), plus it made me check out a number of disco tracks as a result.