The death of disco

[Outsider]

After all the endless debating on when people think disco died, it's time to take a poll on the subject. So go for it.

:evil:

[K-Bee]

Disco never died!! As long as it's part of your heart and soul and we keep listening to it and discussing the stuff, it will be around forever!

[Paulo]

My vote went to "EVEN LATER".

The sound of 70's disco may have ended around the early 80's. But disco music continue. At least with a new sound.

Disco music in 1979 also didn't sound like disco music in 1974. If we listen to song we don't know, we can easily recognise if it belongs to 1973/75 early period or the 1977/1979 late period.

So my point is that the sound of 70's disco died in the early 80's, but disco continue.

In 1986 the PET SHOP BOYS realeased and LP of remixes of their hits... They called the album DISCO. I've seen web sites referring to that kind of sound as "80's disco".

Of course the PET SHOP BOYS doesn't sound like the VILLAGE PEOPLE, but that's because disco music evolved.

[peppertree5706]

I was a radio deejay during most of 1979 in Philadelphia. I saw disco strong in early summer. By the end of summer disco was around but weakened. By the end of autumn, disco was all but gone.

It never made it to the eighties. My date would be November, 1, 1979.

[Outsider]

Disco never died!! As long as it's part of your heart and soul and we keep listening to it and discussing the stuff, it will be around forever!

That's what I would say. When I said that disco died in 1981, I meant that's when it died as a popular mainstream genre. Obviously people have continued to listen to disco since then. And with all the disco compilations, dance clubs with disco nights, radio stations with disco shows, etc., there has been a major effort to keep disco going. As nostalgia, disco is doing very well.

:evil:

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Hey Peppertree, what station were you a DJ at in 1979 in Philly? Im from Philly originaly so was wondering what station you were on cause I possibly coulda listened to ya. OK, back on the subject at hand now. I think disco never died in all honesty. It just changed and cause of that whole disco sucks crap and they came up with names like high nrg, techno, house, freestyle,etc. Today it's known as house but unfortunatly..it sucks for the most part accept some deep house which is original and not "stolen" and has the flavor of the 1970's eurodisco to the fulliest. Most though is total unoriginal, untalanted and annoying ****! The time frame of November 1979..disco may have been dead in the mainstream at that point (coulda been the best thing ever for disco music as not too many real disco tracks made it to pop radio in the USA..just the pop crap with the 4/4 beats they called disco that we still hear today on radio as what disco was.. which as well all know, it wasnt lol). In the clubs however, the years of 1979 - 1981 were some of the best years for some of the great true disco tracks in the underground. I could list several underground classics from this period but would kinda get off the subject lol. Anyhow..thats my oppinion on it all.

DJ Jimmy M

[DJ-Pir]

Boy do i feel lucky to live in Europe.... :lol:

At the time they were burning records and closing down clubs over there
in the US people just kept on dancing and opening new clubs here 8)

But serious, Disco did not die, as i read many times here it evolved into dance, house,
nu-disco and as we speak there is a truckload of records in deejays cases throughout
that contain lots of samples from old disco records.

Some of the "Disco" or "DanceClassics" -parties draw huge amounts op people here.....
So if Disco was ever away it's back now :lol:

[SandraDee]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

[jamesyirishguy]

Disco music never really died as a musical force. I agree with paulo and jimmy m when they say that it evolved. It is only natural for all music types to change over time. Producers and musicians constantly want to create records that are fresh and different. DJs are no different either they are constantly on the look out for genre splitting tracks particularly in the dance domain. Although i do believe that disco as a pure culture in itself died around 82. I have to also say that all this talk of modern dance being rubbish is rubbish itself. There are some great dance groups out there today and the club scene is as strong as ever it was. I think such attitudes are conservative and excessively nostalgic. Some people think that old is somehow better than new. But I think it's just a case of looking back in rose tinted shades.

[Voyage]

I think Disco never died, it just evolved into new stuff and has been making some comebacks throughout the last years. Some artists/Djs just sample Disco stuff and play it on today's dancefloors.

Voyage :P

[efunk_adelic]

Keep in mind also... as a DJ, you had to figure out which way you were gonna go... R&B sound or the Hi-Energy way.... plus the beat box computers were coming out and replacing drums... which really change the music & the way we danced.
A huge album was released by Kraftwerk - Computer World & with the single release of the song numbers which had no drums. That song was sampled by Afrika Bambatta Planet Rock and slowly the drums disappeared to further complicate things... I remember playing Planet Rock in high rotation for almost 6 months... people couldn't get enough of it... I also started playing artists on the Tommy Boy Label. People lovvvvvvvved it.
By 1982, the format was 1. Electronic 2. Hip-Hop 3. R & B 4. Disco

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Hey efunk, the song sampled on "Planet Rock" is Kraftwerk "Trans Europe Express" from 1977. Great eurodisco classic. Unless the whole thing is nothing but different samples of Kraftwerk tracks? The main tune is "Trans Europe Express". Dunno bout the other stuff in it (could that be what your talkin bout?)

DJ Jimmy M

[efunk_adelic]

Hey efunk, the song sampled on "Planet Rock" is Kraftwerk "Trans Europe Express" from 1977. Great eurodisco classic. Unless the whole thing is nothing but different samples of Kraftwerk tracks? The main tune is "Trans Europe Express". Dunno bout the other stuff in it (could that be what your talkin bout?)

DJ Jimmy M

What I should do is re-write my entire post, I guess I'm still pissed off because my football team lost and was delerious when I was racking my brain. :oops: you are correct on the song sampled, what I meant is this. After Kraftwerk released that LP, it seemed real drum playing was starting to disappear. By 1982, you had several ways you could play to your crowd. The song "Numbers" I think, influenced another vein in the evolution of dance music.

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Yea, I can agree and disagree with all that. In the underground disco scene in the mid 70's this music was already begining and just not known to the mainstream and pop radio. A few landmark tracks in electronic dance music's begining was Silver Convention "Fly Robin Fly" (which yes did go mainstream almost a year after it's introduction in the discos), that track had the first electronic drum but everything else was regular instruments. Now to the real hardcore..1977 was the offical begining of the real using of electronics and between the Kraftwerk track I mentioned in the other post and Giorgio Moroder's "From Here To Eternity Suite" which both came out almost at the same exact time, that was sure the begining of something way advanced that mainstream audiences would not be able to handle this early on (which is why Bee Gees, etc was played to them lol..that Giorgio track and the Kraftwerk track are older than "Night fever" belive it or not). Then late that year Cerrone released "Supernature" which was another great hit and techno/house/rave, whatever ya'd like to call it was begining to form. More and more of the real disco music was becoming either all done with electronics or a mix of electronics and regular instruments with disco orchestration.

DJ Jimmy M

[peppertree5706]

I was a disc jockey playing vinyl records on WKDU 91.7 Drexel University. I was on Saturday mornings 6-10AM (most of the time) 1977-1982.

At first I did AOR, then I went to what I liked ie. oldies. I pattered my show after the WCBS-FM bi-hourly format clock. That included two new songs called "future gold" per hour.
At that time, I did not have a large disco collection, so I would not have had enough songs to do a disco show.

I have a good disco collection now, and I did a disco show in 1998 on KOOP also 91.7 here in Austin. They have interesting shows and stream on koop.org. I can trade tapes of my show with anyone who wants a trade.

Anti-disco movement:

As to the anti-disco movement in this country, the only place I know of that was similar to Europe and continued to love disco was South Florida and the Miami area.

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Didn't know how long the Drexel University station was around for. On a non disco note I had some dealings with them and a few other stations back when trying to get my band's track played (one station ended up picking it up in the end but wasn't Drexel lol). WCBS became WCAU FM "Hot Hits" somewhere in the disco era and was the best top 40 station around till it died in early '87 and went to oldies.

DJ Jimmy M

[bobbchap]

It never died......there were a lot of people that wanted it to....just like the sixties when people tried to kill Rock n' roll.... NOT!!!
I remember dancin' all the way thru the 80's, and I think people are still dancing.....
{maybe some of the songs aren't as good as the good old days, but dance, dance, dance}As a matter of fact I hear the old seventies music being played to the new generation on the radio...and some of the styles of the seventies are coming back....PLATFORM SHOES??? :o

AHHH..to be young again. :roll:

[DiscoMan]

The missus and I dance the Hustle every Saturday night in a local club that plays dance music from the '70s to today with a good selection of Classic Disco. We're in our early '50s and lived the life the first time around :D

[SandraDee]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

Gosh I was flippant in those days. I can now state, after giving it much thought, that classic disco as I think of it died in 1986. That is when (in my opinion) progressive disco died a natural death following a very innovative & interesting period in the early/mid 80s that culminated with house/garage (being a sort of hybrid between hi-nrg & boogie). After 1986 the only disco produced tended to be of a 'retro' variety using samples or ideas from classic-period disco e.g. S'Express/ Joey Negro/ Soul Searcher.(I like many of these tracks but to my mind they often had a knowing wink to the audience which hinted at a kitsch/ironic stance.)

[tyree_kevin]

To me disco died in 1997 when the house and techno people realized that those musical artforms died in the face of hip-hop. I can remember people hoping that drum and bass would work in the USA but it didn`t.