A Defining Moment?

[originalbigm]

I came across this statement on another disco site and found it rather interesting as the author purports it to be a defining moment in the decline of disco.Agree or disagree?

The closing of the Studio 54 nightclub in New York City on February 4, 1980 was a major cause of the decline of disco in the early 1980s. Another was the music industry's new insistence that new wave, rap, and country were the happening kinds of music.

[Forrrce]

Maybe that observation is flawed. Studio 54 was just a club, right? And hardly underground (more of a poseurs' paradise - it seems as if the music took a poor second to being there) - if all I've read and heard about it is true, then this doesn't make sense. How can one club be (even partly) responsible for an international music's demise?

[Bernie]

Studio 54's closing was a result of the public's shrinking appetite for Disco music. Not the other way around. Besides, Studio 54 reopened soon after that.

[efunk_adelic]

I feel the demise was a combination of a lot of things... As it reached its peak in 1979... Only the hardcore regulars stayed going to the clubs. Now if you are an average club goer... the party has to stop sometime? Don't Ya Think... ?Most of my friends, at least 50% of my friends who went to clubs, eventually grew out of it. Combination of job & kids. The same trend is happening today... Some people only go to clubs for 2 years straight.. Then they are DONE!

[NickNack]

Totally disagree. It was a club, just a big, over-priced, "look-at-me-I'm-here", "don't-you-wish-you-were-me", club. When it closed, it didn't cause the decline of anything, especially Disco.

[Outsider]

I disagree as well. Studio 54 may have been well-known, but it didn't control the entire disco genre. It was just one club among thousands. It was just one club among many in New York. The only thing that I think caused the demise of disco was declining interest in the genre.

An earlier discussion on the demise of disco can be found on this thread.

:evil:

[Forrrce]

Whilst browsing some particularly obscure (ultimately el crappo) 12"s in a shop today, I came across a promo on Panorama called 'Disco's Dead' (can't remember the artist). Not only was it a rock track, it was bloody awful. A deafening moment. :roll:

[discosavvy]

Studio 54 closed mainly because its owners were convicted of tax evasion (and Steve almost got a drug charge, too). Let me clarify what I wrote. First of all, I did not mean to imply that Studio 54 was THE major cause of disco's decline, I said A cause. I also mentioned the record industry itself as a culprit. I also meant the USA specifically, and by its close ties Canada -- not Britain, Italy, France, India, or any other country. The essay is still a work in progress with snippets of cultural and commercial information from that year. Just as I have done elsewhere, I will add to that paragraph some other reasons, such as: radio DJs' attitudes, Steve Dahl and his copycats, MTV, AIDS, rock acts like Rod Stewart and KISS making disco, the hype surrounding "My Sharona" by the Knack, the Ethel Merman Disco Album and the Disco Hokey Pokey and other sorry remakes, "Can't Stop the Music", the turn in the decade, etc. - maybe even "Roller Boogie", "Xanadu", and "Ring My Bell" played roles since they also became the object of much derision. (Someone even claimed that Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" was the "final nail in disco's coffin" but I don't understand that one.) I did not imply at all that the nightlife culture or the music stopped with Studio 54. But there is a big difference between the Studio 54 of February 1980 and that of 1981, in terms of how the public perceived the disco phenomenon. Celebrities like Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, and Frankie Valli were patrons of Studio 54 till the 1980 shutdown but didn't return in 1981. So it was perceived by many that it was no longer the hot thing. The other, more experimental clubs like Paradise Garage had more diverse (and less "mainstream") playlists and were not as identified with disco music as Studio 54 - and were not actively defending or promoting disco either. Jussi Kantonen and Alan Jones write in their book "Saturday Night Forever", 1999 edition, page 209: "Then Studio 54 closed down. And along with the unofficial disco headquarters that symbolised everything excessive and fabulous about the era, the general public's interest quickly waned too." The Disco News newsletter in early 1980 also stated: "Many music trade publications dropped or modified their disco and dance music coverage. The popular press left disco alone to cover more important world and national affairs." I think Studio 54's closure was pivotal in the transformation of "Disco Sucks" into "Disco is Dead". At the start of 1980 there were still American teen magazines and books suggesting to readers how to dress up for the big "disco" party or club, how to duplicate the 54 scene, mentioning all the hot "disco" musical acts, and so on. By February 1980, even Billboard Int'l Disco Forum attendees were claiming "disco is dead", and a month later "Funkytown" was declared the "last" monster disco release (and it hit the top by May); some radio stations in the USA and Quebec declared a day of "disco is dead", the hostile songs changed their messages from "Disco Sucks" to "Disco is Dead", the number of disco books and products had a huge dropoff, and suddenly disco was no longer seen as a contemporary adult genre, even if it remained a little longer in rollerdiscos and children's cherished record collections. Killing disco was always the goal, but after "Funkytown" people thought it had become reality. People started denying that new songs on the radio were really disco. As of late-December 1979, according to Rolling Stone Magazine's back ads, the slogan was still "Disco Sucks". The nightclub scene in midtown NYC and Toronto soon transitioned to rock clubs, and DJs and promoters like Marty Angelo noted that instead of disco they were being handed material like "Call Me" by Blondie and new wave records from Britain. The disco stuff of the 1980s was mostly coming from overseas record labels and producers - Italy, Britain, and so on. Only a few American bands stayed with disco in the early 1980s, among them most notably Kool and the Gang, the Commodores, and Earth, Wind and Fire. My understanding is that the film "Can't Stop the Music" was filmed around January-February 1980 based on the repeated insistences that "it's the '80s" and this is the "hot new sound of the '80s", but that was also the same time as the execs decided to take "Discoland" out of the film title, which was released a few months later. When the word became first overused, then something perceived as hated (peer pressure and fear of being seen as gay or on the anti-rock side), then finally considered as a has-been term for a dead culture, that was the end in the public's mind, even though it was not really the end. And that happened most widely AT THE START OF 1980 when people wanted to discard what they saw as bad things from the 1970s. As 1980 went on, disco became a "joke" from the "past", as with the "Mad [Magazine] Disco" parodies and the segment in the film "Airplane!" where the broadcasting tower of the last disco station was knocked off the air by an airplane.

