The Diva Review:
This book is essentially fascinating. Especially for those, like me, who are obsessed with what life was like in New York in the 70's if you were one of the super cool. Add to that an amazing amount of social commentary and a good dose of what goes into creating a sub-culture and you have a riveting story. Unfortunately, Shapiro is not the greatest storyteller in the world. He does his job don't get me wrong. The facts are all there and they are truly interesting. But it's just not gripping. And the tragedy is that written by someone else, it could have been. It's dry. Through the entire first chapter I kept waiting to get past this introductory part and to the real nitty-gritty. Then I realized that this IS the nitty-gritty. The whole book is like this. It's kind of like reading a text book. Interesting story no humanism.
The other thing is that Shapiro tends to talk down to his reader which I find particularly annoying. I mean, we've paid almost twenty bucks for the book there is no need to speak to us like we're idiots. He also tends to favor words that are unnecessarily highbrow. I like to think that I have an excellent vocabulary, but I found myself with my trusty dictionary by my side with this one. And really, it's just pretentious. There is no need to consistently use words that most people don't know. Maybe he wants us to know that he's smart. But who cares? We care about the history of disco.
I wouldn't necessarily dismiss the book because of this. What Shapiro lacks in personality, he more than makes up for in research. The story of everything that had to come together at once to create this phenomenon of not just music but an entire culture shift many of the advancements or repercussions (depending on how you look at it) are still very much felt today is truly worth exploring.
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