To commemorate this landmark, WTTW11 is airing a one hour Teamworks
Media documentary called Disco Demolition 25th Anniversary: The Real
Story (July 12th, 8:00 pm - that's tonight!).
someone hold a rap demolition!
I take issue with your perspective.Disco has been unjustifiably bad
mouthed by people who never cared much for ANY kind of Black music
period.Some of it was very trite but you can't tell me that songs like
Bad Luck,Disco Inferno,Hot Stuff,Knock on Wood,I Love Music,Heaven
Must Be Missing an Angel,Shame,Night Fever,etc were not great tunes
and very danceable.
What I remember about the whole Disco Demolition is that a bunch of
long haired white kids went straight up crazy about some music they
had very little understanding of.
And please don't tell me they were just representing the REAL Black
music of Little Richard and Ray Charles cause I ain't buying into that
one!
Riverman
A place for everyone, and everyone in their place.
BJB
"Riverman" <gog...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:b4b2a645.04071...@posting.google.com...
Thankfully, disco didn't die.
It made me laugh to see a bunch of no-hopers whinging about black music.
What did we have?
Chic - great!
Styx and REO Speedwagon - oh purlease...
> > someone hold a rap demolition!
>
> I take issue with your perspective.Disco has been unjustifiably bad
> mouthed by people who never cared much for ANY kind of Black music
> period.
They didn't like gay folks much either--g!
> Some of it was very trite but you can't tell me that songs like
> Bad Luck,Disco Inferno,Hot Stuff,Knock on Wood,I Love Music,Heaven
> Must Be Missing an Angel,Shame,Night Fever,etc were not great tunes
> and very danceable.
Yep. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were the Dr.
Dre/Holland-Dozier-Holland of their day. As was Giorgio Moroder.
> What I remember about the whole Disco Demolition is that a bunch of
> long haired white kids went straight up crazy about some music they
> had very little understanding of.
Part of it was there was a lot of bad disco towards the end
there--par for the course with any pop genre. And disco was
dominating the airwaves to such a degree it seemed like there was no
other music around. Part of it was money/class issues--you had to
have money to dress/hang out at disco clubs and once that whole
Studio 54 thing got rolling, disco got this snotty air about it.
But a good part of it was also mainstream insecurity. Whenever a
particular race seems to "dominate" a field, some white folks get
crazy. See, it's supposed to be people like them succeeding at
everything, and everyone else should be content with the occasional
token that breaks through. :P
> And please don't tell me they were just representing the REAL Black
> music of Little Richard and Ray Charles cause I ain't buying into that
> one!
Some did have a point that the music was too slick and repititous.
But more often than not those who hated disco weren't exactly
racially eglatarian--g!
C.
**
there were good disco songs. but disco fashion was bad. it was like a
bad flaky parody of the soul funk thing. disco lacked a core,
something soul had. disco was too nightclub-centric, too dance
oriented without being musical in its own right. today, most disco
stuff sounds fluffy. it was, at best, great booty shaking music, but
not much more.
as for the longhaired white kids, i suspect their musical tastes were
even worse. probably AC/DC, foreigner, judas pries, and that shit.
but, it's true that for awhile disco was overhyped and just
everywhere. and it was very very cheesy.
everyone comes and goes; folk rock, psychedelia, punk, disco.
actually, i think disco demolition was immortalized by dahl's antics.
i'll bet punkers were jealous that their music was given such a great
sendoff.
i wouldn't mind having a rap demolition, heavy metal demolition,
grunge demolition, and country demolition. yuck.
>
> Part of it was there was a lot of bad disco towards the end
> there--par for the course with any pop genre. And disco was
> dominating the airwaves to such a degree it seemed like there was no
> other music around. Part of it was money/class issues--you had to
> have money to dress/hang out at disco clubs and once that whole
> Studio 54 thing got rolling, disco got this snotty air about it.
> But a good part of it was also mainstream insecurity. Whenever a
> particular race seems to "dominate" a field, some white folks get
> crazy. See, it's supposed to be people like them succeeding at
> everything, and everyone else should be content with the occasional
> token that breaks through. :P
It had nothing to do with race. Disco was the epitome of superficiality and
shallowness, and the music certainly followed suit. Rock and roll was the
exact opposite: it didn't matter what you looked like or how you dressed.
It's not complicated. Looking back on it now disco wasn't really offensive,
just a novelty act. But at the time it was pretty offensive, as least to
somebody who was weened on rock and roll like myself.
> disco lacked a core,
> something soul had. disco was too nightclub-centric, too dance
> oriented without being musical in its own right. today, most
> disco stuff sounds fluffy. it was, at best, great booty shaking
> music, but not much more.
Which was the whole purpose of disco...
