Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Music

CAN'T SLOW DOWN

Michaelangelo Matos

How 1984 Became Pop's Blockbuster Year

The definitive account of pop music in the mid-eighties, from Prince and Madonna to the underground hip-hop, indie rock, and club scenes.

Everybody knows the hits of 1984-pop music's greatest year. From "Thriller" to "Purple Rain," "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to "Like a Virgin," "Hello" to "Against All Odds," "Sister Christian" to "Love Is a Battlefield," "What's Love Got to Do with It" to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," they continue to dominate advertising, karaoke nights, and the soundtracks for film classics (Boogie Nights) and TV hits (Stranger Things). But the story of that thrilling, turbulent time, an era when Top 40 radio was both the leading edge of popular culture and a moral battleground, has never been told with the full detail it deserves-until now.

Can't Slow Down is the definitive portrait of the exploding world of mid-eighties pop and the time it defined, from Cold War anxiety to the home-computer revolution. Big acts like Michael Jackson (Thriller), Prince (Purple Rain), Madonna (Like a Virgin), Bruce Springsteen (Born in the U.S.A.), and George Michael (Wham!'s Make It Big) rubbed shoulders with the fermenting scenes of hip-hop, indie rock, and club music.

Rigorously researched, mapping the entire terrain of American pop, with crucial side trips to the UK and Jamaica, from the biz to the stars to the upstarts and beyond, Can't Slow Down is a vivid trip to a thrilling, turbulent time when pop was remaking itself, and the culture at large, one hit at a time. Let's go crazy!

MICHAELANGELO MATOS is the author of The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America (Dey Street, 2015) and Sign 'O' the Times (Bloomsbury, 2004). He contributes regularly to Mix-mag and the New Yorker and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Book Published 2020-12-08 by Hachette Book Group - New York (USA)

Comments

Through rigorous research and engaging storytelling, Michaelangelo Matos offers a comprehensive look at a breakthrough year in pop music. By giving equal weight to major and lesser-known cultural signposts, Can't Slow Down is an insightful read for even the staunchest music fan.

Can't Slow Down reads like a "We Are the World"-style celebrity mega-single in book form. It is a delightfully jam-packed group bio that brings together characters from Morrissey to Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson to Sade. All jostle for their star turns in this ingeniously structured account of pop music's watershed year. Wearing a massive amount of research lightly and displaying his gift for both the industry "big picture" and the (at times hilarious) artist thumbnail sketch, Matos proves himself to be among the most entertaining and erudite chroniclers of contemporary American popular music.

At last-the whole glorious saga of the 1984 pop explosion. Can't Slow Down has the full untold story of how rockers and rappers and dance-floor rebels came together to invent the future, changing how music has sounded ever since. Michaelangelo Matos tells this epic tale in all its detail-it's a definitive scholarly history, but he also turns it into a thriller and a love story, with an infectious joy that practically dances off the page. A pure delight.

Imagine a time when people bought millions of CDs, pop musicians had the larger-than-life allure of movie stars, and nearly every genre, from Top 40 to hip-hop to indie, was thriving. That year was 1984, and Michaelangelo Matos' rollicking and deeply researched Can't Slow Down hurls you back to a time when pop music wasn't just thriving; it welcomed anyone and everyone to revel in its crossover dreams.