Disco Sucks!

The problem with the idea of "disco" music is that we're talking about a theory of lifestyle and not so much the music itself. The Bee Gees Night Fever stuff is not disco, and was not, in fact it was chosen for the movie by chance and not design, the tracks just happened to be very good pop music tracks that had the dance beat too. More to the point, had any other music been put to the dance scenes in the movie, that music would have been popular - the music video format was perfected in that movie in the opening shot.

Disco, discotheque, is dancing at a venue, so to hate disco is really to hate any music you can dance to at a venue with others. The genre that got tagged with the 70's version of dance music was really pop music with a dancing beat, but much of what we classify as disco was really great pop songs done by some stellar musicians - no modern recording machinery and the poster children for the movement, Village People I'm looking at you, were cartoons and every music decade has it cartoons.

On the other hand, the flamboyance associated with disco was what was being attacked. Why? Who knows, the agenda of such things is often simply to create conflict where there was none. While I agree there may have been some "attack the gays" theme attached, it hardly eliminated gay dance clubs or gay anything at all, and more then Anita Bryant eliminated anything.

Since Elvis, music has been the great strawman, folks like the PMRC found rock music that supported the idea that music was sending our kids straight to hell, and only music was doing it. Elvis was morally wrong, the Beatles were corrupting, Metal caused kids to kill themselves, Hill Billy music caused inbreeding and so on. It seems, like most everything else, the artistic outlets that people create are grabbed onto by the scum that seek to keep us all pitted against one another lest we stop fighting amongst ourselves and see them. Is there really, really, a "rock vs disco" polarity of meaning? Seriously, "rock vs disco?" Why do we feel the two types of music cannot exist in the same realm, is this the Thunderdom reality were only one can leave?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

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.

Explain KISS, please.

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

I'd follow you a bit more here if disco hadn't been immediately followed up on by the hair metal craze.

Personally, I think music is just consistantly seeking that new gimmick. The 70's, following up on the psychadellic, trippy imagery of the 60s, needed something more. They broke the patriotic, nationalism of the 50s with the peace crowd, free love, we are all one people hippy commune movement of the 60s. The next logical transition was to bring out individuality while still maintaining a sort of group think. Thus, the 70s saw discos with huge throngs of people all dressed like idiots... but each attempting to have the wildest hair, tallest platforms, and most glittery clothes. Then the 80s were about keeping age groups tight, but rebelling against your parents. How better to rebel against your parents (who themselves were pretty freaky in the 60s and 70s) than through dudes wearing makeup and feathering their hair, chicks dying their hair pink, and everybody wearing clothes that looked like you ran a Victorian era maid through a meat grinder and then wrapped her remains in a spandex workout singlet?

I think you're reading a bit much into the concept here, but interesting thread.

Disco is awesome,

still is today.

Depends on what you're doing

reply to post by burdman30ott6

Explain KISS, please.

My first concert at 13 years old.

Music is really defined in eras,but also taste.
There are several "tastes" in music.
It is all good.

Back in my mothers day,Elvis was the rage and she snook out the house as a teen to watch him.
Then,at that time,Elvis was very controversial.

We still have country and bluegrass groups popping all the time.

It's what you make of it and what kind of impact it had on you.

What I enjoy the most is that my 13 year old daughter is stealing my music from my itunes.
Jack Johnson,who would have thought.

reply to post by Yngvarr


Then you are probably one of those people that hasn't ever heard actual rap and base all their judgement off of what's on the radio.

Lil Wayne and garbage like that isn't rap, this is:

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

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.

... and what, exactly, would that backlash be, perchance?

I was a mere teen at the time the likes of The Bee Gees and other latter 70s / early 80s 'disco'-type groups, and the meme/genre as a whole, came upon the scene.

Even then I didn't see it as anything even near drawing mostly 'gay' nor 'metrosexual' type embrace as a rule ... just folks who had no clue what music, even 'dance music', for that matter, was all about in the first place.

Nothing more than a 'fad' which soon thereafter went by the wayside ... akin to 8-tracks, and later cassettes.

Despite and no matter all that ... it would seem quite obvious that this is little more than an onion-skinned attempt to, once again, focus attentions on the 'gay community' and those drawn like flies to a lantern when it comes to casting judgement or disdain upon the same.

A tired and worn out topic here on the boards, if you ask me.

*this coming from someone who despised disco, preferring the likes of music with actual substance*

i cant believe no one has posted this



i remember back in high school, remember this was a small town.
we use to hang out at the pool hall and it was called the pool room, and they opened up a disco behind it called the river side disco.
so all us heads use to park behind the pool room on a fri or sat night, now this was about the time they were starting to make car stereos, that sounded as good as home systems. and i use to put my 150 watt home speakers hook up to my alpine 300amp in the back of my truck and have my pioneer 6x9s and 200amp in the cab. then we would sit and play boston. ac/dc ted nugent, molly hatchet, black sabbath, nazareth all head banger and south rock you could think of and try to get the disco panzis to come out.


man good times

reply to post by burdman30ott6

Explain KISS, please.