Jim
The anti-disco movement was a whole load of racist ignorance. These
clueless, lame brained AOR geeks thinking they were "saving" rock n'
roll. Thanks, but the new wave was handling *that* job just fine.
> What I remember about the whole Disco Demolition is that a bunch of
> long haired white kids went straight up crazy about some music they
> had very little understanding of.
They had very little understanding of music, period. But what could
you expect from a region of flare wearing, hick teens reared on Styx,
REO, and Foreigner.
> And please don't tell me they were just representing the REAL Black
> music of Little Richard and Ray Charles cause I ain't buying into that
> one!
They knew nothing about real music, black or white.
One comment that summed up 1979 quite accurately came from Trouser
Press, who that December remarked "despite shrill protests from
anti-disco no-nothings, rock was in very good form during 1979."
And for that you can thank the Stranglers, XTC, the Boomtown Rats and
the Clash. And the Bee Gees, Chic, Earth Wind and Fire and Donna
Summers.
Had the protest been a burning of AOR records, it might not have gone
down as such a shamefull blight on history.
TS
>> And please don't tell me they were just representing the REAL Black
>> music of Little Richard and Ray Charles cause I ain't buying into that
>> one!
>
>They knew nothing about real music, black or white.
>
>One comment that summed up 1979 quite accurately came from Trouser
>Press, who that December remarked "despite shrill protests from
>anti-disco no-nothings, rock was in very good form during 1979."
>
>And for that you can thank the Stranglers, XTC, the Boomtown Rats and
>the Clash. And the Bee Gees, Chic, Earth Wind and Fire and Donna
>Summers.
>
>Had the protest been a burning of AOR records, it might not have gone
>down as such a shamefull blight on history.
>
1979 (along with 77 and 86) was one of my all-time favorite years for music.
It was also the year that Ian Hunter performed at a nearbye university, tried
to get the audience into a chance of "Disco sucks! Disco sucks!" and the
audience started chanting "Ian Hunter sucks! Ian Hunter sucks!"
By that time disco had more or less peaked, but the big fear of the white rock
fan was that his favorite band would "go disco". You lived in fear of that.
It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Going disco. One minute Rod
Stweart's music was okay, the next minute he did "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" But
what it ended up meaning was the Stones, rooted in black music anyway, could do
good songs like 'Hot Stuff" and "Miss You" while a band like the Who would
rebel with something as inane as "Sister Disco" (before belatedly jumping the
dance bandwagon with the awful "Eminence Front".)
People who weren't around in the late seventies really need to understand the
absolute hatred most white rock fans had for disco. In retrospect it was
silly, and rooted in racism (I heard the phrase "nigger music" an awful lot)
and homophobia but at the time it was a dominant feeling.
Wha...wha...wha... So fucking what. I thought it was funny as shit.
>
> They had very little understanding of music, period. But what could
> you expect from a region of flare wearing, hick teens reared on Styx,
> REO, and Foreigner.
Understanding of music? What's there to understand? Robotic
cookie-cutter music that faggots and niggers danced to.
Nothin' to understand there.
>
> They knew nothing about real music, black or white.
'Real music' Hah!
>
> One comment that summed up 1979 quite accurately came from Trouser
> Press, who that December remarked "despite shrill protests from
> anti-disco no-nothings, rock was in very good form during 1979."
>
> And for that you can thank the Stranglers, XTC, the Boomtown Rats and
> the Clash. And the Bee Gees, Chic, Earth Wind and Fire and Donna
> Summers.
All of whom sucked.
>
> Had the protest been a burning of AOR records, it might not have gone
> down as such a shamefull blight on history.
We should do it more often. Like rap records, next. Let da 'lil sambos
know whitey means business.
As with so much in life,a person's musical loves often stem from
their personal journeys of the time and what they were experiencing.I
started not liking disco much and was still waiting for a rock group
to come out with an album like Surrealistic Pillow or
Sgt.Pepper.Sadly,it was not to be.Then I started hanging with a
racially mixed group who liked to go to clubs and I started hearing
the music known as disco in a different way.I remember my first real
disco trip-in 1977 after an Esther Phillips show at The City in SF.I
walked into the upstairs disco there and the song Devil's Gun by CC
and Company blasted from the sound system.It was completely
mesmerizing and I was hooked on the disco scene the next three years.
The Lake Tahoe scene was fabulous during those years with this
great disco at Harrahs and the famous Monte Vista Club over at Round
Hill Village.Party,Baby!
Riverman
*snicker* His time might have been better spent improving his own
music.
>
> By that time disco had more or less peaked, but the big fear of the white rock
> fan was that his favorite band would "go disco". You lived in fear of that.
