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Sweetleaf
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21 May 2023, 2:58 am

Unfortunatly growing up I feel I mostly heard negative things about it, but during covid for a bit I was like very into disco it was weird because I'm a metalhead like I mostly listen to metal and harder rock or at least I used to. But during covid lockdowns I heard a couple songs I liked and they were disco style songs so that drew me into just listening to the genre.That said I like a lot of electronic music to, and disco sounds kind of like it may have influenced it LIke a lot of disco music has the same sort of satisfying beats as electronic music.

I guess if anything I am disappointed there are not like newer disco bands, like there has even been a slight revival of the sort of 60's sounding psychdelic rock with bands like The Growlers and Tame Impala but why no revival of Disco?


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naturalplastic
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21 May 2023, 3:33 am

EDM or "Techno" is a direct descendant of disco. Same beat, but made with synths instead of strings and brass.

Actually rap was originally also a subspecies of disco (listen to the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", or Blondie's "Rapture"- two of the earliest rap songs to hit the charts- it was light party music with a person talking to a disco beat) before it took on more funk influences and got a harder sound and evolved into its own thing.

I was in college during the disco era. Folks my age were all polarized into the two tribes:disco fans and rock fans. Both groups hated the other. I was in the rock tribe. But..secretely kinda liked some examples of disco..even then. A girl even taught me to do the hustle and a party ...it was fun.

So...there is no shame in liking disco in my opinion :).

In the 90s I was a party dj, and relied on disco hits. And the current hits I played (house music, dance music) were and still are disco influenced. The only real objection anyone would have to disco is its mechanical sounding beat. But since circa 1980 even rock is done with synths and drum machines and has the same mechanical sound. So thats not even a distinction about it anymore.



Sweetleaf
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21 May 2023, 3:46 am

naturalplastic wrote:
EDM or "Techno" is a direct descendant of disco. Same beat, but made with synths instead of strings and brass.

Actually rap was originally also a subspecies of disco (listen to the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", or Blondie's "Rapture"- two of the earliest rap songs to hit the charts- it was light party music with a person talking to a disco beat) before it took on more funk influences and got a harder sound and evolved into its own thing.

I was in college during the disco era. Folks my age were all polarized into the two tribes:disco fans and rock fans. Both groups hated the other. I was in the rock tribe. But..secretely kinda liked some examples of disco..even then. A girl even taught me to do the hustle and a party ...it was fun.

So...there is no shame in liking disco in my opinion :).

In the 90s I was a party dj, and relied on disco hits. And the current hits I played (house music, dance music) were and still are disco influenced. The only real objection anyone would have to disco is its mechanical sounding beat. But since circa 1980 even rock is done with synths and drum machines and has the same mechanical sound. So thats not even a distinction about it anymore.


Yeah that is what I don't get like I am a bit more of a metalhead, but like I don't see why you can't like metal with harsh vocals and all that as well as something like disco. But yeah so I'd probably lean more towards the rock tribe, but I love music so I am always willing to give various music a chance. LIke maybe sometimes I want some angry straight up metal, and other times I just want to enjoy some happy and fun disco.

Like I would be missing out if I only listened to metal. Also to me it is weird people complained of the mechanical beat, like that is one of my favorite parts of it. LIke those beats make me want to dance around a bit to it, and sometimes when disco songs come on the radio in stores I can't help a bit of bouncing around to it.


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Fnord
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21 May 2023, 4:16 am

Some disco music was alright, except it all got a lot of OVER-play on every pop-music station.  MTV was also saturated with it (back when MTV played music videos).

Then, along came "Disco Duck" and ruined everything.



Sweetleaf
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21 May 2023, 4:30 am

Fnord wrote:
Some disco music was alright, except it all got a lot of OVER-play on every pop-music station.  MTV was also saturated with it (back when MTV played music videos).

Then, along came "Disco Duck" and ruined everything.


Oh I can for sure see how overplaying things gets annoying. LIke idk sometimes I get irritated because if a bar or store plays one led zepplin song I know I am in for that song plus at least one more but sometimes 3 and it is like shut up the zepplin already, then it has to end with that awful song they have of their drummer just drumming away with no context, I guess there is a video that just conistis of a car driving down a road with those awful drums. And it always starts with stairway to heaven, at this point they should call it stairway to hell.

sorry about the rant, but a thing being overplayed can certainly ruin it, that is for sure. Cause I liked led zepplin when I first heard them but it gets so overplayed I basically hate it now.


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21 May 2023, 8:32 am

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Twolf
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22 May 2023, 1:30 am

It is what makes me dance!



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22 May 2023, 1:32 am

funeralxempire wrote:
There's two types of people, those who enjoy Stayin' Alive and those who lie about not enjoying Stayin' Alive.


You made me think of this (Now I have to share):



ASPartOfMe
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22 May 2023, 10:38 pm

Fnord wrote:
Some disco music was alright, except it all got a lot of OVER-play on every pop-music station.  MTV was also saturated with it (back when MTV played music videos).

Then, along came "Disco Duck" and ruined everything.


The height of Disco's popularity was 1974-1979. Especially after Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977. Disco Demolition Night and the backlash was 1979. MTV launched in 1981. But in general, you are right there was over-saturation.




But there was more then people being sick of it going on. Homophobia and racism were a part of it.
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The popularity of disco declined significantly in late 1979 and 1980. Many disco artists carried on, but record companies began labeling their recordings as dance music. Dahl stated in a 2004 interview that by 1979 disco was "probably on its way out. But I think [Disco Demolition Night] hastened its demise." According to Frank, "the Disco Demolition triggered a nationwide expression of anger against disco that caused disco to recede quickly from the American cultural landscape".

Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh described Disco Demolition Night as "your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead". Marsh was one who, at the time, deemed the event an expression of bigotry, writing in a year-end 1979 feature that "white males, eighteen to thirty-four are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, blacks, and Latins, and therefore they're the most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security. It goes almost without saying that such appeals are racist and sexist, but broadcasting has never been an especially civil-libertarian medium."

Nile Rodgers, producer and guitarist for the disco-era band Chic, likened the event to Nazi book burning. Gloria Gaynor, who had a huge disco hit with "I Will Survive", stated, "I've always believed it was an economic decision—an idea created by someone whose economic bottom line was being adversely affected by the popularity of disco music. So they got a mob mentality going."Harry Wayne Casey, singer for the disco act KC and the Sunshine Band, did not believe Disco Demolition Night was discriminatory and felt that Dahl was simply an "idiot".

University of East London professor Tim Lawrence wrote that the event was the culmination of the overproduction of disco, the investment by major record companies in music their heterosexual white executives did not like, and the "disco sucks" campaign, which he argued was homophobic, sexist and racist. Dahl denies that prejudice was his motivation for the event: "The worst thing is people calling Disco Demolition homophobic or racist. It just wasn't ... We weren't thinking like that." In a 2014 op-ed for Crain's Chicago Business, Dahl defended the event as "a romp, not of major cultural significance". He wrote that it had been "reframed" as prejudiced by a 1996 VH1 documentary about the 1970s, in a move he described as "a cheap shot made without exploration".

In response to Dahl's op-ed, WMAQ-TV political journalist Mark W. Anderson, who attended Disco Demolition at the age of 15, described the fear that white neighborhoods would be taken over by blacks and the anxiety around shifting pop culture trends. He wrote:

The chance to yell "disco sucks" meant more than simply a musical style choice. It was a chance to push back on a whole set of social dynamics that lay just beneath the surface of a minor battle between a DJ and a radio station that decided to change formats. More importantly, it was a chance for a whole lot of people to say they didn't like the way the world was changing around them, or who they saw as the potential victors in a cultural and demographic war.


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22 May 2023, 10:48 pm

I was under ten when disco was big. My parents listened to it a fair amount on Saturday nights when dancing on the shag rug with friends or relatives. I liked being whirled around by my dad. I thought it was pretty fun but it's because of those memories more than the music itself. I loved The Bee Gees and Boney M best of all but there were a few others.

The rest of the week we listened to their soft-rock AM radio station throughout the house. If they didn't have Saturday disco parties they listened to a radio station that played 50's rock and roll classics like Chuck Berry.

My brother and I were into hard rock / classic rock in our own choice of music, but my parents' music is still really nostalgic for me. I never saw the Saturday Night Fever movie but we had the soundtrack on 8 Track.


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22 May 2023, 10:57 pm

Fnord wrote:
Some disco music was alright, except it all got a lot of OVER-play on every pop-music station.  MTV was also saturated with it (back when MTV played music videos).

Then, along came "Disco Duck" and ruined everything.


Remember Rick Dees' talk show in the early 90s?


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22 May 2023, 11:03 pm

Somehow I never heard of MTV until a few years ago.
I don't remember knowing about it at all.

I loved Disco Duck actually, but that's because of a memory with my cousins.


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23 May 2023, 4:21 am

What ASPOM said. The disco era was the length of Seventies. MTV didnt exist until the start of the Eighties...right after the end of the disco era. MTV was never into oldies. So it never trafficked in disco AFAIK. Though MTV did showcase then current dance music in shows like "Club MTV" and "The Grind".

In DC there was only one station that featured disco as a radio format("WKYS, Kiss radio. Which changed to Urban Contemporary after 1979). And I just listened to the local Prog rock station back then so I never heard it.



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23 May 2023, 5:03 am

I liked the music produced by the BeeGees and by Donna Summer.  It was catchy, well-composed, and just plain nice to hear.

But, like I said, Disco Duck and overplay ruined it for me.


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23 May 2023, 8:19 am

naturalplastic wrote:
What ASPOM said. The disco era was the length of Seventies. MTV didnt exist until the start of the Eighties...right after the end of the disco era. MTV was never into oldies. So it never trafficked in disco AFAIK. Though MTV did showcase then current dance music in shows like "Club MTV" and "The Grind".

In DC there was only one station that featured disco as a radio format("WKYS, Kiss radio. Which changed to Urban Contemporary after 1979). And I just listened to the local Prog rock station back then so I never heard it.


Outside of Jimi Hendrix prog/album rock radio stations did not play black artists.

“Club MTV” came in during the late 1980’s. When MTV started they did not play all contemporary pop music particularly “urban contemporary” . They had to be shamed into playing black artists.

They did not play Michael Jackson’s Thriller album at first. Although they deny it, the story goes that SONY threatened to pull all of their video’s unless they played Micheal Jackson. It helped that Eddie Van Halen played guitar on the album. Either way the videos were so good and groundbreaking and Michael Jackson so popular they would have been forced to play his videos.


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23 May 2023, 6:24 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I was under ten when disco was big. My parents listened to it a fair amount on Saturday nights when dancing on the shag rug with friends or relatives. I liked being whirled around by my dad. I thought it was pretty fun but it's because of those memories more than the music itself. I loved The Bee Gees and Boney M best of all but there were a few others.
.

Yes...the soundtrack of the movie "Saturday Night Fever" is a great sampler of various disco artists.

Boney M was kind of the "Black Abba". Black West Indian singers working in Germany doing nice Eurodisco similar to Abba.