The Disco Files 1973-78 - (Paperback)

About the Book

"The records, the charts, the clubs, the stories"--Cover.

Book Synopsis

A new edition of the essential chronicle of disco culture

In 1973, Vince Aletti became the first person to write about the emerging disco scene. His engagement with disco nightlife continued throughout the decade as he wrote his weekly column for Record World magazine, which incorporated top ten playlists from DJs across the US (such as Larry Levan, Larry Sanders, Walter Gibbons, Tee Scott and Nicky Siano) alongside Aletti's own writings and interviews.

As disco grew from an underground secret to a billion-dollar industry, Aletti was there to document it, and The Disco Files is his personal memoir of those days, containing everything he wrote on the subject (most of it between 1974 and1978) augmented with photography by Peter Hujar and Toby Old. This book is the definitive and essential chronicle of disco, true from-the-trenches reporting that details, week by week, the evolution of the clubs, the DJs, and above all, the music, through magazine articles, beautiful photographs, hundreds of club charts and thousands of record reviews.

Photocopies of Aletti's Record World columns circulated for years among DJs and music lovers, until they were finally collected in 2009 into the first edition of The Disco Files, an instant classic that quickly sold out. This new edition of The Disco Files brings Aletti's compulsively readable disco writing back into print, adding an interview with Fran Lebowitz originally published in the Village Voice in 1990.

Throughout his career, curator, writer and critic Vince Aletti (born 1945) has been at the forefront of music, culture and the arts. He wrote for Record World and Rolling Stone and covered the club scene in the late 1970s and 1980s for the Village Voice, where he would serve as art editor until 2005. In addition to curating numerous photography exhibitions, Aletti writes about photography for the New Yorker.

Review Quotes

[Aletti's] firsthand account of New York's halcyon days of disco is totally groovy.--Nell Beram "L'Officiel"

A first-rate disco first-responder, he has catholic tastes, boundless curiosity, and a genial voice.--Melissa Anderson "Bookforum"

Aletti became the first person to write about the emerging disco scene, chronicling its rise from the underground to the top of the charts, introducing Black and Latinx gay culture to the world. In his weekly column for Record World magazine, Aletti showcased the latest breaking records, top ten playlists from DJs like Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, and Nicky Siano, scoops and reviews.--Sara Rosen "AnOther Man Magazine"

Aletti's book offers a different version of the disco experience, one that is premised not on mythically great nights out but on conversation and careful study of one's record collection.--Hua Hsu "New Yorker"

Vince Aletti is disco's greatest chronicler, the first writer to cover the emerging scene.-- "Paris Review"