origins of fear/hatred of disco

xpost, no way, not when you're on ecstasy.

Replace "Yuppie" with "Religious Right."

If people judge Sister Sledge by We Are Family, is it my fault they are so mistaken? Frankly I dreaded the idea of even owning that song, but there's other stuff they did with the Chic guys that is 20 times better and goes unheard and uncared about, while Donna Summer gets all the accolades. A crime!

As a child I never realized that there was a "disco sucks" phenomenon. I only knew that people seemed to be saying it was a fad, that it would not last. Maybe it was my dad that said that. I begged to differ.

This is all I plan to say on the subject of disco for quite awhile.

light and love

http://www.myspace.com/chr_stopher

(almost typed "devil went down to georgio," someone do that remix plz)

xpost

Strangely enough, your post is actually less coherent and more babbling than many posts in this thread.

One of the reasons for sure. It's probably harder to make a good disco track and easier to make a bad disco track as opposed to say, rock.

Geir, earlier today.

i think the disco suckers were largely composed of AORers. Today's world of a million subgenres is a far cry from the way AOR dominated during that time. there was more of a common if orthodox culture of rock in suburban junior and senior highs back then. today there is no equivalent to led zeppelin in the same way there are no tv shows today with the household viewing % of e.g., Happy Days. so when disco went supernova due to a movie, something other than King Rock suddenly started getting too much attention and was perceived as a threat. of course backlash ensued. around the same time, punk and new wave i think were less threatening due to a combination of being more in the musical tradition of regular rock and roll, not having the glaring racial/gay cultural differences of disco, and simply not penetrating as deeply into the mainstream to the degree disco did.

'Lots of it just sounds like soul music.) (Or funk music, of salsa music, or flamenco music, or....rock music!) '

Exactly. How much of disco sucks is actual musical prejudice? People who hate all black pop actually make more sense to me as far as consistency than those who supposedly love funk and soul, but despise all disco. There's way too much overlap between the three for that to hold up to scrutiny. But as words, funk and soul don't carry the negative conotations 'disco' is burdened with.

'The main reason for the hatred towards disco is that 90 per cent of it sucked. ' Don't buy that--one could say the same thing about any style of music, but where's all the virulence toward them?

you're half right -- disco culture was decadent in the eyes of 60s veterans too, not an extension of the hippie thing but a rebellion against it, the next step on the cultural path to 80s conservatism.

"the bete noir of every Brillo-headed hippie" -- Goldman

My favorite contradiction in Rickey Vincent's otherwise-good Funk book is when he decimates disco for being a repetitive pointless-dance-craze genre with inane lyrics a few chapters after lionizing Rufus Thomas.

styx bassist chuck panozzo came out a few years ago. styx of course were faves of the hard-rockin' anti-disco crowd. later they'd get booed off the stage *at their own headlining stadium shows* for playing synth-dominated pop.

However, from what I've read about Mancuso's original parties, it seems like he was applying a very Zen-like tea ceremony approach to throwing the perfect dance event, which might be a product of hippie interest in such things. Also, in that book Last Night the DJ..., the rhetoric from many of the early DJs sounds quite cosmic: creating the perfect vibrations and flow, etc.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/hardstaff/rushdiscosucks.jpg

Well, I hate funk even more than I hate disco, but I do not hate soul. OK, I am not too keen on Stax/Volt, but I like Motown, and I really like Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and a bunch of other black acts who have put sufficient emphasis on melody and harmony.

Now, disco was at times rather melodic, but it was extremely corporate as well, and I think that was the background for most of the disco hate (the same people will also dislike current white corporate trends such as boy/girl bands). And as far as the more prejudiced minority of disco haters went, I think there was more homophobia and sexism in there than rascism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_FXBkoYxMM

you're half right -- disco culture was decadent in the eyes of 60s veterans too, not an extension of the hippie thing but a rebellion against it, the next step on the cultural path to 80s conservatism.

think this is otm. pretty much what Steve Dahl, who was behind the Disco Demolition, has always said. In Chicago (and prob in most places that aren't NYC), disco was associated with rich white young downtown businessmen, not black or gay people. He also now says "lol yeah I was fat and couldn't dance, disco dudes were getting all the women".

aw this thread