Disco Sucks!

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother,
You're stayin alive, stayin alive.
Feel the city breakin and everybody shakin,
And were stayin alive, stayin alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin alive, stayin alive.
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin alive.

Disco died on July 12th of 1979. Brutally and viciously murdered by a Chicago DJ, disco was blown to smithereens. It was not as if disco was rushed to a hospital where EMT's, nurses and doctors desperately and dramatically fought to save the life of disco as a weak heartbeat pulsed on a monitor until finally, after valiant struggle, the whiny tone of a flat line echoed through the emergency room while a surgeon called the time and day of the death of disco. Nothing like that at all.

Steve Dahl had been working for WDAI in Chi-town until that station changed its format from rock to disco and fired the irreverent Dahl who then went to work for their competitors WLUP. Dahl's former employers were promoting themselves as "Disco DAI", and Dahl, taking full advantage of this would regularly chant on WLUP "Disco Die". This attitude towards disco was not limited to a contract dispute in Chicago. Across the nation standard rock stations were billing themselves as anti-disco stations, either tapping into the zeitgeist or fanning the flames of a back-lash to a music genre.

In May of that year, a game between the Tigers and the White Sox had been rained out. The rules set by the American League dictated that the game be made up the next time the two teams met. The schedule for July 12th was to be a single game that would kick off a four game series over the weekend, but because of the rained out game and the heavy schedule, the two teams had a “twi-night” doubleheader, which means they played both games that same night. The disgruntled DJ Dahl and WLUP devised a promotion - Disco Demolition Night - where they would use this “twi-night” doubleheader to invite fans to bring their unwanted disco albums - Etlon John’s Victim of Love, Ain’t Gonna Bump No More by Joe Tex, and Get Up and Boogie by Silver Connection come to mind - to that doubleheader of games and hand them over in exchange for .98 cent tickets.

Detroit won the first game that night, 4 to 1. After the game Dahl, dressed in army fatigues and a battle helmet, along with his comely female assistance, walked out to centerfield and set a large box filled with the unwanted disco records and set it down. Dahl revved up the crowd chanting “Disco sucks!” A countdown followed the warm-up chant and when that countdown got to zero, Dahl revealed his magic trick. He had rigged the box with explosives and at the end of the countdown he blew up the box and much of the grass in the outfield. Loud cheers and roars came from the crowd, as Dahl and his crew left the field in an army jeep.




As the White Sox began warming up, the crowd, whipped into a frenzy by Dahl’s antics began rushing the field, small isolated riots taking place, some lighting more fires to accompany the fire set by the exploding box of disco discs, people tearing down a batting cage and before either the Sox or the Tigers could steal a base, some fans started actually stealing the bases. What must have seemed like a good idea at the time, had suddenly turned into a riot not seen since .10 cent Beer Night as a promotional for the Cleveland Indians in 1974. The crowd, larger than expected, took their cue from the most irreverent execution of a particular genre of music that seemed to threaten the very foundations of Rock n Roll, and rioted merrily, on July 12th of 1979, symbolically marking the death of disco.

At first, I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking, I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights thinking, how you did me wrong
And I grew strong and I learned how to get along

....

Go on now, go, walk out the door, just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one, who tried to hurt me with goodbye?
Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die?

Oh, no, not I, I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to love,
I know I'll stay alive I've got all my life to live,
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive, I will survive, hey, hey



That was the Summer after my High School graduation. Those were edgy nervous times when the palpable feeling that generates that terrifying question; is there life after high school? It's not that I didn't pay attention to disco, but in small town life in New Mexico the urban dance scenes of Philadelphia and New York were unknown to teenage boys more concerned with second base victories with the girls than doing the hustle. That is until Saturday Night Fever hit the scene in late 1977. Suddenly, by mid 1978, abandoned skating rinks and other venues were turned into discoteques so that suburban and small town America could be just like Tony Manero and Stephanie Mangano. These new discoteques where were all the girls where going, and for any sex obsessed teenage boy, this is where they went to find the girls. So, begrudgingly I learned to do the hustle and dance that disco in the sweltering disco inferno.

Alas, as it was for many teenage boys, the curse of unrequited teeny bop love was more than than any brokenhearted teenage boy could, or should have to stand, and just like Tony Manero, I had to suffer the frustration of hearing the girl of my dreams suggest "we just be friends". After that I came to hate the Bee Gees. Of course, those Bee Gees didn't dress as outlandishly as K.C. and the Sunshine Band, or The Silver Convention, and just because they were European didn't excuse those ridiculous costumes. It is odd, but I, or anyone I knew at that time, didn't really have a problem with the way The Commodores or Parliament dressed, and those who were Funkadelic knew how really cool George Clinton was, and let's face it, Bootsy Collins was the bomb, but for some reason when white boys trying to play that funky music were dressed in all that stuff it was stupid...clownish.

