Yowza yowza yowza
January 8, 2016 8:13 PM Subscribe
Also, how long until the DMCA takeout on musical grounds?
posted by Samizdata at 9:13 PM on January 8, 2016
posted by Samizdata at 9:13 PM on January 8, 2016
I'm well aware that threadshitting isn't cool - especially in music threads. On the other hand, I can't deny the intensely visceral negative reaction I still have to that style of music even now, almost 40 years later. I was one of those people screaming DISCO SUCKS at my radio in Pavlovian response to songs like this one Back in the Day, usually featuring liberal amounts of foaming spittle and prominent forehead and neck veins. #unabashedGAHHH, more like.
Knee-jerk transmission complete. Please carry on as normal. Exiting thread...now.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:23 PM on January 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
Knee-jerk transmission complete. Please carry on as normal. Exiting thread...now.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:23 PM on January 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
Samizdata: "Also, how long until the DMCA takeout on musical grounds?"
Erm, takeDOWN!
stupid cheap knockoff fingers mutter mutter obscene word obscene word mutter mutter
posted by Samizdata at 9:23 PM on January 8, 2016
Erm, takeDOWN!
stupid cheap knockoff fingers mutter mutter obscene word obscene word mutter mutter
posted by Samizdata at 9:23 PM on January 8, 2016
Greg_Ace: "I'm well aware that threadshitting isn't cool - especially in music threads. On the other hand, I can't deny the intensely visceral negative reaction I still have to that style of music even now, almost 40 years later. I was one of those people screaming DISCO SUCKS in Pavlovian response to songs like this one Back in the Day, usually featuring liberal amounts of foaming spittle and prominent forehead and neck veins. #unabashedGAHHH, more like.
Knee-jerk transmission complete. Please carry on as normal. Exiting thread...now."
Should I mention the recent discovery that disco can, in fact, save lives?
Do you want to know more?
posted by Samizdata at 9:25 PM on January 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Knee-jerk transmission complete. Please carry on as normal. Exiting thread...now."
Should I mention the recent discovery that disco can, in fact, save lives?
Do you want to know more?
posted by Samizdata at 9:25 PM on January 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Not just no but Hell No. I've made my choice.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:26 PM on January 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:26 PM on January 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
I've returned from the near future to prevent the disco fact from being stated. You can save lives with CPR by doing chest compressions to the beat of "Another One Bites the Dust"! No need to mention any other songs.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 9:38 PM on January 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by knuckle tattoos at 9:38 PM on January 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Threadshitting it is. I pity the fool who cannot appreciate the sheer groove and musicianship of Chic. When I am in a generous mood. When I am suffering from compassion fatigue, it turns to bored contempt. Hippie was seven years old when Punk appeared. Now the latter is eligible for Medicare. Disco sucks ? I have tattoos older than you. Get a haircut off my lawn.
Although, to be fair, I must admit that Dance, Dance,Dance is one of their lesser efforts.
posted by y2karl at 10:55 PM on January 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
Although, to be fair, I must admit that Dance, Dance,Dance is one of their lesser efforts.
posted by y2karl at 10:55 PM on January 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
And here I was trying to be a good community member...
posted by Samizdata at 11:24 PM on January 8, 2016
posted by Samizdata at 11:24 PM on January 8, 2016
That painting is amazing.
posted by koeselitz at 12:23 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 12:23 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
That painting is amazing.
YOURS for only $4,800!
And it looks like Nile Rodgers is bringing his show to Oakland next month... YOWZA!
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 1:06 AM on January 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
YOURS for only $4,800!
And it looks like Nile Rodgers is bringing his show to Oakland next month... YOWZA!
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 1:06 AM on January 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
For you Mitch Rider Fans Devil with a Blue Dress.
How about a little Peter Gunn?
What the hell, here's all of them.
And, a little more background on this individual, Diana Campanella is also a painter.
posted by HuronBob at 2:48 AM on January 9, 2016
How about a little Peter Gunn?
What the hell, here's all of them.
And, a little more background on this individual, Diana Campanella is also a painter.
posted by HuronBob at 2:48 AM on January 9, 2016
I have no idea what this video accomplishes, but that's OK because oh hey, it's Chic!
I used to sometimes be a disco DJ for fun and profit when I lived in Chicago (this wasn't in the 70s or 80s, this was maybe six or seven years ago). You can't really spot a disco fan from afar, so there's nothing better than having a conversation with someone and realizing that you are both willing to spend a lot of time talking about Nile Rodgers or Patrick Cowley. It's like having membership in a secret club, a society for people who are probably willing to dance, or boogie, or get down when a song specifically tells them to.
Well shoot, I know what I'm listening to this morning.
posted by teponaztli at 3:06 AM on January 9, 2016
I used to sometimes be a disco DJ for fun and profit when I lived in Chicago (this wasn't in the 70s or 80s, this was maybe six or seven years ago). You can't really spot a disco fan from afar, so there's nothing better than having a conversation with someone and realizing that you are both willing to spend a lot of time talking about Nile Rodgers or Patrick Cowley. It's like having membership in a secret club, a society for people who are probably willing to dance, or boogie, or get down when a song specifically tells them to.