> It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Going disco. One minute Rod
> Stweart's music was okay, the next minute he did "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" But
> what it ended up meaning was the Stones, rooted in black music anyway, could do
> good songs like 'Hot Stuff" and "Miss You" while a band like the Who would
> rebel with something as inane as "Sister Disco" (before belatedly jumping the
> dance bandwagon with the awful "Eminence Front".)
I _knew_ it. The minute some white folks get it in their head their
civilization/preeminence is being threatened by "others," all sorts
of weird crap goes down. Which is why dealing with some of them is a
problem if you are not-white because you never know what might trip
that "threatening my security/way of life" switch.
> People who weren't around in the late seventies really need to understand the
> absolute hatred most white rock fans had for disco. In retrospect it was
> silly, and rooted in racism (I heard the phrase "nigger music" an awful lot)
> and homophobia but at the time it was a dominant feeling.
Yup--folks scared to death "their" music was going to be "taken away
from them."
C.
**
>> People who weren't around in the late seventies really need to understand
>the
>> absolute hatred most white rock fans had for disco. In retrospect it was
>> silly, and rooted in racism (I heard the phrase "nigger music" an awful
>lot)
>> and homophobia but at the time it was a dominant feeling.
>
>Yup--folks scared to death "their" music was going to be "taken away
>from them."
>
>C.
>**
I was a music snob in high school, listening to reggae, Randy Newman, the
Clash, Public Image ltd., and most of my friends were AOR Nugent types or high
school band dweebs listening to Chicago but the one thing we agreed on was that
we didn't like disco. My dislike was rooted mostly in the music. I said at
the time that disco would be alright if they moved the percussion way, way into
the front and made the music more aggressive, which is what happened when
"disco" mutated into "dance music" and it all of a sudden developed crediblity,
when people who'd sneered at disco a few years earlier were listening to New
Order and the Pet Shop Boys.
Disco probably peaked in early 1978 when seven of the top ten songs in the
country (according to Billboard) were either songs from the Saturday Night
Fever soundtrack, songs written by or produced by the Bee Gees, or songs by
Andy Gibb. By 1979 Disco was already on the way out; Donna Summer's Bad Girls
album was the last big Disco album.
Michael O'Connor - Modern Renaissance Man
"The likelihood of one individual being correct increases in a direct
proportion to the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"
James Mason from the movie "Heaven Can Wait".
I think in this era of PC if you tried to hold a rap demolition night (where
rap cds are blown up real good) somebody would claim it was racially motivated
and you would lose your job for racial insensitivity.
I agree. It enabled anyone to be a star on the dance floor. I think that's
one of the things that made it so appealing in 1978-79.
>> From: deer...@mindspring.com
>
>>
>> Yup--folks scared to death "their" music was going to be "taken away
>> from them."
>>
>> C.
>> **
> I was a music snob in high school, listening to reggae, Randy Newman, the
> Clash, Public Image ltd., and most of my friends were AOR Nugent types or high
> school band dweebs listening to Chicago but the one thing we agreed on was
> that
> we didn't like disco. My dislike was rooted mostly in the music. I said at
> the time that disco would be alright if they moved the percussion way, way
> into
> the front and made the music more aggressive, which is what happened when
> "disco" mutated into "dance music" and it all of a sudden developed
> crediblity,
> when people who'd sneered at disco a few years earlier were listening to New
> Order and the Pet Shop Boys.
But Nick you're not getting with the program and making it a "race" issue.
As if you can possibly get more white than the Bee Gees.
had it just stayed in the nightclubs, it would have been fine. but it
was hyped all over all night and day and it got stale.
I think Off the Wall by Michael Jackson was the last huge disco
album.Donna's dropped several months before,as I recall.Check me if
I'm wrong on that one.
Riverman
alot more white folks are respectable to black music than blacks are
to white music. so who's are the closed minded bigots?
disco was cheesy and overhyped. there was no soul demolition because
whether one liked it or not, it was cool.
disco was just so shamelessly tacky and kitschy. it had some really
great dance songs but it tried to be a way of life and as such, it was
embarassing.
--
Reply to mike1@@@usfamily.net sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
Drug smugglers and gun-runners are heroes of American capitalism.
-- Jeffrey Quick
Nick Macpherson wrote:
> >**
> I was a music snob in high school, listening to reggae, Randy Newman, the
> Clash, Public Image ltd., and most of my friends were AOR Nugent types or high
> school band dweebs listening to Chicago but the one thing we agreed on was that
> we didn't like disco. My dislike was rooted mostly in the music. I said at
> the time that disco would be alright if they moved the percussion way, way into
> the front and made the music more aggressive, which is what happened when
> "disco" mutated into "dance music" and it all of a sudden developed crediblity,
> when people who'd sneered at disco a few years earlier were listening to New
> Order and the Pet Shop Boys.
