On this day in 1979, disco sucks.

[East-A-Squared]

https://www.bing.com/search?q=disco%20demolition%20night&FORM=OTDHYL

[Journeyman]

1. Goodbye, Sister Disco . . .

[zaj]

2. Anti-Disco was part of a culture war

I grew up as a disco sucks kid. But making music I didn't enjoy into a team (team rock) that I identified with... Was a much bigger problem than I understood.

It wasn't just dance vs rock.

It was masculinity vs femininity
It was black vs white
It was gay vs straight
It was urban vs rural

I teach my kid today not to hate any music. Just to realize that you don't enjoy it. But not to be on team rap,. punk, country, edm or whatever.

[Uncle Joe]

3. The culture war which helped give rise to Reagan or vice versa.

Commentary: Disco and the Bee Gees are beloved today. But as Disco Demolition Night and a new HBO documentary demonstrate, that wasn’t true 40 years ago

(snip)

As disco became more popular, especially after the late 1977 release of the blockbuster film “Saturday Night Fever” and its soundtrack, which heavily featured the Bee Gees, those quiet subcultures became more visible, pushing feminism, civil rights and gay rights to the lucrative forefront of pop culture. It wasn’t long until Rev. Jerry Falwell was placing disco on a list of scourges that included abortion, and, for some reason lost to time, TV sitcoms.

Disco added a quarter-note pulse to the meaty basslines and chattering rhythm guitar of funk; Fred Wesley, a key member of James Brown’s band, described disco as “funk with a bow tie.” To skeptics (most of them white and straight), disco was devoid of intelligence, musicality or passion. Once disco became ubiquitous, once morning-radio jock Rick Dees and basketball star Meadowlark Lemon had released disco records, and once moms and aunts were taking hustle classes, these skeptics turned insane.

Soon, macho man Ronald Reagan would run for president on a platform that included race-baiting references to “states’ rights” and fictional “welfare queens”; as president, Reagan would ignore the AIDS crisis until well into his second term. A culture war was coming, during which white Americans would tell marginalized groups to sit down and shut up.

Insane is the only way to characterize the riot that ensued after Dahl blew up disco records in center field at Comiskey Park. “7,000 fans rushed onto the field, starting bonfires, tossing firecrackers into the stands, and destroying turf, batting cages, the pitcher’s mound, and, of course, records,” Alice Echols recounts in her book “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture.” The White Sox had to cancel the second game of the doubleheader, which they lost by default.

(snip)

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-disco-demolition-bee-gees-showtime-1219-20201218-2s3uhxsjsbduvl4kqswnvpswny-story.html

[JHB]

12. "for some reason lost to time, TV sitcoms"? No, it's not lost

Basically any sitcom that even acknowledged the existence of gay people (Three's Company, Soap), a whole string of Norman Lear sitcoms, etc. One Lear show, Carter Country, featured a mayor who could "turn a little sidestep" (as The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas put it) but, as portrayed by Richard Paul, had an appearance and mannerisms that not-so-subtly evoked Falwell.

Actor Richard Paul:


Some years later, Paul would play Falwell himself in the TV movie Fall From Grace (about the Jim & Tammy Bakker scandals) and the motion picture The People vs. Larry Flynt.

Lear also founded People For The American Way, a progressive advocacy group, to fight back against Falwell's so-called Moral Majority.

Nothing "lost" there.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

17. Handle it! Handle it!

A running joke with a couple friends of mine.

[JHB]

24. HA! You too?

"Handle it, Roy. Handle it! Handle it!"

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. This is what's important to remember about that night.

[meadowlander]

16. +1. It's code for homophobia

in the same way complaining about "rap" or "street music" is code for racism and "chick music" is straight-up sexism.

What I realised in my 20s was that cultural artifacts aren't inherently bad or stupid or boring. You can find interest and meaning in anything you chose too. If you are bored, it's because you're boring. If you think something it stupid, it's generally because you are ignorant about it. If you think disco sucks, it's because your attitude sucks.

I got endless grief from my friends for liking Journey in the 80s. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s in Seattle, the only acceptable band to say you liked was one so obscure that the other person had never heard about it. It got to the point where I actually don't even like talking about music anymore because I assume other people are going to automatically shit on my taste. It's a shame because it's just another form of bullying that's socially acceptable and that some people never seem to grow out of.

I like most kinds of music. What I don't like, it's generally because i haven't been exposed to it enough or made the effort to understand it. At worst, it's just not my taste. But it's not inherently bad or something grown-ass adults should be hassling each other about.

[Dial H For Hero]

26. It's hardly "racism" to find rap grating.

I’ll freely admit that my tastes in music are old fashioned; I’d be hard pressed to even recognize more than a handful of contemporary music stars. But the simple fact is, I can’t stand rap. Oh, there might be the occasional song that I find somewhat less unpleasant, but that’s typically the best that I can say for it.

To each their own.

[Archae]

40. I agree with you especially the stuff called "Gangsta Rap."

I mean, I can't really understand most of what they say.

