439. Disco: Sex and Race in Seventies America

Music for sex, dancing, and watching the straight world go by… The explosion of Disco provides an extraordinary window into the tumultuous world of the 1970s, with its themes of sex, drugs, race and sexuality. By the start of the 1970s, America was a nation of dystopian gloom. The radical dream of the 1960’s had dissipated, with economic decline, Vietnam and Watergate polarising and disenchanting the public. Then, at a party in New York held by the DJ David Mancuso, something new was born: Disco. An intoxicating kaleidoscope of dancing and colour with an orgasmic new sound, it united disparate groups under the banner of music. An escape from the concerns of the day, it captivated the mainstream imagination with its idealism, open drug use, self-consciously flamboyant clothes, and accepta