Love Goes To Buildings On Fire

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire spans just four years in New York City, but that’s all Will Hermes needs to showcase the explosion of progress between rock, salsa, hip hop, dance, jazz, and classical music. To take just one example: during a seven-day stretch in 1973 you could catch a Soho loft performance by Phillip Glass, the New York Dolls at CBGBs, or a Bronx block party powered by DJ Kool Herc’s homemade sound system.
Hermes created a few chronological playlists, for lack of a better term, highlighting one-month spans in 1973, 1974, and 1975. From Lou Reed to Jon Gibson, Al Green to Kraftwerk, Patti Smith to Miles Davis. Enjoy.
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January 1973. New York City. Lou Reed's hitting the Billboard charts, the New York Dolls are playing "Trash," Meredith Monk is playing Town Hall without a musical instrument, Miles Davis is going electric, and Laurie Anderson is directing her dreams. 
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May to June 1974. New York City. Gil Scott-Heron releases the seminal Winter in America, Kool Herc invents hip-hop in a Bronx park, Springsteen gets his big break, an early version of what will become the band Blondie plays CBGB's, Philip Glass completes Music in Twelve Parts, and a young Patti Smith records her first single.
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April to March 1975. New York City. Al Green plays the Felt Forum, not in the best condition; Patti Smith and Television begin their legendary seven-week residency at CBGBs, after which Smith would walk away with a major label contract; Kraftwerk plays "Autobahn" at the Beacon Theatre; and Jon Gibson, a young multi-instrumentalist and friend of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, plays "Cycles" at the Washington Square Church.
See Also:
Will Hermes’ Blog
Read the Excerpt in Rolling Stone
A 300-Song Spotify Playlist for Love Goes to Buildings on Fire
On WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show”
Via

Author and critic Will Hermes uncovers the variety of revolutionary music in New York City, from rock to classical, salsa to hip hop, in his new book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever. Chuck Klosterman says the book is "an almost perfect portrait of New York music culture: specific yet comprehensive, enthusiastic yet objective, and as informed as it is personal. The four-page section of what (seemingly) every interesting person in NYC was doing on the night of the ‘77 blackout could have been a book unto itself."