The Day of the DotBomb

[markydefad]

Well, I thought Zeca was the Energizer Bunny, but now DotBomb has arrived!!!!

19, female, & from San Francisco (where I lived & danced to "not-disco" music at "not-disco" clubs and read the "not-disco" charts in Billboard prior to DISCO being invented and imported from Europe), I guess, if I've read everything correctly. Hmmmm??? :roll:

Hey, it's Revisionist History to those of us who were alive and dancing at the time, BUT it's a lively debate coming from someone so young and actually interested in music of the past. That's most encouraging.

I have to agree that a lot of Eurodisco is "soulless". That's what I've been complaining about for years; YOU see that as a plus. Well lotsa folks seem to. However, Moroder's vocalists usually had soulful voices and I saw you were listening to Space in another post: "Carry On, Turn Me On". How can you possibly say their vocalists lacked soul: ("Save Your Love For Me", "My Love Is Music") Midney's definitley DID. A fact I complain about and make fun of constantly. Cooing, chanting, white chicks bore me. BUT others, including yourself, love it.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

Your opinions and love of the music are valued here, however much we may disagree with some of your "theories". So keep on challenging us.

[zeca azevedo]

Hey MARKY,

I'm changing my batteries today, so HOLD ON, I'M COMING (LOL).

Peace (paz)

zeca azevedo

[DotBomb]

Forgive me, but I don't know about this Energizer Bunny reference you made here...

I have a day off today, hence why I am so active on the boards right now...

According to what I'm saying, that's right. You danced to non-disco music at non-disco clubs and read the non-disco billboard charts! You got it right on... The name may be one thing... it's like the name of disco being slandered to our generation, evoking thoughts of idiots in white suits, the Bee Gees, and the Villiage People. Such is not true, as anybody who has spent any time researching it has found out quickly. There is so much more to it then that. The point is, the word disco means what I just said to my generation. Like the meaning of disco has changed because society has... is it not possible that the meaning of disco changed? The music became something entirely different after the europeans came onto the scene. Therefore, while back in the day, it may have been CALLED disco....

As for my comment on soul and whatnot... I am not talking about vocalists at all when I talk about Soul. I am talking about the music itself having any resemblence to the pre-european disco Motown... and Space doesn't.

As for the challenges? Absolutely- it's not gonna stop... you can count on that

[DotBomb]

As for the REAL day of the dot bomb... the day after NASDAQ hit 5,000. That's the day the DotComs became the Dot Bombs

[Funky Dude]

DotBomb wrote:
The name may be one thing... it's like the name of disco being slandered to our generation, evoking thoughts of idiots in white suits, the Bee Gees, and the Villiage People. Such is not true, as anybody who has spent any time researching it has found out quickly.

That's certainly true, especially in Australia. When it comes to disco over here, we are swamped by the most typical of typical disco songs like:
Stayin' Alive
That's The Way I Like It
YMCA
I Will Survive
And when the word disco used LOTS of people over here think of Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta who in reality had little to do with disco but he did do a disco recording in 1979 called "A Girl Like You" as you'll see in Bernie's A-Z vaults. To be quite honest I've never watched Saturday Night Fever although I do have the soundtrack LP which indeed has some really good songs like "K-Jee" by MFSB, "Calypso Breakdown" by Ralph McDonald, "Open Sesame" by Kool & The Gang etc...

And yes when I was just discovering disco when I was 13/14 I only knew the pop disco songs and thought of it as Saturday Night Fever but when I started collecting records at the age of 16 in the fall of 1997, I discovered there was far more to disco than the pop stuff played on Aussie retro radio. The first disco related LP I bought was Sylvers 1976 LP "Something Special" which was a combination of disco, funk, soul and slow love ballads. And some of my favourites of that album are "Hotline", "Disco Showdown", "Shake 'em Up" and the super-funky "Mista Guitar Man". Then when I got the Mastercuts "Classic Funk Volume 2" CD in early 1998 and listened to "Movin'" by the Brass Construction, I thought "Whoaaaah this kicks arse", it certainly does and it kicks Bee Gees and Village People by far. From there on I really went looking for the not so common funk/disco music and bought records from car-boot sales and charity shops and on rare occasions groove shops. And eversince last year I've been constantly downloading MP3's and discovering some of the rarest disco and funk on the planet.

From what I've learnt about Australia in the 70's around 1975/76 we were SWAMPED by ABBA fever and all the teeny boppers constantly requested ABBA ABBA ABBA ABBA ABBA ABBA ABBA ABBA!!!!! They flogged ABBA to death, so perhaps that's one reason we didn't get so much non-mainstream disco although a lot of rare disco and funk LPs have circulated around Australia but just didn't chart. For example "Machine Gun" by the Commodores, it charted at 22 on the US pop charts, 20 on the UK pop charts but only at 95 on the Australian pop charts. Another reason we mainly had the pop stuff is because we had a shitty Liberal Prime Minister who didn't give a rats arse about modern music and our country is pretty far away from USA so a lot of importing was needed to get a lot of the rare grooves. England got a lot of rare grooves from USA and many disco/funk/soul groups from USA and Europe went on Top Of The Pops, this I guess is because England is more closer to USA and Europe than Australia is. Australia's pop show "Countdown" only got disco/funk/soul groups on rare occasions and I've heard the Temptations did do Countdown around September 1975.