Well shoot, I know what I'm listening to this morning.
posted by teponaztli at 3:06 AM on January 9, 2016
It has been a while since I saw an FPP about disco...
posted by teponaztli at 3:08 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by teponaztli at 3:08 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Definitive Dutch yowsa yowsa yowsa from '78.
The disco-sucks movement, aside from being a racist anti-fag hatebomb, just foisted a decade of shitty, shitty hair metal and the misery of middle-of-the-road "rock" on the mainstream for the bulk of the Reagan Memorial AIDS Epidemic™, so give me a chance to dance, dance, dance over stomping around impotently clenching my manly rock-and-roll fists in flannel in a repressed suburban rage any day.
posted by sonascope at 5:03 AM on January 9, 2016 [17 favorites]
The disco-sucks movement, aside from being a racist anti-fag hatebomb, just foisted a decade of shitty, shitty hair metal and the misery of middle-of-the-road "rock" on the mainstream for the bulk of the Reagan Memorial AIDS Epidemic™, so give me a chance to dance, dance, dance over stomping around impotently clenching my manly rock-and-roll fists in flannel in a repressed suburban rage any day.
posted by sonascope at 5:03 AM on January 9, 2016 [17 favorites]
So, I guess I shouldn't invite you to that Springsteen concert?
posted by HuronBob at 5:15 AM on January 9, 2016
posted by HuronBob at 5:15 AM on January 9, 2016
My media titan ex, who is a hand-clasping, BRUUUUUUUUUU-shrieking, OHMYGODICAN'TBELIEVEHE'SPLAYINGMYSONG-weeping Springsteen fan dragged me along to a number of concerts in the expensive, hella-close-to-the-stage seats, and it's okay music. Sort of an elevator version of Tom Waits with extra glockenspiel, though I have to give Springsteen credit for having some sincere principles about licensing and otherwise speaking truth to a decent audience. Doesn't float my barge, per se, but different strokes, you know.
posted by sonascope at 5:22 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sonascope at 5:22 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
For anyone who wants to join my disco party: Roy Ayers - Running Away, Bohannon - Foot Stompin Music, Harvey Mason - Groovin You, Nightlife Unlimited - Peaches & Prunes, Change - Lover's Holiday, GQ - Disco Nights, Martin Circus - Disco Circus, Machine - There But For The Grace of God, Teddy Pendergrass - You Can't Hide From Yourself, Universal Robot Band - Dance and Shake Your Tamborine, Loose Joints - Is It All Over My Face, Heaven Sent & Ecstasy - Satisfaction to the Bone, Candi Staton - Victim, T Connection - At Midnight, Suzy Q - Get On Up & Do It Again, Sylvester - Dance, Cloud One - Disco Juice, Exodus - Together Forever, ...
posted by p3t3 at 5:27 AM on January 9, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by p3t3 at 5:27 AM on January 9, 2016 [14 favorites]
Ok now folks, post your own youtube video of yourself dancing alone in front of your front door. Double Dare!
Triple Dare for you joseph conrad is fully awesome.
(and of course we will all be chipping in for a fund to hire a professional video of jessamyn dancing to YMCA)
posted by sammyo at 6:19 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Triple Dare for you joseph conrad is fully awesome.
(and of course we will all be chipping in for a fund to hire a professional video of jessamyn dancing to YMCA)
posted by sammyo at 6:19 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
So, this is the Robert Stigwood obituary thread?
posted by yhbc at 7:00 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yhbc at 7:00 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am sorry it was momentarily more difficult for you to find Aerosmith songs on the radio. It must have been a trying time.
posted by mintcake! at 7:24 AM on January 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by mintcake! at 7:24 AM on January 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
I love this video. It's just a really happy person dancing. Why can't I be a really happy person dancing? What's holding me back? DAMMIT I WANT TO DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!
posted by JanetLand at 7:26 AM on January 9, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 7:26 AM on January 9, 2016 [7 favorites]
It's nice to see something happy and positive on the internet every once in a while. Thanks for this.
posted by freakazoid at 7:29 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by freakazoid at 7:29 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
>It's nice to see something happy and positive
She dances about a thousand times better than I dance, and her dancing is terrible. I'm going back to bed.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:43 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
She dances about a thousand times better than I dance, and her dancing is terrible. I'm going back to bed.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:43 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
You guys! If 3 or more of us dance dance dance - do the high kick and say YOWZA at the same time I bet we could open a Portal!
posted by pjsky at 7:45 AM on January 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by pjsky at 7:45 AM on January 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
@Greg_Ace, my dad moved from Chicago to Nevada in the 70's to avoid disco, and I grew up 'hating' it. Now... I still do! You are not alone, my friend.
posted by schmopera at 8:13 AM on January 9, 2016
posted by schmopera at 8:13 AM on January 9, 2016
I thought this was utterly charming and she actually has some pretty good moves imho.
