“An essential book for this moment.”
— Rob Sheffield
The definitive history of LGBTQ music, from Stonewall to RuPaul, and its impact on culture and American life
From the underground dancefloors of the Seventies to the global charts of the Nineties, LGBTQ artists and audiences shaped music’s sound, style, and spirit. In Mighty Real, veteran journalist Barry Walters chronicles its LGBTQ history from the Velvet Underground to the 21st century’s dawn as he honors the artists who redefined gender, defied tradition, and dared to challenge sexual norms with the help of a record business that wasn’t as straight as commonly believed.
Drawing on his decades as a New York- and San Francisco-based music critic, Walters examines how LGBTQ musicians, music industry executives, and fans reshaped the mainstream. He connects the dots between David Bowie’s dazzling reinventions, Grace Jones’s androgynous glamor, Prince’s boundary-shattering sexuality, and the radical candor of the Indigo Girls to prove they’re all doing the same thing: fighting oppression.
With exuberance, insight, and encyclopedic knowledge, Walters brings to life the songs and society that filled dancefloors, bedrooms, and streets as he uncovers yesteryear’s coded LGBTQ messages that paved the way for today’s unabashedly queer hits. Mighty Real is a masterful love letter to the music that liberated generations, and it’s written in a page-turning, personal way that blurs distinctions between chronicle and memoir. This is the rare and revolutionary music history told to help you laugh, cry, and then rally against lingering inequality.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Maße
Höhe: 229 mm
Breite: 152 mm
Dicke: 30 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
979-8-217-05982-9 (9798217059829)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Barry Walters has spent forty years documenting the intersection of mainstream and LGBTQ culture. He began his career at The Village Voice, where he came out professionally in a 1986 Pet Shop Boys review, and went on to contribute for decades to Spin and Rolling Stone, where he was named Senior Critic. In 1992, Walters became the first critic to receive an award from The National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association for his work at the San Francisco Examiner. Throughout the ’90s, he was The Advocate’s music columnist and wrote extensively for Out. His writing has since appeared in Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Pitchfork, and other outlets. In 2020, his mini-documentary, Love Me Like You Should: The Brave and Bold Sylvester, created for Amazon Music at the start of the COVID lockdown, won a Clio Award.
