1984: The Year Pop Went Queer
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bonnier Books Ltd
Published:18th Jul '24
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1984: the year mainstream pop took gay subculture overground.
A Guardian Book of the Year
A Clash Book of the Year
'MAGNIFICENT!' CAITLIN MORAN
'A riveting read about a pop revolution hiding in plain sight' PETE PAPHIDES
'Very funny and very moving' JUDE ROGERS
In 1984, pop came out of the closet - even if not all of the artists felt that they could - and, in the process, charted the course of the rest of the decade.
In 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer, writer and musician Ian Wade charts where these artists, including Queen, George Michael, David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Madonna - who all enjoyed chart success in 1984 - were during that epoch-making year. It studies the impact these groundbreaking musicians had before, during and after on the gay community and popular culture, and it demonstrates how they were able to break down barriers, raise consciousness and set in motion the first nascent ripples in a pond that are still being felt today.
As a backdrop, it explores the strides made in the name of the cause and how the wider surrounding culture reacted with equal parts glee, bafflement and disgust.
'MAGNIFICENT! A Poppers O'Clock ode to one of pop's most pivotal and best dressed year' -- Caitlin Moran
'A riveting read about a pop revolution hiding in plain sight' -- Pete Paphides
'Plenty of predictions were made about 1984, but one thing no one foresaw was that it would turn out to be the year of British pop's coming-out party. Ian Wade is the perfect guide to a lost pop world more complex and fraught than nostalgia allows, an era simultaneously more exciting and more depressing than our own' -- Alexis Petridis
'Very funny and very moving, a whirlwind tour around a remarkable year by the lovely Ian - a guide alive with the spirit of Smash Hits, and lashings of LGBTQ+ pride and rage' -- Jude Rogers
'Highly energetic, well-informed, opinionated in all the right places and always exciting, this is a rush down memory lane.' -- David Quantick
'A flamboyant take on the 1980s. Everything you wanted to know about the 'Relax' video but were afraid to ask. It shows how Bronski Beat, Dead or Alive, Madonna et al. threw open music's closet on Top of the Pops, shifting society's attitudes to a disco beat. Excellent' * The Times *
'A refreshing take on the "year in pop" format' -- Simon Price
'A loving compendium of what happened during the pinkest 12-month patch of pop history' * Observer *
'[A] brilliantly written book' * Louder Than War *
'A tender and considered exploration and examination of how underground gay culture became subsumed into the official chart' -- Official Charts Company
ISBN: 9781785120817
Dimensions: 222mm x 144mm x 32mm
Weight: 453g
320 pages