I know relatives who love to dance like this, in the privacy of their own homes, and it's funny and entertaining and life-affirming all at the same time. This gal is completely unselfconscious about dancing and smiling and having fun. I love it. (FWIW I'm not a fan of the song either, and I recall when it first came out, but it did have a hook and Chic did some incredible stuff.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:09 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
I know relatives who love to dance like this, in the privacy of their own homes, and it's funny and entertaining and life-affirming all at the same time. This gal is completely unselfconscious about dancing and smiling and having fun. I love it. (FWIW I'm not a fan of the song either, and I recall when it first came out, but it did have a hook and Chic did some incredible stuff.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:09 AM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The presumptions displayed here regarding the reasons for my personal reaction are completely baseless. For the record I have nothing against disco fans, culture, or whatever; I've just always found the music itself incredibly irritating, that's all. Normally I simply avoid it, getting on with my life and letting others get on with theirs. But in a weak moment last night I clicked on the link then chose to post what I hoped was at least a slightly amusing personal note about my reaction to the music, forgetting how touchy folks can be about their musical tastes and that not everyone shares my own sense of humor.
But go ahead and jump to all the conclusions you like about how long my hair is or how racist or homophobic I am or the sort of music I prefer. Pity me or sneer at me for not 100% agreeing with you about this particular style of music. People have said far worse things about me to my face because they found the music I do like stupid and yucky, but I got over that too.
Whenever I see someone call Metafilter an "echo chamber", I think of threads like these.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2016
But go ahead and jump to all the conclusions you like about how long my hair is or how racist or homophobic I am or the sort of music I prefer. Pity me or sneer at me for not 100% agreeing with you about this particular style of music. People have said far worse things about me to my face because they found the music I do like stupid and yucky, but I got over that too.
Whenever I see someone call Metafilter an "echo chamber", I think of threads like these.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on January 9, 2016
The bear in the pink speedo that made the rounds of my bear contingent on Facebook last month reminded me of the kind of people with my favorite kind of energy, always singing and dancing when the music takes them, and dance music is made to take you. It's the primary function of the form, without all the self-important baggage of significance and Grand Statement™ that was so desperately important to rock, and the craftmanship required to make what sometimes seems like awfully dumb and/or repetitive music demands fine and detailed execution of well-honed skills matched to an understanding of how the dancing mind works.
You can dance with people or on your own, in the dark, or through the dark, and it's my drug of choice.
I grew up in the heart of Heavy Metal Parking Lot territory (literally, in fact, because the Capital Centre was the very same place where my then-girlfriend Lurleen and I went to see Prince on the Purple Rain tour in November, 1984, and where my decision to throw my underpants at Prince after Lurleen threw hers resulted in an unexpected and panicky ten-minute search for my pants), and central Maryland was rife with that kind of disco-sucks Napoleonic dude energy and all the sneering, contemptuous, holier-than-all-that-faggy-n!gger-shit attitude that came free with your subscription to Creem.
When I caught up with my queer, dropped out of high school, and left home for the big city (well, for the edge of DC), my roommates introduced me to the big city gay bars, and the music there was big city gay bar disco, house, and whatever was emerging from the synthesizers of those in the know, and man—what a different world it was from the uptight stormtrooper battalions of all the dudes who'd roll their eyes when something less overwrought than Tull would come on the radio. I took all the lessons in dancing your heart out that I'd learned from dancing to Soul Train on my blaxploitation film-loving Baltimore grandmother's Mediterranean-style simulated woodgrain television consolette with genuine brass decorative handles while she chain-smoked Kools and used homemade Arthur Murray footprint maps she carefully copied out of the illustrated dance instruction book You, Too, Can Boogie!
Her second husband, a retired mailman with more working class attitudes didn't not approve, but she would still call me down into that paneled rowhouse basement where all the furniture was reupholstered in nylon leopard fur when Soul Train was on channel 45. In all of middle school, the only A I ever got in gym was in the dance unit, and you're damn right I could dance, because my grandmother wasn't helping to raise some idle hands-in-his-pockets drone, no sirreee.
In high school, with my then-girlfriend, Sodium Hydroxide, we went slam-dancing to a selection of terrible local punk bands at the old Loft on Eutaw Street in Baltimore, and I did not enjoy it.
"What's your problem, pussy?" she said as I slipped out of the mass of abuse, and this is how she ended many sentences to me in what was, like, a totally punk-ass last grasp on heterosexuality.
"There's no craft in this, Sode," I said, and rubbed at my jaw where some brutish lout clocked me hard with a bony shoulder.
"Craft?" she snorted, and then used a finger to blow snot out of the other nostril. Lovely. "Why do you gotta be such a fag? Hey—look," she added, in a bloody nonsequitur, showing me where she'd carved my name into her calf with a razor blade and rubbed ballpoint ink in it to make a wretched tattoo that is still just visible on her leg, thirty-one years later. Extra lovely.
And on the dance floor where the finery came out, and where all sorts of people mixed together in the heady haze of sweat and Drakkar Noir and parachute pants, I was free and alive and could legitimately throw my hands in the air because, at least for the moment, I actually did not care. It was the eighties, and everything sucked, and you needed not to care. My favorite bar dwindled around me as a whole generation died off, and those of us left still took the stage when "Nasty" came on, because that was my fucking jam, dude. I danced for money, working as a stripper in a bar that was roughly where home plate is now in the Nationals' stadium, danced into a relationship, danced through the rough parts, danced on my own, danced through failures and successes and through death and frustration and despair, and I still do.
Strange, how potent cheap music is, said Noël Coward, and he got it.