It wasn't until years later that it occurred to me that this thinking exhibited an attitude that it was okay for black musicians to dress up like clowns but white musicians just shouldn't do it. This wasn't my conscious attitude, but it is hard today to deny the underlying form of that attitude. I mean, if it was stupid and clownish then why would it be okay for black people to dress like that?

Continued...

The thing about disco, black or white, was that there was something kind of gay about it:

Its initial audiences were club-goers from the African American, Latino, gay, and psychedelic communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco also was a reaction against both the domination of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music by the counterculture during this period. Women embraced disco as well, and the music eventually expanded to several other popular groups of the time.

Maybe the fierce reaction to it was a reaction to a sort of emasculation process that freaked men and boys out:

Diana Ross was one of the first Motown artists to embrace the disco sound with her hugely successful 1976 outing "Love Hangover" from her self-entitled album. Ross would continue to score disco hits for the rest of the disco era, including the 1980 dance classics "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out" (the latter immediately becoming a favorite in the gay community)

Yet how strange that young boys in the Seventies could easily listen to David Bowie and without ever really paying attention to the lyrics embrace a song like Rebel Rebel and interpret it as some sort of anthemic ode to James Dean instead of what it really was:



Youve got your mother in a whirl cause shes
Not sure if you're a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hairs alright
Hey babe, lets stay out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they're playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say Im wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on

Rebel rebel, youve torn your dress
Rebel rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!

Lord knows how many young boys had girls point out to them that this song was an ode to transexuality not James Dean, and probably fewer would rub it in by pointing out that James Dean was kind of gay anyway. Even so, for whatever reasons, those who hated disco could somehow tolerate David Bowie and let's face it, even if that guy wasn't singing lyrics like "not sure if your a boy or a girl" he was pretty gay and totally strange. So, when Bowie embraced disco himself, it was okay, it was even strangely beautiful, it was Bowie:



And when The Rolling Stones embraced disco with Miss You only the die hard disco die fanatics were outraged. It seemed, for a brief period of time, for good or for bad, that disco was here to stay, and then came Disco Demolition Night; the death of disco. After this, disco started dropping from the charts and the supremacy of Rock n Roll was resurrected. The Ramones, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Blondie, The Cars, Cheap Trick, U2, and on and on and on as disco seemed to fade away, but the simmering unrest that surfaced during the days of disco never really found any tepid state and it would boil again. Rap music would have its ascendency chronicling the dangers of being a 25 year old black male, and at the peak of that Rodney King would attract the ire of police officers who themselves would be acquitted for their brutality and the result was a burning City of Angels, where even West Hollywood and those shiny happy people who called themselves gay shuddered to think what might happen to them if they left their shiny happy homes.

Rock n Roll has always reflected a certain kind of suppressed rage, punk and certainly rap stopped suppressing that rage, but these genres never seemed to experience the same sort of violent reaction that disco did. Disco, a genre of music that celebrated getting your oogie oogie boogie on, seemed to demand from its detractors explosive devices to blow to smithereens the vinyl it was pressed on. Disco didn't pretend to protest atrocities, or rebel against authority, it was just simple dance music that was really mostly about sex, and yet, many who considered themselves free thinkers and open minded seemed to discover just how much like the status quo they pretended to rage against they were.

On July 12th of 1979 a disgruntled DJ rode out into a ball park with a box of disco records rigged to an explosive device and executed disco. The surly crowd roared with delight, but unknown to anyone then, while they were chanting "disco is dead", as if the music itself had achieved some divine right of rule, today we understand this chant really should have been "disco is dead, long live disco". Like Gloria Gaynor's song, disco has survived it all. All the tension, the turmoil, the racial divide, the sexual fear and loathing, the hate, the love, the hate, the pretentious love, the hate...

Disco was the platform for metrosexuality to gain a foothold. It grew in the eighties. Films, tv shows also embraced the new approach to this by reversing stereo-types that were portrayed by Archies Bunker et al.

The exceptions were th John Waynes and the Clint Eastwoods. (Thouh "Paint Your Wagon" was the sole embarrassment to Eastwood).

It's reversing though. A least that's how I see the trend.