I'm getting off the beatin' track here, basically a lot of Aussies mainly know the pop stuff and when I mention disco they sing "stayin' Alive" or "Disco Duck" and when I mention funk they sing "Play That Funky Music". But there are quite a few disco enthusiasts scattered around Australia like myself who want to broaden their horizans and look for the more underground stuff.

[Move2This]

From my perspective the Euro sound became *the* predominant sound of disco from about 1977. Others may have different memories because of where they lived, the clubs they went to, their lifestyle etc, but this was my memory.

We cannot say there is no debate about what disco is and what it was based on. You have only to travel around the world to realise that every country has its own perspective on this subject. The perspective so commonly expressed on these boards that disco was a development of US soul and R&B is simply the US perspective and, as DotBomb has demonstrated recently, even some Americans believe otherwise.

My experience was that the Euro sound of Cerrone, Costandinos etc and their imitators was considered the cutting edge of disco. If we analyse this sound there seems little evidence of a link to US soul and R&B. When I hear this sound I hear 60s/early 70s easy listening instrumentals (latterly known as loungecore) speeded up with some electronic effects and vocals added.

I also remember many soul artists of the time proudly proclaiming that they had "never sold out" to disco. Such a statement would seem to imply that they believe disco had become something quite divorced from the kind of music they wanted to make. They were right.

As the 80s moved on, the Euro sound continued, but HiNRG also became a dominating force. When I hear early 80s HiNRG I hear Euro with punk influences.

Now for every soul singer who *didn't* "sell out" to disco, there was probably at least another one who did, but this does not usually change the nature of the music. Take "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. Donna is a great singer, for sure, but the nature of the vocals on this track were such that probably *any* competent singer could have produced a similar effect. Fast forward to the late 80s and we have both Donna Summer and Kylie Minogue recording (commercialised) HiNRG tracks for the Stock Aitken Waterman production team. The style of the music, not the vocals, is what hits you (and that was the intention), in fact if you didn't happen to know that one track was Donna, another was Kylie, it would be hard to tell the difference.

I welcome DotBomb's eruption onto these boards! For the most part I happen to think her analysis is spot on, and backed up with lots of good examples and research.

[Blaxman]

On 2002-06-13 06:48, Move2This wrote:

....I also remember many soul artists of the time proudly proclaiming that they had "never sold out" to disco.....

Who "many" soul artists said that????

Move2This, and....how about the towsends of soul artist who made disco? What is seems to you? To me seems one thing: disco is full of soul and yes, later with eurodisco became a little soulless (no doubt about it) but, it do not mean that "the genuine" disco is european!!!

Marky, you said everything! I love that "not-disco" thing!! :lol:



_________________
SENHORES DO GROOVE - BRAZIL


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Blaxman on 2002-06-13 08:43 ]</font>

[Blaxman]

Will Bernie change this site to "not-discomusic.com" ???? :lol:

P.S. I think that "disco" word had been copyrighted........by some european guys.

[zeca azevedo]

On 2002-06-12 16:58, DotBomb wrote:
... it's like the name of disco being slandered to our generation, evoking thoughts of idiots in white suits, the Bee Gees, and the Villiage People... The point is, the word disco means what I just said to my generation. Like the meaning of disco has changed because society has... is it not possible that the meaning of disco changed? The music became something entirely different after the europeans came onto the scene. Therefore, while back in the day, it may have been CALLED disco....

What? WHAT?
"Back in the day it MAY HAVE BEEN CALLED DISCO?" What the hell you're saying? You're trying to put new names in old things? Why don't you find a new name for the music of "your" generation? Come on!

Ahhh, the sweet bird of youth... Young guys and gals, "doing things I used to do, they think are new"... Wow...

Well, young people always think that THEY invented the wheel...

BTW, while you do your research, me and some folks on this FORUM lived the whole thing IN THE 70's, ok? We danced, we loved, we f@@@ed hearing all the DISCO songs you're talking about.

You do some research. OK. Since then? I can talk about my experience or my "research" as you wish: I'm listening to POP music and reading about POP music since I was 11 years old - back in 1973!!! That's enough for you?

Now you can go back to your research.

Peace to the young and old,
zeca azevedo

P.S.: At least I own you an appology, since I said on other post that you're a guy. I'm sorry, now I know that you're a girl.

[Move2This]

Blaxman - you asked which soul singers said they would never "sell out" to disco. Well, I can name two specifically - Ann Peebles and Betty Wright - both well-respected soul singers of the 70s. There were more - it's just that after all this time I don't recall their names, but I do remember that many soul singers of the late 70s wanted nothing to do with what they thought disco had become.

Could this be that they rightly saw that the direction of disco after about 1977 was moving completely away from US soul influence? Yes, I think it could. Let's face it, if these well respected soul singers felt disco was a natural progression of their music, they would have been only too happy to embrace the new style, but they took a stand and said no. We need to think about why they did this.

Oh and just for the record - I'm 43. Old enough to remember!

[Blaxman]

Dear Move2This,

you dont care about the other towsends of soul singers who did disco after 77? :???: What they think it's not important??
If they did disco they certainly like the way that disco was going, you know what I mean?

I love those singers you mentioned and I think they had their own reasons to think that way. But I can't make my point based on a few soul singers.

I agree with you, after 77 disco becomes....whiter but not completely white, whitout any trace of black music, no way.


Peace.

P.S. Sorry about my poor english.



_________________
SENHORES DO GROOVE - BRAZIL


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Blaxman on 2002-06-14 07:38 ]</font>