It's a thing of tastes, I suppose, but I never understand the idea of just hating a music. Indifference is one thing, and there is plenty of mediocrity to be indifferent about, but to hate a whole genre of music seems a lot like hating a whole kind of person, and as the disco sucks movement showed, it wasn't enough to just not listen to something—it was a thing that had to be destroyed, and a thing that was outside the mainstream, so it's not entirely unfair to wonder why people hated it so much. There was a lot of terrible, cash-in disco, particularly in the later years, but if Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonight" or the entire output of Ratt or Foghat didn't earn a Rock Sucks! movement, it does make one scratch one's head.
And after all these years, disco still moves, which isn't bad for a music that sucks.
posted by sonascope at 11:37 AM on January 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
You can dance with people or on your own, in the dark, or through the dark, and it's my drug of choice.
I grew up in the heart of Heavy Metal Parking Lot territory (literally, in fact, because the Capital Centre was the very same place where my then-girlfriend Lurleen and I went to see Prince on the Purple Rain tour in November, 1984, and where my decision to throw my underpants at Prince after Lurleen threw hers resulted in an unexpected and panicky ten-minute search for my pants), and central Maryland was rife with that kind of disco-sucks Napoleonic dude energy and all the sneering, contemptuous, holier-than-all-that-faggy-n!gger-shit attitude that came free with your subscription to Creem.
When I caught up with my queer, dropped out of high school, and left home for the big city (well, for the edge of DC), my roommates introduced me to the big city gay bars, and the music there was big city gay bar disco, house, and whatever was emerging from the synthesizers of those in the know, and man—what a different world it was from the uptight stormtrooper battalions of all the dudes who'd roll their eyes when something less overwrought than Tull would come on the radio. I took all the lessons in dancing your heart out that I'd learned from dancing to Soul Train on my blaxploitation film-loving Baltimore grandmother's Mediterranean-style simulated woodgrain television consolette with genuine brass decorative handles while she chain-smoked Kools and used homemade Arthur Murray footprint maps she carefully copied out of the illustrated dance instruction book You, Too, Can Boogie!
Her second husband, a retired mailman with more working class attitudes didn't not approve, but she would still call me down into that paneled rowhouse basement where all the furniture was reupholstered in nylon leopard fur when Soul Train was on channel 45. In all of middle school, the only A I ever got in gym was in the dance unit, and you're damn right I could dance, because my grandmother wasn't helping to raise some idle hands-in-his-pockets drone, no sirreee.
In high school, with my then-girlfriend, Sodium Hydroxide, we went slam-dancing to a selection of terrible local punk bands at the old Loft on Eutaw Street in Baltimore, and I did not enjoy it.
"What's your problem, pussy?" she said as I slipped out of the mass of abuse, and this is how she ended many sentences to me in what was, like, a totally punk-ass last grasp on heterosexuality.
"There's no craft in this, Sode," I said, and rubbed at my jaw where some brutish lout clocked me hard with a bony shoulder.
"Craft?" she snorted, and then used a finger to blow snot out of the other nostril. Lovely. "Why do you gotta be such a fag? Hey—look," she added, in a bloody nonsequitur, showing me where she'd carved my name into her calf with a razor blade and rubbed ballpoint ink in it to make a wretched tattoo that is still just visible on her leg, thirty-one years later. Extra lovely.
And on the dance floor where the finery came out, and where all sorts of people mixed together in the heady haze of sweat and Drakkar Noir and parachute pants, I was free and alive and could legitimately throw my hands in the air because, at least for the moment, I actually did not care. It was the eighties, and everything sucked, and you needed not to care. My favorite bar dwindled around me as a whole generation died off, and those of us left still took the stage when "Nasty" came on, because that was my fucking jam, dude. I danced for money, working as a stripper in a bar that was roughly where home plate is now in the Nationals' stadium, danced into a relationship, danced through the rough parts, danced on my own, danced through failures and successes and through death and frustration and despair, and I still do.
Strange, how potent cheap music is, said Noël Coward, and he got it.
It's a thing of tastes, I suppose, but I never understand the idea of just hating a music. Indifference is one thing, and there is plenty of mediocrity to be indifferent about, but to hate a whole genre of music seems a lot like hating a whole kind of person, and as the disco sucks movement showed, it wasn't enough to just not listen to something—it was a thing that had to be destroyed, and a thing that was outside the mainstream, so it's not entirely unfair to wonder why people hated it so much. There was a lot of terrible, cash-in disco, particularly in the later years, but if Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonight" or the entire output of Ratt or Foghat didn't earn a Rock Sucks! movement, it does make one scratch one's head.
And after all these years, disco still moves, which isn't bad for a music that sucks.
posted by sonascope at 11:37 AM on January 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
But go ahead and jump to all the conclusions you like about how long my hair is or how racist or homophobic I am or the sort of music I prefer.