It's a shame a form of music has to change to be "credible." I
didn't like every disco song, but I can take the majority of it much
more than I can deal with ambient dance music (which seems enslaved
to the beat/technosounds way more than disco ever was.)
C.
**
| Part of it was there was a lot of bad disco towards the end
| there--par for the course with any pop genre.
--
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did kids make fun of your name in school? there's so much that can
be done with wong. am i white or wong?
1) A "scene" that was exclusionary & conformist
2) A form of music that "spoke" to me on absolutely no intellectual or
emotional level whatsoever
People who claim racism & homophobia are, IMHO, a bit dishonest
Rev Rockabilly
Avoided Disco, WI
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Exactly. Nicely said.
I once had a guy accuse me of racism when I tried to argue that the best
dance music of the 70s was reggae, not disco. Huh?
Greg
Even if it was based on both of those things, who cares? Big fucking deal.
Yes, I used to like how Johnny Fever reacted to it's mention or playing
on WKRP In Cincinatti. "Droid, syntha-music."
-Rich
RHINO reviewer Paul Grein has pointed out that shouting "Disco sucks"
carries with it some pretty hefty racist and homophobic baggage.
Was lack of money really a problem to get into discos? If Tony Manero
and his pals could afford to get in, anybody could.
Best, DAVE BROOKS
"Richard" <rande...@rogers.com> wrote in message > > >
Part of it was money/class issues--you had to
> > > have money to dress/hang out at disco clubs and once that whole
> > > Studio 54 thing got rolling, disco got this snotty air about it.
<snip>
And??
Does that mean everybody's supposed to 'like it'?
Fuck, I hope not...
Disco sucks!!
That doesn't seem to make any sense. Yes, homophobia is potentially implicit
in the "sucks". But I don't see how racism enters into it. Remember, the
most visible faces of disco were the Village People and the Bee Gees -- not
exactly Black icons.
Greg
Tell that to the people I went to college in Indiana with who called disco
"nigger music." In my own disco era experiences (when I wasn't in my room
listening to Lou Reed and the Clash), the hostility I saw aimed at disco wasn't
because it was elitist (damn, anyone could get into one of our high school
discos) or homophobic (we didn't know any gay people anyway so we were totally
oblivious to any concept of a "gay subculture") but it was sure as hell racist.
I don't know if music can really be "stolen" from one group by another (as
Little Richard, Miles Davis and Ike Turner, to name a few, have
vociferously ranted).
But the first mainstream records I can think of that truly presage Disco to
me were things like "Want Ads" and "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show" by The
Honey Cone, "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" by The Fifth Dimension,
"Pillow Talk" by Sylvia, "Jungle Fever" by Las Chakachas,
"Backstabbers" by The O'Jay's, "Why Can't We Live Together?" by Timmy
Thomas, "Doctor's Orders" by Carol Anderson, and the oft-cited
"Rock Your Baby" by George McCrae. Even Diana Ross's version of "Ain't
No Mountain High Enough" (1969, IIRC) strongly seems to presage Disco
and is still a staple in every black drag-queen's repertoire even today...
(and it is surely *her* version of the song that gay audiences most cherish
today, not the one that actresses lip-synch to in every third Hollywood
movie)
To my way of thinking, the 70's Disco by black artists (Cheryl Lynn,
The Whispers, Chic, Spinners, Donna Summer, Grace Jones, Patti
Labelle, McFadden & Whitehead, Barry White and many others) remains
the "genuine article", and their records, IMHO, have survived
the decades better than the Bee Gees.
DAVE
The lead singer of the Village People was always black.
> I don't know if music can really be "stolen" from one group by another (as
> Little Richard, Miles Davis and Ike Turner, to name a few, have
> vociferously ranted).
Playboy interview, September, 1962: *
PLAYBOY: In your field, music, don't some Negro jazzmen discriminate against
white musicians?
DAVIS : Crow Jim is what they call that. Yeah. It's a lot of the Negro
musicians mad because most of the best-paying jobs go to the white musicians
playing what the Negroes created. But I don't go for this, because I think
prejudice one way is just as bad as the other way. I wouldn't have no other
arranger but Gil Evans -- we couldn't be much closer if he was my brother. And
I remember one time when I hired Lee Konitz, some colored cats bitched a lot
about me hiring an ofay in my band when Negroes didn't have work. I said if a
cat could play like Lee, I would hire him, I didn't give a damn if he was green
and had red breath.
Bob Roman
* thanks Fred
And lack of money wasn't even an obstacle in getting looped: if you just
hung around the disco long enough, you were sure to get offered a free
tipple, toke, toot or tab of something...
(or so I've heard [-; )
...even if you looked like Quasimodo. That's how giddy and generous the
scene was...
DAVE