Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack—behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson. Night People conjures the undeniable magic of the city's bygone nightlife—a time when clubs were diverse, glamorous, and a little lawless, and each night brought a heady mix of music, ambition, danger, delight, and possibility. It's about the beauty of what you can create with just two Technics and a mixer, in a golden era before Giuliani, camera phones, and bottle service upended everything. It's also about a teenager finding his way—stalking DJ Stretch Armstrong and biting his mixes, crate-digging in every corner of New York, grinding gig after gig through a decade of incredible music—and finding a community of people who, in their own strange, cracked ways, lived for the night.
Organized around the venues that defined his experience of the downtown scene, Ronson evokes the specific rush of that decade and those spaces—where fashion folks and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5'ers—and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down.
Night People: How to Be a DJ in '90s New York City by Mark Ronson will be published September 16, 2025. Grand Central Publishing provided an early galley for review.
I'm a music fan and have always been fascinated by New York City. And while I knew songs he created and produced, I knew very little about Mark Ronson's story. This would fill in some of those gaps.
Even if you're someone like me who is not so familiar with '90s club bangers or the NYC club world, Ronson knows how to spin an engaging narrative that is both informative and entertaining. He is a storyteller and really puts the reader into those moments of his life. I enjoyed his taking us through his youthful years, to see how he navigated the club scene as a neophyte DJ.
No comments:
Post a Comment