I don't know anything about your hair or your biases or probable lack thereof, but the groupthink that was DISCO SUCKS, which you actually cite, as opposed to just pointing out that you hated it, is what gets a raised eyebrow, not you as a person. Your reaction is your own, but the overall movement was punching down a genre for daring to be something other than what was deemed accessible, and that's just...problematic (see also: jazz, blues, rock-and-roll when it was still considered "race" music, etc).
posted by sonascope at 11:45 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't know anything about your hair or your biases or probable lack thereof, but the groupthink that was DISCO SUCKS, which you actually cite, as opposed to just pointing out that you hated it, is what gets a raised eyebrow, not you as a person. Your reaction is your own, but the overall movement was punching down a genre for daring to be something other than what was deemed accessible, and that's just...problematic (see also: jazz, blues, rock-and-roll when it was still considered "race" music, etc).
posted by sonascope at 11:45 AM on January 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's a thing of tastes, I suppose
Exactly. That is the thing and the whole of the thing, at least in my case. My own musical tastes are strong and sharply defined - and my distastes equally heartfelt - but they strictly relate to music itself and nothing else.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:53 AM on January 9, 2016
Exactly. That is the thing and the whole of the thing, at least in my case. My own musical tastes are strong and sharply defined - and my distastes equally heartfelt - but they strictly relate to music itself and nothing else.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:53 AM on January 9, 2016
To put it another way, I am not now nor have I ever been part of any movement, musical, anti-musical, or otherwise. Then again, putting it that way sounds needlessly McCarthyistic, so never mind.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:56 AM on January 9, 2016
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:56 AM on January 9, 2016
I don't think I'm talking about you so much as just addressing the antipathy that came up for disco that's a lot different than just everyday distaste, and it's more of a pivot point for a little open pondering. For those of us on the other sides of that disco-sucks coin, we felt bullied and singled out in a decade that would do a hell of a lot more bullying and singling out of people in the minority for having the nerve achieve visibility in the mainstream. This isn't an echo chamber as much as it's a place where we can poke around in tangents, and a little poke at where antipathy comes from isn't necessarily a bad thing.
posted by sonascope at 12:12 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sonascope at 12:12 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Don't like disco? Diana has 11 other dance channels - and several that have been taken down. When she last appeared on the blue, she had at least 850 dance videos up, but that channel is gone. All the links are dead in that post, but it is interesting in a then-vs-now look at the mefi reaction to her dance clips. It's great to see this post and to learn she is an indomitable spirit. I file this in the realm of "magnificent obsessions" and applaud her for her confidence in putting herself out there. Dance on with your bad ole funky self, Diana!
posted by madamjujujive at 12:23 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by madamjujujive at 12:23 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
To put it another way, I am not now nor have I ever been part of any movement, musical, anti-musical, or otherwise.
I for one have no problem believing that, nor with understanding why you might bristle at implications of racism and homophobia.
If you stop to think about it however, disco fans never marketed "rock 'n roll SUCKS!" t-shirts or bumper stickers. Disco fans never held a rally in a baseball stadium to burn rock records. It appears that there wasn't a much money to be made knocking rock music in favor of disco. And why should there have been? Why would some disco fan care enough about disliking rock to have a t-shirt printed up?
On the other hand, there certainly were enough people pissed off enough about disco that you could make a fast buck catering to their tastes. Apparently some people cared enough about it to move across the country. Why? What the hell was at stake that an entire community of fans of one kind of music went that far out of their way to disparage another?
If you believe that all of those people, or even most of them, were reacting purely to the music, independent of anything else, you're ignoring a pretty big demographic elephant in the corner.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:34 PM on January 9, 2016
I for one have no problem believing that, nor with understanding why you might bristle at implications of racism and homophobia.
If you stop to think about it however, disco fans never marketed "rock 'n roll SUCKS!" t-shirts or bumper stickers. Disco fans never held a rally in a baseball stadium to burn rock records. It appears that there wasn't a much money to be made knocking rock music in favor of disco. And why should there have been? Why would some disco fan care enough about disliking rock to have a t-shirt printed up?
On the other hand, there certainly were enough people pissed off enough about disco that you could make a fast buck catering to their tastes. Apparently some people cared enough about it to move across the country. Why? What the hell was at stake that an entire community of fans of one kind of music went that far out of their way to disparage another?
If you believe that all of those people, or even most of them, were reacting purely to the music, independent of anything else, you're ignoring a pretty big demographic elephant in the corner.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:34 PM on January 9, 2016
Point taken, sonascope. I wasn't aware of how much historical/cultural baggage "disco sucks" carries; the people I was hanging out with back when disco was everywhere in the 70's just found the music itself annoying. My distaste is real, but I see I should have phrased it differently so my humor didn't miss the mark so widely.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:40 PM on January 9, 2016
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:40 PM on January 9, 2016
disco fans never marketed "rock 'n roll SUCKS!" t-shirts or bumper stickers.
I'd've bought one. :)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:42 PM on January 9, 2016
I'd've bought one. :)
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:42 PM on January 9, 2016
While I believe music tastes are highly personal and there is no real right or wrong music to enjoy, I think Disco Sucks as a broad movement was at least in part a lazy shorthand for Dancing Sucks. Mainly from white dudes who were uncomfortable with the idea of dancing, and rather than try to support that position without sounding racist, sexist, or homophobic, at the conscious level they just wrote off any sort of dance music- Disco was the easy target, but if memory serves, those same guys disliked r&b, early synth-pop ala Depeche Mode, etc..
Granted some of the music does kinda suck if you sit and listen to it without dancing. The extended single format was made for DJs and dancefloors, not living rooms. So the opposite may also be somewhat true - the Disco Rocks crowd may be professing the value of dancing more than the actual music.
