What Do You Think? Backlash Disco Received and its Ramifications Today

[Brittany]

Hello Everyone!

I am a college student working on a research paper for a Popular Music of the 1970's course and as my topic I am focusing on the backlash disco received in the late 70's and the events preceding the "Disco Sucks" movement, as well as the ramifications it has had on music today.

I would like to show that disco is still very much alive today and and any of your opinions would be greatly appreciated. I am basically wondering what you as fans of disco consider to be the music of your time/what you want to keep alive. As fans of disco, are you opposed to the more mainstream artists such as the Bee Gees or do you relate more with the underground scene? How do you feel it is still influencing popular music today? What events led up to the downfall of disco? (I have found opinions ranging from over-commercialization, fans questioning authenticity, baby boomers outgrew the disco scene, and a conspiracy record companies created because it was too expensive to produce and profits were low).

After doing a fair amount of research online, I am having difficulty finding positive or even neutral opinions towards disco. Most articles surrounding the "Death of Disco" are in favor of ending the genre. Please feel free to share any knowledge you have on the topic. Thanks!

[canadiantire]

Answering these all theses questions can certainly help in writing a book!

Not that I don't have answers to your questions but I suggest as a start to use the "search" tool off the orange bar on top of this page.

Using the appropriate keywords will direct you to very interesting threads covering all your topics.

This forum have been running for many many years. There shouldn't be much subjects that haven't been talked about with Disco life.

Give a try to the search tool and come back for a feedback

- Marcus

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

AARGH!!! Why do the threads that I want to jump on, always show-up when I'm at the office???:icon_evil:

Hey Brittany,
Let me do some fact-checking and research when I'm home, so my post is accurate.

You want "answers"...?
Oooooh, yessss! I've got "answers".

Stephen L.

[JussiK]

Check out/google dj sites like space disco, disco from outer space, www.discoimperium.com and www.discoqueer.com and you'll discover a thriving underground scene. In Europe the more electronic variety of 70's dance music is a scene of it's own among cooler clubbers in their 20's. No Abba, no Bee Gees, none of the the Kool&Gangs kind of stuff etc, only the real deal. And it's proudly being labeled Disco. Don't know about America, though, I believe there people still consider disco dead and buried.

[remicks]

No Abba, no Bee Gees, none of the the Kool&Gangs kind of stuff etc, only the real deal. .

1976 DISCO COMPILATION CONSENSUS TOP 10


01) "WHERE THE HAPPY PEOPLE GO" (LP - All Cuts) + THAT'S WHERE THE HAPPY PEOPLE GO (Single) - The Trammps (Atlantic)
02) YOU SHOULD BE DANCING - Bee Gees (RSO)
03) CHERCHEZ LA FEMME/SOUR & SWEET/I'LL PLAY THE FOOL - Dr. Buzzard's Original 'Savannah' Band (RCA)
04) LOVE HANGOVER - Diana Ross (Motown)
05) YOU + ME = LOVE - Undisputed Truth (Whitfield)
06) "A LOVE TRILOGY" (LP - All Cuts) - Donna Summer (Oasis)
07) MY SWEET SUMMER SUITE - Love Unlimited Orchestra (20th Century)
08) DOWN TO LOVE TOWN - The Originals (Motown)
09) MORE, MORE, MORE - Andrea True Connection (Buddah)
10) TURN THE BEAT AROUND - Vicki Sue Robinson (RCA)

Oh Jussi !
...... Looks like the disco DJs of the day were too busy packing the floors with YOU SHOULD BE DANCING and didn't get the memo that The Bee Gees weren't the "real deal" ! :icon_mrgreen:



*****

and .............. isn't that a perfect Top 10 :icon_cool:

[Salsoul1975]

Back in the late '90s when I used to listen to WKTU (NY) a lot, they were doing mixes all day on Thanksgiving (I think). I distinctly remember hearing the Bee Gees' "You Should Be Dancing" and once it reached the break, they mixed Miss Michael's spoken intro to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" right into it. Let me tell you, hearing the last notes of the Gibb brothers' falsettos during the break and then Jacko's "OOOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!" was art!

