The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream by Jon Savage
Looking back on the popular music of the 1950s to the 1970s, it’s almost unbelievable how performers from Liberace to the Village People were embraced by clueless (and often homophobic) heterosexual audiences. Didn’t the rhinestones and leather chaps set off any alarm bells? Then again, with Donald Trump dancing at a pre-inauguration party with the Village People to “Y.M.C.A.,” audiences in 2025 are no less baffled. You can’t tell the closet cases from the flaming queens without some expert guidance.
Help, luckily, is at hand. In The Secret Public, music journalist Jon Savage gives readers a nearly comprehensive history of popular music and gay culture in the U.S. and the U.K. in the years between the rise of rock ’n’ roll and the death of disco—including the (very gay) origins of Trump’s new anthem.