Then again, by 1979 a good bit of Disco did actually suck thanks to clueless big labels trying to cash in on the craze and missing the soul of the music. But all of that just accelerated it's move back into underground circles, where I think dance culture is more fun anyways.
posted by p3t3 at 5:03 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Granted some of the music does kinda suck if you sit and listen to it without dancing. The extended single format was made for DJs and dancefloors, not living rooms. So the opposite may also be somewhat true - the Disco Rocks crowd may be professing the value of dancing more than the actual music.
Then again, by 1979 a good bit of Disco did actually suck thanks to clueless big labels trying to cash in on the craze and missing the soul of the music. But all of that just accelerated it's move back into underground circles, where I think dance culture is more fun anyways.
posted by p3t3 at 5:03 PM on January 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, actually, disco was several musics and some examples of those were not my favorites. But the strains that were contemporary R&B and funk produced some fabulous sounds. Like Chic. Or Dr. Buzzard's Savannah Band. And the most sublime Shame by Evelyn Champagne King comes to mind at this very moment.
My apologies for the initial harshout, Greg_Ace, but I had an instant knee jerk reaction to an instant but very hoary knee jerk reaction. But nothing personal, y'understand.
And now, upon review, I see I am repeating what has been already well said by others.
So, now I will dab my way out of the end zone, thank you.
posted by y2karl at 12:59 AM on January 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
My apologies for the initial harshout, Greg_Ace, but I had an instant knee jerk reaction to an instant but very hoary knee jerk reaction. But nothing personal, y'understand.
And now, upon review, I see I am repeating what has been already well said by others.
So, now I will dab my way out of the end zone, thank you.
posted by y2karl at 12:59 AM on January 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Granted some of the music does kinda suck if you sit and listen to it without dancing.
I'll give you that, but it's also a bit like reading an opera's libretto or reading the manual to a car you don't own. You can separate the media from the context and it'll be ridiculous (sort of like reading the lyrics to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" without actually ever hearing the song). Dancing is the water in which the discofish lives.
I think one of the reasons rock-lovers so hated disco, aside from the sociocultural aspects that I pointed out earlier, is that they were used to a context where you either listened passively to the music on a radio, while you were cruising the streets in your Cutlass Supreme Brougham, or while you played some sort of air instrument, and unless you're really good at air bass, disco just wasn't going to work well in any of those settings. I have the same feeling sometimes when I'm listening to Steve Reich without playing eighteen air marimbas.
posted by sonascope at 5:54 AM on January 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'll give you that, but it's also a bit like reading an opera's libretto or reading the manual to a car you don't own. You can separate the media from the context and it'll be ridiculous (sort of like reading the lyrics to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" without actually ever hearing the song). Dancing is the water in which the discofish lives.
I think one of the reasons rock-lovers so hated disco, aside from the sociocultural aspects that I pointed out earlier, is that they were used to a context where you either listened passively to the music on a radio, while you were cruising the streets in your Cutlass Supreme Brougham, or while you played some sort of air instrument, and unless you're really good at air bass, disco just wasn't going to work well in any of those settings. I have the same feeling sometimes when I'm listening to Steve Reich without playing eighteen air marimbas.
posted by sonascope at 5:54 AM on January 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Cutlass Supreme Brougham
My loathing of ugly square 70's-era land barges is equally visceral, but belongs in another thread....
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:48 PM on January 10, 2016
My loathing of ugly square 70's-era land barges is equally visceral, but belongs in another thread....
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:48 PM on January 10, 2016
The disco-sucks movement, aside from being a racist anti-fag hatebomb, just foisted a decade of shitty, shitty hair metal and the misery of middle-of-the-road "rock" on the mainstream for the bulk of the Reagan Memorial AIDS Epidemic™, so give me a chance to dance, dance, dance over stomping around impotently clenching my manly rock-and-roll fists in flannel in a repressed suburban rage any day.
posted by sonascope at 7:03 AM on January 9
In my neck of the woods, the Disco Sucks movement had nothing to do with racism or bigotry of any kind. It was simply about the fact that, well, disco sucked. It was soulless, mind numbing, repetitive filler noise, with no passion or depth. If someone really thinks "I'm Your Boogie Man" can in any way compete with Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke, Hall and Oates' Rich Girl, Manfred Mann's Earth Band's Blinded by the Light, Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, Heart's Barracuda, Bob Seger's Night Moves, Burton Cumming's Stand Tall, Boz Skaggs' Lido Shuffle, Queen's Somebody to Love, Aerosmith's Walk this Way, or even Barry Manilow's Weekend in New England, all of which were released the same year, in terms of passion and depth, I will have to fight you to the death. And if this or this, or this, or even this (One of which is the hair metal of which you speak, and the others which were all released in 1977, the same year as I'm Your Boogie Man) doesn't grab you in the crotch and make you feel something visceral, something raw, something *real*, then man, I don't know what to tell you.
(I will, however, grant you that Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive has some passion and depth. The exception that proves the rule.)
posted by MexicanYenta at 4:11 PM on January 10, 2016
Greg_Ace: “I wasn't aware of how much historical/cultural baggage 'disco sucks' carries; the people I was hanging out with back when disco was everywhere in the 70's just found the music itself annoying. My distaste is real, but I see I should have phrased it differently so my humor didn't miss the mark so widely.”