You want to know the real reason it died?

Many of those performers were gay.

But not all of it is bad, there is some good sounds out there.

If it weren't for Disco, we wouldn't have The Jackson Five, which later on gave us Michael and Janet Jackson.

Ridiculas thread tbh, You obviously dont like Disco but there are millions around the world who do.

A few pointers.... you seem to be a bit confused as to what Disco actualy is, none of the Bowie tracks you posted are Disco some of the others arent either.

Disco never died it morphed into other genres,Its still alive today in different forms and its influence can be heard in many different genres, especially in pop and electronic music.

Here's one of my favorite Disco songs.

Plus, I'm absolutely mesmerized by the dancing girl they have in this video:

I like the evolution of disco, EDM--mostly Dubstep.

im rockin it right now

i do not like original disco

but they didn't blow up any K C records I hope ....good gawd yall
because you see......(music starts)....I'm your boogy man, that's what I am....

edit.....that no good? ......................................shake shake shake
...................................... shake shake shake................................................ shake your booty, shake your booty

Looked around I can't find my white platform shoes and Polyester leisure suit. I wanted to dress the part for a reply

oh well.

I dunno. I remember liking how the ladies looked. I'm a sucker for those tight pants and thin dresses the ladies wore If I'm not mistaken it was around that time of Fara Faucet?. Anyway, if some gay guy or band wanted to sing and the ladies wanted to dance and shake their groove thing it was all good with me. I wasnt looking at the gay singer or band. Trust me.

reply to post by rainbowbear


How on earth is dubstep an evolution of disco?

Dubstep began by remixing dub music, dub music was heavily influenced by reggae, which was influenced by ska. No disco involved.

reply to post by auraelium


This thread is posted in the Social Issues and Civil Unrest for a reason. Your love of disco is fine, but that is not what this thread is about. For all its innocuousness and dance, disco, as Beezer pointed out, was much more than just music. Disco was embraced by the gay community very early on, and I am arguing that this was part of the reason for the backlash. The Rebel Rebel video was to illustrate that those who didn't like disco for its gayness did like Bowie's Rebel Rebel. It's stupid I even have to point that out, but then again, you're not really concerned with any thing deeper than a groove on a disc, are you?

What got me to were a pink sleeveless shirt and black parachute pants back then is beyond me.
I was still trapped in the seventies then the ladies became of great interests to me.

Thank god grunge can into play to salvage my soul.

But I still listen to a song or two from then,just only to get the wife in the mood,nothing more.

reply to post by Bodhi7


As i said Disco never died,this is where Disco can be found today........

No.... Country sucks, heavy metal sucks, dont hate on the bee gees you squares....

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by auraelium

 

This thread is posted in the Social Issues and Civil Unrest for a reason. Your love of disco is fine, but that is not what this thread is about. For all its innocuousness and dance, disco, as Beezer pointed out, was much more than just music. Disco was embraced by the gay community very early on, and I am arguing that this was part of the reason for the backlash. The Rebel Rebel video was to illustrate that those who didn't like disco for its gayness did like Bowie's Rebel Rebel. It's stupid I even have to point that out, but then again, you're not really concerned with any thing deeper than a groove on a disc, are you?

Sort of like the Chic Fil A fiasco,if that is what you are referring to.

Disco birthed house music, so disco is forgiven for its offenses.

Originally posted by beezzer
Disco was the platform for metrosexuality to gain a foothold. It grew in the eighties. Films, tv shows also embraced the new approach to this by reversing stereo-types that were portrayed by Archies Bunker et al.

The exceptions were th John Waynes and the Clint Eastwoods. (Thouh "Paint Your Wagon" was the sole embarrassment to Eastwood).

It's reversing though. A least that's how I see the trend.

Paint your wagon red or rainbow.

Deception at the very least,turning directions,the people will decide,that is the majority.
Everyone else can go kiss a cow.
Not my opinion,just how I feel the "majority" are thinking.
'course that "majority" is shrinking and will be diminishing in the future,along with other things.

Growing up in the late 70s only preppies & jocks listened to disco in my neighborhood.
I was weaned on Robin Trower, Van Halen & Led Zeppelin. F**k disco & all that garbage
Crap-hop style it influenced.

No-talent breeds no-talent I guess.

EDIT: Great post Jean!

reply to post by Yngvarr


Some of us listened to it all types of music

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Yngvarr

 

Some of us listened to it all types of music

You'll find everything on my iPod except disco & rap.
I just can't hang that way.