The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Pop Culture (1955-1979) by Jon Savage – review – the coming out phase of pop music | Music books

J“On Savage’s new mammoth book skilfully navigates over 700 pages through key moments in music and entertainment history and traces their significance for the further development and acceptance of queer culture.” The secret public takes its name from this duality of public and private self, and the opening chapters detail the brutal dangers and difficulties singers and artists faced in the UK and US before the legalisation of homosexuality when unable to be fully themselves. Often, he points out, they had public personas and identities that were at odds with their private selves, as some of them operated “in the claustrophobic sexual and gender atmosphere of early 1950s America” ​​where “any perceived deviance was automatically suspect”. The book tells the story of how we arrived at our modern times where LGBTQ+ artists are more fully, if not completely, accepted, while also serving as a prescient warning not to fall into relapse.

As you’d expect, Savage can really write about music, its poetry and cadences. Early on, he examines the opening chorus of Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti, digging deep into every syllable of that introductory “first eruption,” describing how the final two syllables of “Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom” have the “force of a fist, a punch, an explosion—a caption in a superhero comic.” And by choosing a compressed time period of just 24 years, he’s able to revel in details, both seismic and incidental. He brings to life Bowie, Dusty Springfield, and… Rock Hudson, who, when his “natural speaking voice was thought to be too high for his macho image,” was forced to shout when he caught a cold in order to permanently alter the tone, making it deeper and, supposedly, more “seductive.” In Bowie’s case, Savage tells us not only the more well-known story of the development of his stage persona, but also the details of his rise behind the scenes and as a manager.

This is a carefully researched work, as more than 50 pages of notes and references attest, but Savage’s central achievement is to carry all his knowledge lightly and to tell us these stories as easily and engagingly as if we were standing in line with him waiting to go to a concert. This is a difficult book, as it is both academic and has a broad appeal. Savage is knowledgeable and has a wide range of references, drawing on his experience from previous books on the Sex Pistols (England’s dreams) and scripts for documentaries such as the film “The Joy Department on the page, so that you always have the feeling that he is in command of his subject.

The secret public is constantly moving, moving from its insights into individual stars and managers to the collective histories of entire nations, not just LGBTQ+ people. Readers who want insights into specific music schools or particular singers will also find a book that does an excellent job of engaging with changing notions of masculinity in postwar Britain and the US, as well as the wider cultural consumption of the era (driven largely by women “who were at the forefront of consumerism in the postwar years” and whose participation in “mass fanfare” “brought public attention to the power of teenage girls…”).

Savage describes the changing tides of history with the precise essence of a song line. He notes that “the relationship between gay pop and politics” was “complex and intricate,” and it is the achievement of this book to bring us closer to that entanglement in intimate snapshots.

A first cousin, but with a different style and a focus on the decades immediately after The secret publicis David Frances classic How to survive a plague and it is impossible to read the last sentence of Savage’s book without shuddering. He leaves us with a look at the cover of Sylvester’s 1979 album Living proof and on the foldout sleeve, the singer in the centre, “pouring champagne into a glass”, is described as “the perfect party host”. “Around him, on the steps of a nightclub, framed by the marquee roof, are over 35 revellers: a mix of age, gender and race… They are packed tightly together, all smiling with joy and anticipation.”

The author concludes by asking them to “leave them there” while they “froze in their magnificence, with no thought of what was to come.” Less than 10 years later, Sylvester died of an AIDS-related illness. We can only hope that this book heralds a sequel in which Savage can bring his rigorous depth and tenderness to what happened next.