This is actually an interesting thing. I'll admit that I was pretty virulently anti-disco when I was young, and I thought that my own well-calculated loathing was rather unique, as many young men do. I was looking through my effects from high school a few years ago and noticed in some things I'd written that I went out of my way to write some stuff about how it was mechanical, computerized, not "human" because it wasn't "organic," etc etc etc. I was a punker then. Phew. Over time, my tastes broadened, but I still accepted the received wisdom that disco was terrible.
One thing that's come to change my mind about that was the discovery that our historical narrative surrounding disco is actually woefully incorrect. You talk about "back when disco was everywhere in the 70's" – but as with many things, the (actually very brief) popularity of disco was just a fleeting moment at the tail end of a whole interesting and vibrant movement. Disco was the end and goal of Soul music in the 1970's, but it was also stranger and more open than Soul was, less traditional and more welcoming of all the oddballs, all the misfits, all those who had nowhere else to go. Disco floors were havens for those who were gay, black, brown, transgender, and anything else that didn't fit in neatly. You have to understand that the "disco sucks" movement sonascope is talking about took aim at disco specifically for this reason: because it was "trashy," meaning of uncertain sexual, gender, and racial orientation, fluid in all things and open and happy to be so. Rock music thrives on busting up inhibitions, on the creative use of the tensions between sexual expression and social propriety; but in disco there are no such inhibitions and tensions. A whole lot of people didn't like the fact that gay people, black people, brown people, all people were welcome in disco, and were allowed free expression; that included plenty of the then-mainstream rock folks, unfortunately. And disco's legacy was long and important; it faded into obscurity almost immediately, but it quietly birthed whole genres of music, most particularly house music, which was also a haven for the misfits.
So whether you like disco or not personally, as music itself, I think you have to give it the credit it deserves, and see that, historically, it was damned important. sonascope does a much better job than I can of contextualizing this: it's a music that played a very important role, and that was largely hated by people who didn't like it playing that role.
And, all else aside, it's hard to deny that this is amazing. How can anyone not want to dance to Tina Charles?
posted by koeselitz at 9:47 AM on January 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
This is actually an interesting thing. I'll admit that I was pretty virulently anti-disco when I was young, and I thought that my own well-calculated loathing was rather unique, as many young men do. I was looking through my effects from high school a few years ago and noticed in some things I'd written that I went out of my way to write some stuff about how it was mechanical, computerized, not "human" because it wasn't "organic," etc etc etc. I was a punker then. Phew. Over time, my tastes broadened, but I still accepted the received wisdom that disco was terrible.
One thing that's come to change my mind about that was the discovery that our historical narrative surrounding disco is actually woefully incorrect. You talk about "back when disco was everywhere in the 70's" – but as with many things, the (actually very brief) popularity of disco was just a fleeting moment at the tail end of a whole interesting and vibrant movement. Disco was the end and goal of Soul music in the 1970's, but it was also stranger and more open than Soul was, less traditional and more welcoming of all the oddballs, all the misfits, all those who had nowhere else to go. Disco floors were havens for those who were gay, black, brown, transgender, and anything else that didn't fit in neatly. You have to understand that the "disco sucks" movement sonascope is talking about took aim at disco specifically for this reason: because it was "trashy," meaning of uncertain sexual, gender, and racial orientation, fluid in all things and open and happy to be so. Rock music thrives on busting up inhibitions, on the creative use of the tensions between sexual expression and social propriety; but in disco there are no such inhibitions and tensions. A whole lot of people didn't like the fact that gay people, black people, brown people, all people were welcome in disco, and were allowed free expression; that included plenty of the then-mainstream rock folks, unfortunately. And disco's legacy was long and important; it faded into obscurity almost immediately, but it quietly birthed whole genres of music, most particularly house music, which was also a haven for the misfits.
So whether you like disco or not personally, as music itself, I think you have to give it the credit it deserves, and see that, historically, it was damned important. sonascope does a much better job than I can of contextualizing this: it's a music that played a very important role, and that was largely hated by people who didn't like it playing that role.
And, all else aside, it's hard to deny that this is amazing. How can anyone not want to dance to Tina Charles?
posted by koeselitz at 9:47 AM on January 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
MexicanYenta: “If someone really thinks 'I'm Your Boogie Man' can in any way compete with... Manfred Mann's Earth Band's Blinded by the Light... or even Barry Manilow's Weekend in New England...”
*boggles*
posted by koeselitz at 9:49 AM on January 11, 2016
*boggles*
posted by koeselitz at 9:49 AM on January 11, 2016
MexicanYenta: “(I will, however, grant you that Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive has some passion and depth. The exception that proves the rule.)”
If Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is the only good disco music you can name, you haven't heard much of it. And I'm guessing you haven't spent a lot of time trying to get to know it, right? You're just another of the people who was there when Saturday Night Fever and the Brothers Gibb got popular and rolled your eyes? Maybe go listen to the Horse Meat Disco collections of vintage disco for a while – they're all on Spotify, and there's some amazing stuff on there.