The above does not in any defend the claims that disco died on July 12, 1979, December 31, 1979, February 4, 1980, or February 28, 1980, or even any other date during 1980. I can't find one exact date, even though February and March 1980 were key in several ways. I am simply recording what people thought at the time. I didn't say Studio 54 controlled the disco world, or that it was the best club, I rather showed how its closure made rock fans (and the folks they influenced, like their girlfriends, family, and friends) and the mass media think they had won the debate against disco.

As for "Disco's Dead" from Panorama Records, that was by the Critics, and is indeed stupid--It has a nasty parody of Meco's discofication of the Wizard of Oz with the lyrics "ding dong ding dong wicked disco's dead", with the most banal singing and musicianship. BTW a Los Angeles punk band called Bags - with Alice Bag & Pat Bag, two guitarists, and a drummer - recorded a "Disco's Dead" song in 1979, only as a demo in a studio but not released before 2003. OK, so the phrase was said before 1980, but with Donna Summer making hits as late as November 1979 and January 1980 who believed it then?

[originalbigm]

The closing of the Studio 54 nightclub in New York City on February 4, 1980 was a major cause of the decline of disco in the early 1980s.

Discosavvy,
I certainly agree with your dissertation and thank you for clarifying your statement. Certainly based on your observations I would support the statement that the closing of Studio 54 was a defining moment in the decline of disco rather than a cause.

[Outsider]

It sounds like the closing of Studio 54 had nothing to do with declining interest in disco. The owners should have just paid their taxes. But I'm guessing that when that place closed, there were lots of other discos that stayed open. Studio 54 may have had a lot of publicity, but it wasn't the only disco in town. If all discos had closed at that time, then you could say it caused the demise of disco. But one club alone couldn't do it. I don't even think that the infamous disco record-burning rally at Comiskey Park caused it. And definitely not "My Sharona". You can probably figure out what I will say next.

:evil:

[Keith RS]

I would agree that there were many defining moments during that time period.