[Cdnbob]

Well its been said several times before in many threads on the board that disco didn't die. It just faded from the mainstream consciousness but still thrived in the clubs where it all began. Over the years it morphed into being called dance music instead of disco and it evolved into dozens of sub genres such as dance, trance, rap, funk, boogie, high energy, house, you name it. Anything that has a pounding beat and can be danced to owes a debt to disco from the 1970's. You can even hear retro-sounding tracks made today by popular artists that sound just like they were made in the 70's. Disco did not die and the Bee Gees weren't disco, they were just a group that did disco. They were a very small part of the overall genre.

[remicks]

They ( the Bee Gees ) were a very small part of the overall genre.

But then that is true of each and every disco artist ..... is it not ???

The Bee Gees do have some bragging rights that put them above the pale ..... not the least of which is
having the biggest selling disco project of them all in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER :icon_biggrin: :icon_cool: ...... a prize that all the rest .... and from a great distance .... could only dream of .....

:icon_cool:


*****

[Brittany]

Thank you all so much for your input!

It seems like the Bee Gees and the more commercialized sounds were a major factor that caused the whole "disco sucks" movement. As disco began to receive backlash for this, could those you you that were around and fans in the 70's agree that there was an overproduction of disco music, or in general do you associate with and enjoy all forms of the genre? Obviously the 70's were a little before my time but could it be said that some disco fans were happy disco "died" and went back underground? I mean in many ways it did sell out and it is difficult not to question its authenticity...what do you think?

[remicks]

Thank you all so much for your input!

It seems like the Bee Gees and the more commercialized sounds were a major factor that caused the whole "disco sucks" movement. As disco began to receive backlash for this, could those you you that were around and fans in the 70's agree that there was an overproduction of disco music, or in general do you associate with and enjoy all forms of the genre? Obviously the 70's were a little before my time but could it be said that some disco fans were happy disco "died" and went back underground? I mean in many ways it did sell out and it is difficult not to question its authenticity...what do you think?

Quite frankly , I think you are barking up the wrong tree with this angle Brittany ....if "more commercialized " disco were the problem .... it happened from day one since both ROCK THE BOAT and ROCK YOUR BABY went #1... and then disco continued to nudge its way onto the charts thereafter...until finally at its peak ....it was dominating them !:icon_cool: Well, we are talking about the greatest music of all time here :icon_mrgreen::icon_mrgreen: after all :icon_cool: .... so of course the cream of the crop broke through all the established barriers to reach the masses ....

I think the disco story's psuedo end in 1980 is simply reflective of the American society at large ..... i.e. ... ultimately it was at the mercy of who had the power ... the usual suspects ......i.e. .... white .... straight .... men ....

*****

[STEPHEN L FREEMAN]

Okay... Real quick & without footnotes...

Take into account that the 70's, overall, are considered to be "The Golden Age" of recorded music. Record sales, in all genres, took their greatest leap ever, during that decade.

With respect to "Disco Sucks" movement... It started quite a few years before the Chicago Bon Fire.
Although Disco was just beginning to really breakout of it's subculture status, by early '78 (I don't include '77, cause SNF didn't hit until late in the year), to the emerging underground 'PUNK' scene (real PUNK! not that noisy US middle-class we-hate-our-parents crap), Disco was already seen as the music of a soulless, corporate world.

As for sales... Up until the very late 70's retailers were able to return any unsold stock to the distributor. Who, in turn would ship it back to the Record company, for full credit. This was painfully risky, particularly with Disco, since there were few clear-cut stars, with a predictable sales-base in the public.

By 1978 Disco had become an Ego-Thing for the Record labels. To have the flashy label (compare 20th Century Record's label artwork, pre & post Casablanca, for the most glaring example), packaging, promotion, and having a Top 20 Disco hit etc... Actually, became very important. And VERY costly.

The Record Industry's "Crash of '79" gave the major labels a reason to stoke the fires of the Disco Sucks movement. The Higher-ups saw a way out of hundreds of contracts, without actually doing anything, themselves. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. But the Major Record companies had no problem letting the Backlash take size and shape. And benefitting from it vicariously.

In July of '79 CBS Records has set a deal to buy TK Records. It fell through, quite luckily for CBS, because TK was completely bankrupt within 5 more months.

By the time the Record Companies revised their Return Polcies it was too late. Polygram, the 2nd largest, worldwide Music company, almost declared bankruptcy based on the money it lost on Casablanca Records & Filmworks, alone!. The quote was that "they were hemorrhaging money"

So... Was there a Corporate Conspiracy involved in "The Death of Disco"?
Not really. But the labels most certainly did take advantage of the situation.

[remicks]

*****

Very good points Stephen .

And as you said ...the return policy applied to all types of music not just disco ( which of course as a genre had huge returns by its peak in 1979 ... after all, who in the buying public ...where was the market ... that could afford ALL that product! ....{Not even DJs could} ) But it should be said that before Casablanca's failures by 1979 ... when they signed ev-er-y and any body .......Tony Orlando .....Kenny Nolan ....etc. .......they had huge successes thanks to disco ..... and part of their mistakes included non-disco expenditures like investing tons of money into Kiss ( four individual Kiss member records shipped at once!) and the expensive touring funk franchise of Parliament .....

I would say there was a concerted effort from the very bottom on up to the very top .... retail outlets ....label reps ....label execs ....radio personnel .... to silence disco . There wasn't enough money in it and the natives (white punks on dope) were getting restless .

My evidence of proof is the runaway "success" of MY SHARONA ..... if that isn't the symbol of desperation , I don't know what is .
When even New Wave darlings Blondie started sounding more disco than not ... compounded with disco releases by established acts like Rod Stewart .... The Beach Boys ... the red flags were raised. ....white boys, the important target audience for record sales , were rebelling ....they just weren't going to go for it .....

So in 1979 The Knack with their skinny ties and Beatles-like imagery were ushered to the top of the charts and paraded on the cover of The Rolling Stone as proof that disco was over and their sound ( whatever it was???) was the next big thing in music ...... ......

By the time that proved to be a total farce ....the actual mission was accomplished .... disco had been declared "dead" and despite the continued success of so many disco songs thereafter ... lets just name FUNKYTOWN and GLORIA as two examples .... ....no one in control wanted to suggest it had been buried a little too prematurely ...


*****

[JussiK]

...... Looks like the disco DJs of the day were too busy packing the floors with YOU SHOULD BE DANCING and didn't get the memo that The Bee Gees weren't the "real deal" ! :icon_mrgreen:

and .............. isn't that a perfect Top 10 :icon_cool:

Well, that was then and this is now. The polyester nightmares Bee Gees and John Travolta unleashed upon the world a year later made "You Should Be Dancing" unspinnable ever after. There are no worse ways of commiting suicide than throwing anything by the Bee Gees on the turntables in 2009, in a club hosting a disco/cosmic/boogie event. That would be the end of you as a dj - unless you're doing a stag/hen party or the gay club circuit of the handbag variety. Would you respect yourself in the morning after Girls Aloud, Abba, Madonna, Weather Girls, Take That, Gloria Gaynor, Barry White and Katie Perry's I Kissed a Girl? Might as well become a karaoke hostess.

But that Top 10 sure is perfect with the exception of that certain song - and even that DID work in it's day before the fabrics got too shiny. Still, play the top 10 of summer 1977 and you're beyond perfect :-)

[remicks]

Well, that was then and this is now. The polyester nightmares Bee Gees and John Travolta unleashed upon the world a year later made "You Should Be Dancing" unspinnable ever after. There are no worse ways of commiting suicide than throwing anything by the Bee Gees on the turntables in 2009, in a club hosting a disco/cosmic/boogie event. That would be the end of you as a dj - unless you're doing a stag/hen party or the gay club circuit of the handbag variety.

:icon_lol: :icon_lol: :icon_lol:.........

There are no worse ways of committing suicide than throwing anything by the Bee Gees on the turntables in 2009, in a club hosting a disco/cosmic/boogie event.

Oh my God Jus ... that challenge alone should make you want to work in YSBD even ten times as much !!! :icon_mrgreen: In fact , I dare you !!! :icon_mrgreen:

Would you respect yourself in the morning after Girls Aloud (:icon_question:), Abba, Madonna, Weather Girls, Take That (:icon_question:), Gloria Gaynor, Barry White and Katie Perry's I Kissed a Girl(:icon_question:) ? Might as well become a karaoke hostess.

But that Top 10 sure is perfect with the exception of that certain song - and even that DID work in it's day before the fabrics got too shiny. Still, play the top 10 of summer 1977 and you're beyond perfect :-)

My objection is this .. as soon as we start selectively redefining the "real deal" of disco so as to not include some of the greatest/funnest/ crowd pleasing-est tunes of those days ...& YSBD was the #2 song for the entire year for crying out loud !!! ...... disregarding those songs , then calling what we are spinning , the "real deal" ..... well..... just isn't accurate .... :icon_confused:

But that doesn't obligate anyone to play any of them of course and I can certainly see how certain songs wouldn't suit your repertoire aimed at creating that desired ambiance ....that's a different issue....

Still ......no Barry White?? :icon_exclaim: ........ No Gloria Gaynor??? :icon_exclaim: .... Never? ............................Really....??? .................:icon_cry:



*****

[paul]

Quite frankly , I think you are barking up the wrong tree with this angle Brittany ....if "more commercialized " disco were the problem .... it happened from day one since both ROCK THE BOAT and ROCK YOUR BABY went #1... and then disco continued to nudge its way onto the charts thereafter...until finally at its peak ....it was dominating them !:icon_cool: Well, we are talking about the greatest music of all time here :icon_mrgreen::icon_mrgreen: after all :icon_cool: .... so of course the cream of the crop broke through all the established barriers to reach the masses ....

I think the disco story's psuedo end in 1980 is simply reflective of the American society at large ..... i.e. ... ultimately it was at the mercy of who had the power ... the usual suspects ......i.e. .... white .... straight .... men ....

*****

Ditto, and more. Brittany, if you experienced it the way I did you never ever wanted it to end. Overproduced, loss of authenticity...no hun. It was magical. If you can rent this, there is a moment (well, one of several) in the movie "54" i absolutely love. It happens when Shane, the main character, first enters Studio 54. He did the stereotype white boy 2 left feet thing in the club at first. Uncool! Then he allowed himself to immerse himself in the music and it was as if he experiencing an epiphany. He caught the groove and the rest was well, magical.

There was as you know, a lot of hatred of disco. It was homophobic, racist and sexist. As much as I like "Airplane", theres that scene in the movie where the radio tower for a disco station was knocked down by the airplane. It always bugged the crap outta me and that is why I still refuse to buy that DVD. Well that and I thought Robert Hays' character was the movie's weakest link!

[sfbeary]

Well, that was then and this is now. The polyester nightmares Bee Gees and John Travolta unleashed upon the world a year later made "You Should Be Dancing" unspinnable ever after. There are no worse ways of commiting suicide than throwing anything by the Bee Gees on the turntables in 2009, in a club hosting a disco/cosmic/boogie event.

This past summer I was in NYC and checked out Super Disco Version, the party thrown by the LCD Soundsystem guys who have hipness credibility through the roof. Morgan Geist of Metro Area filled in for James Murphy and slice after slice of delicious underground disco filled the air — Voyage "I Love You Dancer," Cappuccino "Hell Dance With Me," etc.

But what was the peak anthem of the night? A largely instrumental re-edit of "You Should Be Dancing." The crowd went bonkers . . . and as soon as it was over marched en masse right out the door and left about five of us to twirl across an otherwise empty floor to "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This," "Sinner Man," and other delectables.

[JussiK]

Going bonkers during the Bee Gees and not during Cappuccino, or "I Love You Dancer" by Voyage? That tells you a lot about that crowd. Les Dilettantes. Those Five centered around "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This", they were The Truly Disco in that house. Those djs seem interesting also, I wonder if they travel.

[Cdnbob]

For me disco never died. It just evolved. We were still getting "traditional" disco in the early 80's and I didn't really start to notice a change till around 82 or 83 when the beat started to become funkier and faster with Hi-NRG acts like Earlene Bentley, Miquel Brown, et al started to creep in on the DJ's playlists. The HINRG style continued for awhile until around 88 or so when the music began to fade back to a sort of disco style that became house with groups like Inner City, London Beat and Ten City started to be played. And in the early 90's it was a mix of these styles with the music of artists like Jody Watley. But by the mid-90's my club going days were gradually fading away. I can't attest to what's played in clubs today - don't go any more - but I find quite a few dance performers of today doing music in that classic 70's disco style. Just look at releases by people like Moby (Disco Lies), Jamiroquai (all his music), S Club, Steps (Chain Reaction, Tragedy) and numerous others. People may call it dance music now, but at its deepest core, all this music is still disco. That's my 2 cents worth.