The thing about disco is that it's actually rather amorphous; it's the music that was played on the floor and an attendant style, so people who didn't regard themselves as disco are part of the whole deal. You mention Stevie Wonder; he was very much a part of the disco movement, even if you don't want him to be. Disco musicians pioneered electronic music, and disco DJs were the first DJs to play with the music they were playing, to toy with it and re-produce and re-mix it. Walter Gibbons sat in his rented studio apartment above a disco and cut reel-to-reel tapes with razor blades to build amazing mixes like this, which is such an amazing and beautiful piece of music that I could listen to it over and over again all day and sometimes have. Giorgio Moroder made more extensive use of synthesizers and electronic production than anybody ever had before. Some of the greatest guitarists in the world were involved in disco music. And disco – the music and the world it inhabited – led directly to house music. (Although I'm guessing you don't much like house music, either.) Hell, the Talking Heads were basically making disco music during the best album of their career, playing off of its legacy and its raw sound.
I mean – I understand not liking some of the stuff that was thrust upon you. But not liking KC & the Sunshine Band? Do you feel conflicted about liking funk, which is basically just disco slowed down? Or do you just hate that, too?
I will say this: yeah, "I'm Your Boogie Man" is better than all the songs you mentioned. It just is. It's more artful, there's much more musicianship, particularly if we're talking about freaking Fleetwood Mac, the poster children for maudlin milquetoasts with no talent whatsoever. But that's getting into negativity, and I should try to avoid that.
So I guess you don't like my music – which is okay, but you're the one missing out.
posted by koeselitz at 10:34 AM on January 11, 2016
If Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is the only good disco music you can name, you haven't heard much of it. And I'm guessing you haven't spent a lot of time trying to get to know it, right? You're just another of the people who was there when Saturday Night Fever and the Brothers Gibb got popular and rolled your eyes? Maybe go listen to the Horse Meat Disco collections of vintage disco for a while – they're all on Spotify, and there's some amazing stuff on there.
The thing about disco is that it's actually rather amorphous; it's the music that was played on the floor and an attendant style, so people who didn't regard themselves as disco are part of the whole deal. You mention Stevie Wonder; he was very much a part of the disco movement, even if you don't want him to be. Disco musicians pioneered electronic music, and disco DJs were the first DJs to play with the music they were playing, to toy with it and re-produce and re-mix it. Walter Gibbons sat in his rented studio apartment above a disco and cut reel-to-reel tapes with razor blades to build amazing mixes like this, which is such an amazing and beautiful piece of music that I could listen to it over and over again all day and sometimes have. Giorgio Moroder made more extensive use of synthesizers and electronic production than anybody ever had before. Some of the greatest guitarists in the world were involved in disco music. And disco – the music and the world it inhabited – led directly to house music. (Although I'm guessing you don't much like house music, either.) Hell, the Talking Heads were basically making disco music during the best album of their career, playing off of its legacy and its raw sound.
I mean – I understand not liking some of the stuff that was thrust upon you. But not liking KC & the Sunshine Band? Do you feel conflicted about liking funk, which is basically just disco slowed down? Or do you just hate that, too?
I will say this: yeah, "I'm Your Boogie Man" is better than all the songs you mentioned. It just is. It's more artful, there's much more musicianship, particularly if we're talking about freaking Fleetwood Mac, the poster children for maudlin milquetoasts with no talent whatsoever. But that's getting into negativity, and I should try to avoid that.
So I guess you don't like my music – which is okay, but you're the one missing out.
posted by koeselitz at 10:34 AM on January 11, 2016
I suppose the "Disco Sucks" sentiment is still alive and well after seeing the baffling news that The Martian was awarded the Golden Globe for best comedy!? Not only was this not a comedy, but of the few jokes, the only real recurring one was Matt Damon the bro-stronaut bitching about having to listen to his female boss' disco music.
posted by p3t3 at 4:58 AM on January 12, 2016
posted by p3t3 at 4:58 AM on January 12, 2016
Upon reflection, besides being as boggled as Koeselitz by MexicanYenta's diatribe, I must note thatbone of the more listenable tunes in her list of better-than-disco rock songs -- and please, Bob Seger ? Oh, God, just shoot me, already -- Lido Shuffle by one Boz Scaggs, was a choice which I found richly ironic, considering that his hit Lowdown from the same Silk Degrees album was an enormous hit on disco floors and R&B charts.
In fact, after some soul stations started playing Lowdown in 1976, it shot up to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Boz Scaggs became the first artist to win the R&B Grammy.
S'funny, later on, the producers of Saturday Night Fever tried to buy the rights for the song to use in their movie but Scaggs's manager decided that Diane Keaton's bomb Looking For Mr. Goodbar was the safer bet, thereby inflicting Brothers Gibb upon our collective ears until the last ding dong of history...
Now, there's an argument for inventing a time machine right there, just to head him off from making one of the Yugest managerial mistakes evar.
posted by y2karl at 12:17 AM on January 24, 2016
In fact, after some soul stations started playing Lowdown in 1976, it shot up to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Boz Scaggs became the first artist to win the R&B Grammy.
S'funny, later on, the producers of Saturday Night Fever tried to buy the rights for the song to use in their movie but Scaggs's manager decided that Diane Keaton's bomb Looking For Mr. Goodbar was the safer bet, thereby inflicting Brothers Gibb upon our collective ears until the last ding dong of history...
Now, there's an argument for inventing a time machine right there, just to head him off from making one of the Yugest managerial mistakes evar.
posted by y2karl at 12:17 AM on January 24, 2016
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