DISCO RADIO BACK IN THE DAY

[QUINNY]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, so apologies if it has.

Thinking more about the recent 'backlash' discussion, I thought that another reason why Disco had a backlash, was possibly because it was adopted on such a wholesale scale, by most of the media in America. The impression was, that you could hardly get away from it at one point. Such blanket coverage was bound to cheese some people off.

In the UK, Disco was never that prevalent and we certainly didn't have any legal 24 hour Disco radio. What we had were the odd show on local radio stations such as BBC Radio London and Capital Radio. I doubt if there was an awful lot outside of London, if any. Disco was a relatively underground/fringe movement except for maybe a year after SNF (when the dancing fools were a sight to behold).

So, any recollections of Disco radio stations, the jocks, the material played, the quality of the broadcasting etc, etc.? Were they all just local, or did a few nationals climb aboard the Disco/Soul/Funk trains?

[discosavvy]

Quinny has a good point - disco was "everywhere" on the radio dial and in society, and some rock stations turned to a disco format, alienating their former listener base. This angered some people especially in the midwest. I got a taste of what this felt like when the Dancin' Oldies station in Hartford suddenly switched to unsung rap crap without any warning about two years ago, and also in the late 1980s when our local pop station turned ugly and phased out all '70s music. FM radio bandwidth is too restrictive anyway compared to other technologies, so the number of choices in a particular region can be limited.

I'm personally getting a little tired of hearing all the techno-backed ads on American TV. I'd rather hear some real drumming instead of loud machine beats, and they need some other real instruments, too. The disco-backed TV ads and theme songs of 1979-1980 were at least fun to listen to.

[paul]

Hey Quinny. I think your point has some merit in the minds of many rock fans. I have a slightly different take though (surprise, surprise :D ). Many of the stations now and then were rock. For example I would bet that for every one R&B station on FM, there were/are at least 2 rock. My point is that disco stations probably came close to or equalled the number of rock sations on the dial. I think people are so used to rock radio being the dominant format, they(the disco haters) get a little bent if another style gets similar play in the media.

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Well from what i know of the radio disco, that was all stuff that i call mainstream. I mean from what i know, there was never any true disco played on the radio. it was all Bee Gees, I Will Survive, Funkytown, Ring My Bell,etc.. you get the point. Now I beleve if some of the real stuff was played there wouldnt have been such a backlash cause i mean, honestly, some of the real stuff has a new wave rock feel to it and i have played some for some people who absolutly hated disco with a passion and was for that whole disco sucks thing and they couldnt beleve what i was playing them was the real disco like some of Alec R Costandinos' stuff, Jumbo, Cerrone, Giorgio Moroder, Amanda Lear, etc..

Dj Jimmy M

[Discomanic]

I have to agree with DJ Jimmy. When the stations starting playing The Bee Gees, Gloria Gaynor, etc. (you get the drift) over, over, over, over, and over again it's no wonder folks got fed up. I don't think they were really fed up of Disco, just fed up with listening to the same Top 40 stuff over and over again. That's why I usually just listen to the stuff that didn't make it to radio which is a hell of a lot better than the mainstream stuff. Just my thoughts.