"When Disco Ruled The World" tv show, thumbs up or down?

[JussiK]

This year’s hour long Disco Documentary aired last Wednesday on the British BBC 1 - anyone saw that? Okay or not? Here's what I thought. There sure wasn't that much on offer besides the expected Gloria Gaynor interview, clips of Donna Summer doing her robot hand moves to ”I Feel Love”, Earth, Wind and Fire members and other iconic personalities talking about their beginnings. Anything about the true geniuses behind the music who steered the sound towards global recognition and pioneered what is known as house trance electro rap jazz avant garde etc dance music today? Any mentions of Cerrone, Costandinos, Midney, Adams? Any fabulous euro queens on parade? Any displays of turntable trickery from deejays? No such luck. Once again, Nile Rogers told the story behind ”Le Freak”, KC discussed his hits and Sister Sledge performed ”We Are Family”. We got to see the 1979 Disco Dance Championship winner doing his stuff, the usual scenes out of the Travolta film, crowds pushing outside Studio 54 and other bits of footage familiar from all the other docs. This time the usual naff commentary from Brit celebs and subcelebs etc. was worse than before, though. ”We never expected The Village People to be gay, it was such a shock to find that out a decade later”, ”We all wore afros and flares”, etc.



On the plus side they had Tom Moulton expressing a couple of views, Andrea True as she appars today - oh dear...-, Donna doing Love To Love You Baby and most amazingly, Giorgio Moroder not slagging disco off this time. My good pal Alan Jones was seen being his outspoken self but to my horror he actually admitted to having a brilliant time at Studio 54 – what! They also presented the Andreotti guy who wrote the Hot Stuff book, but like Alan's, his views were seemingly edited to the very basic. Oh well, maybe next year…

[NickNack]

Jussi,



Do you know if these viewings, bad as they may be, ever make it across 'the pond'?

[Mixmachine]

yes, I'd like to see the show too, especially Donna's "I feel Love" clip, I don't remember ever watching her do this song.

[delboy]

I saw this programme and I thought it was disappointing.



Basically I agree with everything Jussi says,apart from the Andrea True/Tom Moulton and Gloria Gaynor interviews,I've seen everything else in previous shows on disco,like Channel 4's "Top Ten Disco" program for instance.



There was hardly anything new in this show,which mainly focused on the usual SNF/Village People/Chic/Donna Summer "commercial" disco.



We rarely see disco on the TV these so I enjoyed watching it but it gets a thumbs down due to not delving deep enough into the disco scene.

[JussiK]

On 2002-03-16 11:53, NickNack wrote:

Jussi,



Do you know if these viewings, bad as they may be, ever make it across 'the pond'?

Cable maybe - regular American network programming, no way. Tom Moulton used the F word, there was a clip of Andrea True ready for action with a guy sporting mighty sideburns, plus abundant references to hard drugs, no holds barred sex etc. (Had they interviewed yours truly it would have been even more decadent - did I ever tell you people about the time I did these live on air radio shows for American radio stations last year? I had to get up in the middle of the night and was in no mood for beating around the bush. I was later told one should not use language like that on the air over there and apparently I was somewhat disrespectful towards your ..ahem...perhaps I better say not what looking Mr President, too.)

[SandraDee]

The clip of I Feel Love was a clip of Donna live in concert with the recorded version played over the top as she never made a promo film for this to my knowledge. The live version is awful as I expect it is hard to reproduce Giorgio's studio wizardry live.



I thought the program was pretty dire and predictable but it is to be expected with a British show as Disco has never been taken seriously here in the UK.

Speaking as a life-long UK citizen and an observer of social behaviour I am well aware of how British people only take something to their hearts when it is pretentious or irreverent or both. However, when it comes to something like Disco with its appeal lying in fun, good times, hedonism and high production values, British people are largely suspicious of this preferring something more edgy and unpleasant in my point of view. Even many of the disco DJs here at the time of classic disco music hated anything with a 4/4 beat and would only play what they considered to be funky dance music (I actually like funky stuff alot but I also liked the Euro stuff which got overlooked at many clubs- even the gay ones apparently looked down on Eurodisco)

In the main, most disco records that became hits here were of the YMCA and Ring My Bell frivolous variety while the likes of Messrs Midney, Costandinos,Theodore,Adams, Moulton (the list goes on and on I'm ashamed to say) never had big hits in the UK with their wonderful productions whilst the rest of the World was enthralled with the sound.

This fact tells you all you need to know about British 'taste'.

Do any other UK contributors to this site think that Disco has always had a rough deal here or am I just being bitter and twisted?

[Robbie]

I'm not from the United Kingdom (I'm from the US), although I think during the late 70's punk/new wave music was way more popular than disco in the U.K. Ironically, Donna Summer was more successful in the U.K. during her pre-"Last Dance" days than she was here in the States. "I Feel Love" went to #1 on the U.K. charts for about 5 weeks, I believe. She had a handful of Top 40 songs in the U.K. between 1975-78; in the States, "Love To Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love" were her only Top 40 hits in a 2-year period.

[JussiK]

Did Disco have a rough time in England? I don't think so at all, quite the contrary. I clubbed like mad all over London during the late 70's and heard Costandinos, Midney etc. all over the place both in straight and gay clubs. "Romeo and Juliet" - huge. "Cocomotion" - massive, and voted the top tune by the readers of the Blues&Soul magazine. True, funk was preferred by many Brit djs as well as punters and jazzfunk was big. Still, fast flying disco was everywhere as well, have no fear.



But back to the program - didn't you think Gloria Gaynor got it right when she claimed most streetkids were dancing far better than Travolta? Also, I kinda liked her observation how disco taught white people how to dance...

[Robbie]

Apparently, Miss Gaynor hasn't been around White people long enough to know that Whites are just as capable of dancing as non-Whites are. So maybe we don't make like the Soooooooul Train but that doesn't me we can't dance. Shame on you, Gloria.

[JussiK]

..But did you get to see how the average white young person danced before disco was introduced - not a pretty sight!

[Robbie]

As a White male (and proud of it), at least we Whites don't have to worry about not having "rhythm" so people can immediately stereotype us. I'm sure many non-Whites who aren't Tony Maneros (heh heh) don't appreciate being accused of not having any "rhythm". Then again, I think it's different when you're in Europe as opposed to America. We know racial realities (especially differences) from the ground up.

[JussiK]

Well, we get The Jerry Springer Show here and I do know what you're talking about, Robbie. Actually, a theme I'd like to see on that show would be "I'm White And I Can Dance Too, Dammit!"

[discokid]

Hmmmm, sounds suspiciously like a pathetic program VH-1 aired a couple of years ago when trying to list their "Top 100 dance hits"of all time. By the way, it was because of the lack of "props" that should have benn given to many individuals & groups that spawned our "Disco 500".(Check out the tunes!)

[totoman]

I agree that Disco did not do that well over in the UK. We had a great chart year with the Euro sound in 1977 but then punk hit and the only "disco" records to succeed were the funk variety. I didn't live in or near London so any discos I went to didn't even mix together. The music was always the really commercial stuff and the DJ talked over the link!



I only discovered the better stuff by buying the records that made it big on the Billboard disco charts, most of which did not even get a UK release.



toto

[Outsider]

I wish that I could have seen that show. It's so rare to see anything about disco on TV. The Andrea True interview alone makes that show worth watching. Anything on her would interest me.