In Philadelphia, by the end of the summer of 1980 one could sense the demise. WCAU-FM 98.1 was a hot disco station for three years. Bob Pantano was the station's best DJ. One night during that summer, I turned on my stereo and was horrified to find that, literally overnight, the station changed to a easy listening, soft pop jazz station.

Clubs like Ripley's(now Tower Records 6th & South), The Library, Valentino's, La Dolce Vita, London Victory, The Chez(Atlantic City) were still going strong in the summer of 1980, but you could sense a change in the crowds and the music. Within a year or so, these places changed names and venues.

I never made it to Studio 54, but its demise does seem to conicide with the fall of everything else from that era.

[peppertree5706]

Here is my experience with the decline of disco as THE Music of the age.
I was a radio disc jockey on WKDU, a college station in Philadelphia. My parents were in Miami Beach, so I was there on vacations, and I spent many weekends and holidays in my hometown, Brooklyn, NY.

I saw disco dominating the charts and flying high during the summer. I noticed a slight change during the weeks that My Sharona was #1. Disco songs were number one for most of the weeks in the last six months. Sad Eyes by Robert John was one of the very few exceptions.

By autumn I noticed more non-disco songs on the chart and the top 10 was no longer dominated by disco. By November of 1979, I saw pronounced changes in what was high on the charts. I also saw other changes in the taste of friends and other people. Disco was losing its position of prominence.

By December, I heard a new song by the Village People called, "Ready For the Eighties." I thought (in November) that disco will not make it to the eighties.

Studio 54 closed and my favorite in Hallendale, Florida, The Limelight burned down (and boy was I suspicious of that fire, it could not have been better timed for the owners).

When I left for South Florida in December, I was resigned to the fact that disco was on the way out and New Wave or New Music (eg.Flock of Seagulls) was in. I drove through Georgia on I-95 and could not hear any disco. I remember hearing "Driver C" and thinking that disco was not around long enough. I was saddened. I wanted to hear more and to hear new disco songs.

When I returned to my dorm room in Philadelphia, I turned on WCAU-FM disco 98 and heard a new format called CHR. The jock was on named Terry "Motormouth" Young. He was good, and I liked the jingles, but they did not play any more disco. WCAU-FM had become an eighties version of Top 40. After about an hour and a half of packing with CAU-FM on, I started to hear the same songs again that were played when I first got in. Disco was off the air, and I was not surprised.

In summary, the evolution started in the summer with My Sharona, and was nearly complete by the begining of winter.

Some echos of disco were heard.

Second Time Around-SOS Band
Funky Town (and) I Feel For You

and I really liked Borderline by Madonna, which has a true disco (top 40) sound, but disco by January, 1980 may have had new life left in places such as Italy, but here, it was replaced by other (inferior) types of music.

[Keith RS]

Peppertree,

You'll be happy to know that WKDU-FM is still around and it is in stereo now. You're right about WCAU-FM, the soft jazz was short lived, then it turned into top 40. The station is now WOGL-FM and it is an oldies station that plays some disco hits from the 70's, but no hardcore, rare stuff.

[peppertree5706]

I have gone to the WKDU website a while back. I last visited them about seven years ago and ran into someone who had a show while I was there. (Mark Grossman-Sound of Jerusalem). I had a 6-10AM show for around five years on Saturday morning and I played oldies.

I had a disco show for about a half year here in Austin, on KOOP (koop.org). I can trade unscoped airchecks of my show on KOOP.

[Outsider]

But there were still some disco chart-toppers in the early 80s, such as:

"Rock With You" - Michael Jackson
"Funkytown" - Lipps, Inc.
"Upside Down" - Diana Ross
"Another One Bites The Dust" - Queen
"Celebration" - Kool and the Gang

Some people may also include the Blondie song "Rapture".

And don't forget "Please Don't Go" by KC and the Sunshine Band. While it's a slow song, it's from one of disco's biggest names.

The thing with "Another One Bites The Dust": Not only was it a disco song, it was recorded by a rock band. Since some people think that disco died when 1980 began, that song should have been considered an insult. Instead, it was a hit.

I don't think there was a defining moment in the demise of disco. I just think that people's tastes simply changed after a while. And from a first-hand experience, I noticed that the end of disco (at least as a commercial force) was in 1981.

:evil: