Disco: A Murder Mystery
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- Опубликовано: 19 окт 2024
- Who killed disco? It’s a genuine musical mystery-and it doesn’t have an easy answer. Today, we look at a few popular narratives which track disco’s demise from Saturday Night Fever to Disco Demolition Night and beyond.
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I think it's funny how people reacted to disco at the time. To be honest, while I was about 6 years too late for the Disco era, I wasn't a huge fan of the music until I became an adult in my 30s. There were a couple songs I always thought were fun, but in the last couple of years I have formed a new appreciation for it. There are so many good disco songs that are great for when you want to be upbeat and active.
My dad was a teenager back then and hated disco. He said the reason why there was such a huge backlash is because it was in everything and forced on people. Every time you turned on the TV it was in every show and commercial. Other types of music got shoved aside and it their fans got a bit mad because all they heard was stuff they didn't really like in the first place. At least that's his take on it
Disco never went away. It just evolved into something else. It turned into 80s freestyle music. Donna Summer was the one who started that ball rolling with I Feel Love. That song basically predicted the future. There are also certain records that have that transitional sound between disco and freestyle (which later evolved into technopop). "Its Raining Men" is the best example I know of. It's disco-ish but it has those basslines and synth lines that became a staple throughout the 80s. Disco just evolved away from its roots and became something else as fads changed. Its still here and it always will be.
I wish I could've experienced Disco music back in its peak. "Gloria" by Umberto Tozzi is probably my favourite disco-esque song. Great video man!
Love that song, such a triumphant chord progression!
I prefer Laura Branigan's version. Her voice is so powerful.
i absolutely LOVE italo disco! Next to city pop and boogie/80s funk, its my fav (sub)genre. Super catchy and dance-able with charming but kinda goofy lyrics which are usually heavily accented lol.
You nailed it right on the head about the dreaded Steve Dahl. Dahl was not only an anti-disco and pro rockist advocate, he was also an allegedly notorious homophobe and possible racist who knew all along that disco attracted Gays, Blacks, and Latinos. His anti-disco movement was pure overkill. It should be known that the then-forming Punk Rock movement that emerged around 1976 also disdained disco and mainstream 70's pop-rock as well.
In my research, I couldn't find any direct evidence that Dahl himself was homophobic-although I did see a few thinly veiled comments about flamboyant dress. He, to this day, passionately denies his motivations as being hateful. I'd love to have something more concrete, so if you know something, please share! His character is very controversial. There are reports of him specifically ripping on "Black music" at events, though, which if true, is obviously not cool.... As a side note, I love 70's rock, disco, and punk music-all good stuff! (Not including Disco Duck, that's just terrible)
@@CharcuterieSound Keep in mind that Rick Dees was a DJ and standup comedian from Memphis rather than a professional singer when he did "Disco Duck", so the whole song was to be taken as a big joke, particularly since Rick's inspiration was Jackie Lee's 1965 dance hit "The Duck", which was a more superior record. I can see Dahl hating on "Disco Duck", he really hated disco music. As for his "homophobic" behavior, it's just a rumor. The fact that he made fans bring Black funk & soul records to the disco demolition was very uncool indeed. Groups like Parliament and The Isley Brothers (with the song "Fight The Power") were trying to demonstrate that funk was an occasional political statement, not a joke or a gimmick to be mocked at. Many white people did dig funk and many didn't. I was from a Pontiac, Michigan school, so I heard a lot of Black soul and funk as a kid, though I am a half Irish/half Polish white man.
That's fair, I am always a bit rough on Disco Duck, given it's meant to be a silly novelty! As for funk, I totally agree-I'm also currently putting together notes for a video on Funk and its origins. Thanks for commenting and sharing your perspective!
Hey man, really love the videos - would love if we went a little bit deeper with the history and examples!
Noted!
A lot of disco music is far better and more fun than so much popular music today. The main problem with disco is the outfits associated with it.
Another 10/10 video!
YUP. I can't believe Charcuterie still hasn't popped off yet. Seems like a matter of time though, his videos are too good.
Who killed Disco? Mr. House.
I don't think it was actually called "Italo Disco". I might be wrong, but I never heard the term until around 2013. In Europe in those days, we would likely have called it "Synth Pop" or simply just "Pop music", depending on sound and arrangement.
Like many genre labels, it's gained more popularity retrospectively. From my research, it seems like the term was first used by Italian labels marketing their dance pop compilations to the West German audience. You're right, though, contemporanious English, Italian, French, and Spanish sources rarely refer to this body of music as Italo Disco!
Disco never actually died. It continously morphs as dance music changes over the decades...maybe some people were mad disco had briefly seeped into other genres. Like The Grateful Dead's "Shakedown Street" is definitely influenced by disco. KISS's "I Was Made for Loving You" is totally influenced by disco. That rubbed many fans of both bands the wrong way and added to the immense dislike of the genre. But like you said, it didn't die. It escaped to the other parts of the world. It remmerged as EMD, dubstep and other styles of dance music...
No one killed Disco, it just ran out of gas and became irrelevant. (Sadly, Disco killed or co-opted 70s funk.) Most (straight) teens and 20-somethings totally despised Disco from the start ("Disco Sucks" T-shirts became popular). It was club music for unhip 30-somethings who thought looking like a douche in a polyester leisure suit was somehow cool. After 5 or 6 years this shallow, repetitive, unimaginative trend petered out and collapsed in on itself as punk/new wave and metal bands moved in and dominated music. In the 80s, the basic disco beat, with added electronic sound effects, became instrumental "house music" for dance clubs (mainly patronized by women and gays). This gradually evolved and mutated into present-day EDM. Musical trends are supposed to run their course in 5 years or so. Fresh ideas run out and people become bored and look for something new. The fact that rap/hip-hop has been recycling the same tired old sounds for the past 45 years is just plain sad and makes one almost nostalgic for Disco which was at least dumb fun while it lasted.
The wawa bar on the fender guitar killed disco. 😂
As a kid from the 80's . disco died because IT WAS ANNOYING and it used to be played 464473 times a day non stop everywhere. Simple.
Fair, as a Canadian, I feel I can say the same with Nickleback.
@@CharcuterieSound yes Hhahahahha
I was always a hard-rocker/Metal-head, so I supported the anti-Disco movement in its heyday...I had NO IDEA how much of it was actually a racist/anti-LGBTQ movement. I mean, I don't listen to the sort of club music associated with the community to this day, but I never realized I was getting drawn into the Adolf Youth in the process. Mea Culpa.
Yeah, the twirling was a bit much. I do remember that event where R and R decided to make a stand. I liked the disco music, but I wasn't ready for the more feminine look (and behavior) that was transforming men.
Recently the backlash to Disco has been reframed in “racism and homophobia” but it was actually working class resentment against the symbolic hedonism and upper class self indulgence of disco culture especially during an economic downtown.
The hate for disco parallels alot of the hate for “wokeness” and hipster culture. Reframing the disco backlash as “homophobic and racist” is just a passive aggressive power play by leftist.
Plenty of black people hated disco too. And plenty of people who liked disco were homophobic
(homo-resentful more accurately. The phobic suffix is semantic manipulation by leftist to seem more powerful than they am really are)
Quite correct. Nobody who disliked Disco at the time would have had any racist or even homophobic motive. They simply preferred Punk rock. It's a post facto construction, which I think was concocted sometime in the late 1990's.
My uncle, and his husband, are both gay men who lived through the 70s. They hated, and continue to hate, disco with a burning passion. According to him, his issue was that disco music was shoved into EVERYTHING in the late 70s. I think Happy Days even had a disco episode! The way he put it, there were 3 tv channels, a handful of radio stations on both dials, and it was all disco all the time. The Rolling Stones, his favorite rock band, put out a disco song. So when new wave/punk came along, he and his then boyfriend (now husband) embraced it wholeheartedly. Except Blondie, they still call that disco trash.
Who killed Disco? Disco Duck killed Disco! I'm not even joking..!
You even said it yourself though... Every dog has its day. Fads come and go. Acid Rock. Glam. Punk. New Wave. Stock, Aitken & Waterman (I don't know what genre you'd call them; very bland, very formulaic, vaguely Soul~ish pap, plenty BPM with lots of horns and drum machines. Think Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue. They were definitely like a movement in their own right dominating the charts on my side of the pond from the mid '80's to the early/mid '90's). Acid House. Grunge. Etc, etc. Disco had its time in the sun, and it got longer than most. I think even fans had to admit there was a lot of ropey stuff around by the early '80's. A preponderance of it, even.
Much has been made of the idea that Punk was a repudiation of Prog Rock, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, but I would say that it was, maybe even moreso, a reaction against the disco that was dominating the charts at that time. The extravagant production and virtuoso musicianship would definitely set it at odds with the minimalism and aggression of Punk - and that was the _good stuff,_ let alone the 'Disco Duck', phoning~it~in, cash~grab dreck! Also, if Disco, with its dressing up, dancing, hedonism and aspirational vibe represented a kind of escapism for the type of working class suburban young people for whom attendance at places like the Odyssey 2001 club (from Saturday Night Fever) represented the highlight of their week, (even if they lived in New York, joints like Studio 54 might as well have been on another planet!) Punk was the go~to for those tapping into the countervailing drive to 'keep it real'. Disco would actually outlast Punk (if not Post Punk), but Punk was there to let it know it was deep into 'Time - Added - On'.
As you say, it has become the received wisdom that fans of Rock - mainstream, top 40, US (or US style) Rock - KISS, Steve Miller, Alice Cooper, Toto, Queen, Blue Öyster Cult, Chilliwack, etc. etc. - were the reactionary element that takes the blame (or credit) for dealing Disco the coup~de~grâce. As you also say, this may be overstating the case. Certainly the Disco Sucks event was surely only tapping into a feeling that was already abroad, rather than the instigator. More insidiously, it has become customary to paint them (Rock fans) as racist yokels. Certainly they represented a reactionary element whose meat'n'potatos Joe six~pack persona rather suggested, ironically, that they had a lot in common with the Punks whom they also despised (at least the Ramones/Pistols/Dictators school, if not so much so the Patti Smith/Television/Magazine set, who they _really_ despised!), while their "Party Down, Dude!" streak was probably not so different from that of the Disco afficianados (though the drinks and the D.o.C's, like the music, may have differed!) To paint their antipathy to Disco as being motivated by racism and homophobia/transphobia, etc. is very unfair thiugh, I think. Certainly disco, and _the_ disco, was a more comfortable home for LGBTQ people, and there was probably a preponderance of White people in attendance at Rock venues, but it wasn't like Rock fans didn't revere performers like Jimi Hendrix or Phil Lynott, or Prince, who transcended musical genres. Of course there's always an _element!_ To suggest that there isn't a cohort of Black Hip Hop fans that just aren't especially fond of White people would be ridiculous - but that's people for you! 40 - odd years ago, certain views that weren't acceptable now (and weren't acceptable then, either) may have been more prevalent, and it may have been easier to express them without censure may have been easier, but even if I was very young then, I know most Rockers didn't look at things through a racial lens, or one based on sexual preferences or gender identity. It just wasn't an issue. It also has to be remembered that even in America, as I've already discussed, a huge proportion of the crowd in any given disco (allowing for the demographic of the neighbourhood) were White, and working class, as seen in the movie Saturday Night Fever. (Yeah, Hollywood, but still...) It's not so different from how Hip Hop could not be the biggest genre of music in North America today, if it weren't for the number of White fans. OK, that doesn't tell you a whole lot about Rockers, particularly, but it does demonstrate that, at least when it comes to their musical tastes, most White people seem to be able to put race to one side. The fact that there were a lot of Funk, R'n'B, and Soul records in the Disco Sucks bins doesn't really tell you a whole lot, except that there was surely something of a run on Disco records in the run up to the game! That, and the fact that to the average Rock listener, as far as Funk, R&B and Soul went, it was a case if 'close 'nuff'! Those genres have much in common with Disco, and indeed it could be said that they were probably the largest precursors of the form; it can hardly be held against rock fans that they recognized the fact.
[Battery says 'NO'. Gotta Post!]
You have a highly "watchable" face.... :) This is not mean to undermine the excellent research that had gone into the video amounting to outstanding content and pointed conclusions, but rather to highlight that, in addition to it all, your presentation is quite engaging indeed.
Thank you, that's very kind! Motivates me to keep going ✊️
@@CharcuterieSound As I had hoped it would.....😁
Disco committed suicide. It sucked so hard it sucked itself into total annihilation.