And it's usually along the lines of "Bleep bleep bleep gonna bang mah ho, bleep bleep bleep gonna shoot a cop, bleep bleep bleep gonna do dope bleep bleep bleep bleep."

(BTW, watching the Vevo channel right now, 70's tunes!)

[Cosmocat]

25. 100% was

the bullshit they do now has been going on my whole life, it just keeps getting more horrible and brazen.

But, right wingers picked up on the "anti-disco" sentiment, co oped it, amped it up and poured gasoline on it.

[-misanthroptimist]

4. Disco did suck.

At least on the radio. (Boomer!!) However, it was fine for, oddly enough, discos. It was great dance music. A lot of us didn't want to hear dance music while not dancing. It also tended to be rather simplistic music with drivel for lyrics -though not always.

On the whole, though, outside of bars and discos I strongly disliked disco.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. Disco sucked...for you. For others, it was liberatory, and your contempt says more about you than

disco.

[-misanthroptimist]

9. There is a wide gulf between contempt and dislike -even strong dislike.

It's amazing to see anyone bridge it with nothing.

There is "best" music. There is that that the individual enjoys -for whatever reason or no reason at all- and there is that the individual dislikes. I dislike disco -outside of bars and discos.

[RobinA]

32. Now We Aren't Allowed

to dislike disco? I hated disco. I was a dyed in the wool hard rock fan. Suddenly disco starts taking over the radio where my hard rock used to be. It had nothing to do with who liked disco, back then we didn't think so much about every separate group in society. We didn't pay a lot of attention to who liked disco, it just wasn't us. All we knew was that instead of turning on the radio and hearing music we liked, we turned on the radio and heard disco. It's just that simple. We were 20-something Boomers. Young in a world that celebrated the young. We liked rock and Motown, somebody else liked chick music, somebody else liked disco. We could even like [gasp] people who liked disco. It was music, it wasn't a sign of defective DNA.

[Progressive Jones]

20. I was in my late teens in the "Disco Era".

I was a "Disco Sucks" guy. In my little universe, there was certainly nothing anti-gay or anti-black about it. If there was anything we didn't truly like about the Disco scene, it was the slick, cokehead, "Studio54" aura about the whole thing.

We were Black Sabbath heads! We were Led Zeppelin heads! "FREEBIRD !!!".
We were long-haired, pot smoking, wine drinking "hippie freaks" growing up in Chicago. LOL !!!
There was NO WAY we were going to wear "slacks", and those fake silk shirts ! LOL. And, we took our lumps from the Disco boys and girls in the neighborhood, as well.

It truly was a friendly rivalry in my World.

[-misanthroptimist]

22. That was my experience, too.

Although I have to admit to having a soft spot for Donna Summer.

[Progressive Jones]

23. Who didn't ??? nt

[Archae]

41. I loved her too.

Especially this song...

[-misanthroptimist]

42. That's the first one of hers that I heard.

It's sort of a cross-over between disco and electronic. I was already into stuff like Kraftwerk and Tomita (and the ever present Pink Floyd), so I found the song interesting and her voice just gorgeous.

I hadn't seen this video before, thanks for that.

[zaj]

30. Only judging by what you see in your world is...

... a deeply normal human behavior that is exploited by abusers.

It's important to accept that your world doesn't define the world.

[msongs]

7. like most music genres, 10% glorious songs, 10% good derivatives, the rest just copycat

or worse

[Cartoonist]

8. The problem wasn't the music

It was the force feeding of it by the media. You couldn't escape it. Articles were headlined: Why America loves disco. I don't like opera, but then I don't have to listen to it.

[maxsolomon]

10. Saw HBO Doc about the Bee Gees.

This event really changed the trajectory of their careers.

An interviewee pointed out that the records that we blown up weren't just disco: they were funk, R&B, soul, too

It was a racist shitfest.

[MustLoveBeagles]

11. Cancel Culture 70's style

I was 7 when this happened and even then I thought this event was stupid and scary. You hate Disco or any other type of music? Fine. Just don't listen to it. I haven't seen this documentary but am not surprised that the underlying motive was racism. I was reminded of this incident years later when the The Chicks were canceled for being mildly critical of the Iraq War. What is the name of the documentary if you don't mind me asking?

[BradAllison]

18. And punk wanted to cancel rock

Punk fans tried to act like The Who, Paul McCartney and the Stones were spoiled tired old farts that only "old folks" still cared about.

It's weird how people have suddenly tried to retrofit this into culture wars. Selectively, of course. Some cancelling like I said is still seen as just harmless and silly nostalgia I guess. The 70's were a time of depression and strife and people wanted to fight over shit like music and sports. By the time disco "died" it was mostly white guys and gals ripping off funk music while rap was on the rise as well as new forms of smooth r&b that did even better commercially.

[East-A-Squared]

31. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart on HBO.

[MustLoveBeagles]

39. Thanks

[tritsofme]

13. Steve Dahl is a legend! Miss hearing him everyday on Chicago radio.

I understand he still has a podcast, but I’ve never followed him over there.