Are you seriously comparing the effete costumes of K.C. and the Sunshine Band, The Commodores, and even Parliament to the leather clad costumes of KISS. While plainly cartoonish, KISS were too dangerous to be clownish. That said, I was not a big fan of KISS and besides Beth and a marginal appreciation of I Want To Rock n Roll All Night I couldn't tell you what songs they wrote and sang.

As for the big hair heavy metal phase, that wasn't nearly as fey as the skinny tie and thin cotton jacket phase of Duran Duran, The Fixx, and The Knack. My point in this thread is that all the genres you point to did not spark nearly the reaction that disco did. Not even punk ired as many as disco did, and even though there was something rather fey about Duran Duran, The Fixx, The Knack, and even bands like Poison, this music was not embraced by the gay culture nearly as much as disco and what you effectively do is point to a bunch of white boys aspiring to be rock n roll stars.

While "new wave", punk and "classic rock" were primarily filled with white faces, funk was primarily filled with black faces, and there was, of course, at this time, Micheal Jackson coming into his own and crossing over into that universal appeal of everyone, and Prince with his special brand of Minneapolis funk was threatening to break out too, the rock n roll both of us seem to be talking about was white mans rock. James Brown, Parliament and Funkadelic were different and considered "R&B" and didn't appeal to nearly as wide a crowd as Tom Petty, Springstein, Bob Seeger, Kansas, Yes, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, and on and on and on.

What I find interesting is that just like Rock n Roll, preceded by the Blues, Disco was pioneered by Black musicians. Bands such as the Hues Corporation, T.S.O.P. and others were Black musicians once again redefining American music. The Blues and Jazz were the first indigenous music of The United States. It has been Black people who have shaped and defined American music, and yet, with each new incarnation, it is invariable that White musicians co-opt it, and to the point that by the Sixties the Rock n Roll pioneered by Big Joe Turner, Chuck Berry and Little Richard had become dominated by White faces, so R&B became "the Black thing" until disco was pioneered, and then once again we see a co-opt by White musical acts.

Across the nation, after only a few years of disco, "classic rock stations" were advertising themselves as anti-disco, and the expression "Disco Sucks" is not a title invented by me. While there are some who will drop by this thread to announce - and without a hint of irony - how tired the topic is, perhaps it is just too subtle of a nuance for some, but the backlash to disco was not some outrage by parents who had never before heard such music as in Rock n Roll, the outrage was by the very people who considered themselves rockers or fans of Rock n Roll, and where The Rolling Stones, Elton John, The Eagles and countless other rock bands could be forgiven by the influence of disco in their music, for some disco was an abomination. A threat to a way of life.

This view is not my personal view, this view is chronicled in articles slapped all over the internet, and while some will jump in with their own anecdotal memories and use this as an excuse to throw ad hominem attacks that are supposedly discouraged in this site, the back lash to disco was real, and like the repeat of the final video I posted implies, and the express language I used before that, disco has survived.

Thank you for your adding your own voice to this thread.

Disco Sucks!
I wore that black t-shirt till it turned light gray.
I think Ted Nugent was the one that originally coined that phrase.

Disco didn't die in 1979, Here's Proof from 1981

She's a very kinky girl
The kind you don't take home to Mother

Disco, to me, was uncomfortable. The whole genre even prior to that associated itself to a lifestyle that I was uncomfortable with. I've never been much of a club scene, gregarious person, so the whole social scene that the music defined was (and still is to a point) somewhat alien to me.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Funk

Came closely on the high heels of disco.

Originally posted by Alxandro
Disco Sucks!
I wore that black t-shirt till it turned light gray.
I think Ted Nugent was the one that originally coined that phrase.

I saw Nugent two years ago or was it three?

Still rockin'

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Pedro4077

 

Funk

Came closely on the high heels of disco.

OK now I'm Confused.

EDIT - OK I see - Funk is not Disco.

Disco may be tarnished by poor attire choices and girly-man vocals, but disco played a key role in bringing groove to white folks that didn't listen to Motown!

It may be the "Vanilla Ice" of musical genres, but when it's played in a bar/club everyone still gets down to it. Not too mention the killer funk bass lines that came from disco.

I am a huge funk fan and bass player......don't dis the disco fool!

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Your missing the point...

Forget looks....forget lyrics..

Disco gave us some amazingly funky grooves which I am forever grateful for....

Also birthed house music to.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Another way to tell that Disco Died is that many of the Discotheques. SPL? changed over to Funk Clubs....

Many of them even went as far as changing the names on the clubs at the time to reflect that. Now however all of that get's lumped together.


No biggy

reply to post by SLAYER69


It is kind of the other way around. Funk had been around since the sixties, and James Brown had Bootsy as a bass player and as I heard the story told, Brown kept pushing Collins to find a beat that Brown kept calling "the one", and finally Bootsy Collins developed this sound that compelled Brown to say "that's 'the one'!"

I can remember driving my Mom batty when I was in high-school walking around the house constantly saying "Get the funk out my face".

Funk music definitely predates disco. It started in the 60's. Parliament's first album was in 70.

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?

Disco might of had a gay following as do many genres of music but its origins are in black Soul and gospel also as i pointed out it never died it just evolved. there was no backlash either, just a newer generation that wanted something different,same as every generation.