Monday, July 6, 2026

The Secret Public

 

The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture From the Margins to the Mainstream by Jon Savage, 784 pages.

This hefty book does pretty much what it says on the cover, tracing the intersection of queer history with music and pop culture. More specifically, from 1955 to 1979. I found this book a little lacking in focus, although supposedly about music, it also spent quite a bit of time on Hollywood and Andy Warhol. I'm also not entirely sure why the author decided to stop in 1979 after the fall of disco, when I think the 1980s might be one of the more interesting decades for this topic. 

That being said, it was still very informative, and I do feel like I learned a lot. This is indisputably a slow book, but everything in it is also thoroughly researched. I think I would recommend this more to people interested in the pop culture of the 1950s-1970s than anyone else. 

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