[David__77]

14. Fuck that heterosexist, white supremacist, and misogynist anti-disco shit.

….

[PlanetBev]

15. I loved Disco, I don't care what anybody says

I was in my late twenties and went disco dancing every weekend in Hollywood at Circus Circus and Peanuts. I had so much energy back then I’d be on the floor for hours. Good times, for sure.

[GulfCoast66]

19. I was a little to young for the disco times. Turned 14 in 80.

II liked and still do like Alternative Music. And really old country. Like Hank Williams. Not the asshole JR but the origin. We still hear his songs today.

But as I get older I really love hearing the Disco tunes. And because my wife is over 5 years older she loves it. She was old enough to dance to it.

The anti-disco thing came in about the time Reagan was elected. It was part of the backlash against Black, and to a lesser extent gay life and Music. And the multiculturalism it expounded. Not that lots of people understood.

That said, near the end it got really shitty. Even I will never forget Disco Duck. That kind of shit deserves revulsion.

But The Bee Gees? They were great musicians who were as good a harmonizing group that ever existed.

The Foo Fighter are releasing an Album under the name of the Dee Gees. They cover Bee Gees songs. Their first release is not bad. But no white man does falsetto better than Barry. Who admits the copied Black groups because they loved them.

[RobinA]

33. Total Nonsense

I graduated from high school in 1975. I am solidly a '70's girl and it had nothing to do with a backlash against anybody. In those days we had quite a few albums by black artists mixed in with the Led Zeppelin and Elton John. Disco was considered by diehard rock fans to be lightweight pop made by artists that couldn't really play instruments. Rightly or wrongly. We're still a few decades away from being able to tell the world what "they" were thinking in the '70's using current thinking. "They" are still very much alive.

[Archae]

21. I still like Disco.

Heck, I have a "KC And The Sunshine Band" disco channel on my Pandora, plays a lot of old and good disco tunes.

Besides "YMCA" and "In The Navy," there are many good artists, some one-hit wonders of course, and a few burnouts and near-burnouts.

Bee Gees
Earth, Wind and Fire
Chic
Gloria Gaynor

So many.

It wasn't music that "told a social message," it was just plain fun.

Remember when Intel was doing those ads with guys disco dancing in clean suits?

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

27. It sucked for working bar bands.

Many gigs for many working musicians were lost, and what were once living wages were slashed in half due to competition from mechanical music.

After the advent of disco, this joke became popular among working musicians:

A singer/guitarist in a rock band won the lottery. When asked what she was going to do now that she was wealthy, she replied,

"I guess I'll just keep playing until the money runs out."

[Kid Berwyn]

28. Tigers win!

Always a happy sound.

[MissMillie]

29. But call it "techno" or "dance" and people love it

It came out after the era of the singer/songwriter, and was the medium of the producer.

I think a lot of the dislike of it was that all of a sudden people who didn't know much about music were getting a lot of radio play.

[RobinA]

34. This Was

very much the case. It was too "produced." A death knell to rock lovers at the time.

[Johnny2X2X]

36. Disco went under ground and transformed into House Music

Specifically happened in Chicago at a gay mostly black club called the Warehouse. House music was taken by some Detroit DJs and combined with funk and German New Wave and they named it techno. House and techno have an immense influence on almost all pop music today.

The backlash to disco absolutely was a large part racism and homophobia.

House and techno thrived in the underground for much of the 80s and 90s and emerged as a huge part of pop music in the 00s. House even has influence over some sub genres of country music and hip hop. It was disco transformed and a lot of House and Techno artists point to disco, jazz, and Motown artists as being their biggest influence.

Disco in the form of House, Techno, and EDM (Electronic Dance Music) is alive and well, there's still a bias against it in the states, but it's a much bigger deal overseas. In most of Europe you can find legit House and Techno clubs in even small towns and there are radio stations dedicated to House and techno in most countries. The US is still far behind in accepting dance music even though there are many festivals now centered around it.

[Initech]

35. Can we do that now and burn a whole bunch of Trump / MAGA merch?

I'll get my lighter!

[brooklynite]

37. "I like, Pop, I like Soul, I like Rock but I never liked Disco"

[CoopersDad]

38. I'm a huge fan of disco, the earlier stuff especially. Saturday Night Fever was kind of the end.

Once it became commercialized and coopted by the mainstream culture it was far less exciting.
I mean, seriously, Disco Duck?

Give me some Sylvester, Mighty Clouds of Joy, later Gloria Gaynor. There were a lot of anthems like "I am what I am" that spoke to the Gay community at the time, and still do.

Some of it was downright fun, including Village People (pre TFG) and the Weather Girls, It's raining men!

[Lady Freedom Returns]

43. Give you one up, Disco Duck!

[Edim]

44. Disco is awesome,

especially the more underground varieties. It has aged better than any other popular music genre of the 20th century.

[Edim]

45. Just an example/suggestion:

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-100-greatest-disco-12s-of-all-time/amp/

You can listen to most of these on youtube.

[Edim]

46. nt