Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever

Will Hermes documents the sonic collision that occurred in New York City between 1973 and 1977. He tracks the simultaneous rise of distinct subcultures, linking the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx to the punk movement at CBGB and the emergence of salsa through the Fania All-Stars. The narrative follows specific musicians like Patti Smith, David Byrne, and Grandmaster Flash as they navigated a bankrupt city. By detailing the development of disco at the Loft and the avant-garde experiments in the downtown loft jazz scene, Hermes shows how these disparate genres shared physical spaces and creative energy during a period of urban decay.

Readers of music history and urban sociology turn to this book to understand how geographic proximity influences artistic innovation. It functions as a map for those interested in the technical transitions from analog soul to electronic dance music and early turntablism. You finish the book with a clear sense of how New York’s fiscal crisis provided the cheap rent and lawless social climate necessary for modern pop, rock, and rap to take their definitive shapes.