Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Punk rock, hip-hop, disco, salsa, jazz—in the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented—all at once. Crime was rampant, the government was broke, and the city’s infrastructure was collapsing. But rent was cheap and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless. This is the first book to tell the full story of the era’s music scenes and the surprising ways they intersected. From New Year’s Day 1973 to New Year’s Eve 1977, the book moves panoramically from post-Dylan Greenwich Village, to the arson-scarred South Bronx barrios where salsa and hip-hop were created, to the Lower Manhattan lofts where jazz and classical music were reimagined. Will Hermes was there, and here he captures the creativity, drive, and lust for life of the great New York musicians of those years, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.