Friday, May 15, 2015

The Murder of Disco


Muhammad Rasheed - So, let me get this straight…

At a certain point, the new music genre known as “Disco” became very popular, and a segment of the population got upset over it because they preferred a different genre of music. This group decided among themselves to kill the Disco craze, and got the radio DJs around the country to stop playing anymore songs under a “Disco is Dead” movement, and this is why Disco is mentioned with scorn in general society like its some pariah of pop music. Is this accurate?

And who the fuck were these people who subjectively decided they didn’t like disco so no one else was going to like it either? Rock & Roll fans that were afraid the popularity of Disco was going to supplant their favorite genre forever. How fucking retarded was this stupid shit? This is America. Popular trends come and go all the time, and never stay super-popular forever. Yo-yos, hoola-hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle Me Elmo, break dancing, etc. They burn bright for a minute and then level off into a niche market where the specific sub-groups that enjoy them may continue to do so without annoying everyone else with it. Which includes Rock & Roll. All except for Disco because some assholes got together and decided to “kill” it because THEY didn’t like it. “Oh noooz!! Disco’s coming to steal our Rock & Roll from us!”

Motherfuckers are always fucking something up based on some imaginary bullshit they pulled out of their ass. “Oh noooz!!! We can’t let THEM vote! It’ll ruin EVERYTHING!”

How about sit the fuck down somewhere???

"That's not true! Disco had to go because it sucked!"

Really? So every single Rock & Roll song EVER was a platinum-worthy event? Get the fuck out of here with your stupid bullshit. Who the fuck asked you??? Stay over THERE and enjoy YOUR shit, asshole!

Muhammad Rasheed - GUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Muhammad Rasheed - *end rant*

Jerry Lee Brice - Good points all the way around!

Danny Bronson - *dang*

Muhammad Rasheed - lol I saw the history of Disco on that Unsung show and it made me mad as hell. 

i hate people.

Lionell D. Parish - Great rant...

Bill O'Neal - As a guy who was in high school in the 1970s in rural Indiana, **I** and all my friends subscribed to the notion that "Disco Sucked."

Let me give you some perspective...  :D

There was a station in Chicago, I kid you not, that played Staying Alive as the only song 24/7 for some ungodly amount of time. Weeks. It might have been, like, a whole damn summer. The notion from the DJs was that people *had* to get tired of it if they played it 24/7... but people *still* kept calling in to request Staying Alive. n't.

Saturday Night Fever was a freakin phenomenon. Every song from that movie by the BeeGees was played to excess. Over and over and over and over.

That station in Chicago that played Staying Alive 24/7 for awhile... they would announce the song, "And here is the Bee Gee's with Staying Alive!"... right after playing Staying Alive. It was a joke... and one the listeners at the time helped to perpetuate.

So 1) we got Disco being PLAYED TO DEATH at the time it came out. The BeeGees were more unavoidable than people's parents!

And 2) There is a certain segment of the population that are going to reject the most popular stuff JUST because it's popular. "If that many people like it, it's gotta be shit." And that's generally a faulty attitude but maybe not necessarily an *unhealthy* attitude.

Throw in 3) your purists. Rock and Rollers, yes, definitely do exhibit a kind of arrogance. Me and my same group of white boy friends pretty much rejected RAP when it came along too... with some of the same reasoning as we did about Disco.

But we *could* point to 30+ years of great stupendous rock and rolls artists... whereas the Disco people had basically the BeeGees and the rap people (initially) had freakin Vanilla Ice!

So there were a *lot* of reasons to truly despise Disco at the time.

Thankfully, the older I get, the more open minded I get. I *do* enjoy rap. And yes, I do enjoy the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

But disco? Seriously, dude? Disco is DEAD.

LOL

Sorry. It's reflexive.

Recent studies seem to suggest that most people stop listening to new music in their 30s... which I personally find a bit odd since my radio station is tuned to Top 40 constantly (and I'm in my 50s).

But Disco?

I haven't heard of this "Unsung" show and I'm kinda glad about that. I haven't seen anyone get *this* worked up about Disco since 1989.

Just sayin. tongue emoticon

Muhammad Rasheed - I'm actually not "worked up about Disco," I'm worked up over some people who decide they don't like something so they are going to take it away from everybody else.

That is UNACCEPTABLE & idiotic; I don't give a fuck what the product is.

Muhammad Rasheed - Your perspective is what they already showcased on the show when they showed the genre's history.

EVERYTHING that is super-popular is over-played to excess until it finally levels off. Who doesn't know that?

Muhammad Rasheed - "OH NOOOZZZ!!! Now we're only going to get to listen to The BeeGees until the end of time! We have to save music itself for all of humanity!!"

Muhammad Rasheed - stupid. as. fuck.

Muhammad Rasheed - Wait...

...did you just say rap "initially" had Vanilla Ice???

Bill, get outta my thread!!!!!   >:(

Bill O'Neal - Muhammad, "Your perspective is what they already showcased on the show when they showed the genre's history."

Doesn't sound like it at all to me, dude, because my perspective doesn't include and *never* included the notion that just because I don't like it, it shouldn't be *available.*

I'm a free speech guy to my CORE.

With all due respect, sir, I personally don't know of *anyone* who thinks like you ascribe... not even my old school rock purist friends who haven't moved beyond Led Zepplin. (barf) I know people who think, yes, "Disco Sucks" and won't ever listen to it... but wouldn't give one wit if someone else did.

Kinda the same way with opera.

I *loathe* opera with a passion, frankly, and have *never* acquired a taste for it but I don't give a crap if someone listens to opera or broadcasts it (on a channel I simply won't tune to.)

To each, his own.

And honestly... no matter **how** many dimwitted rockers may want to wipe Disco off the face of the planet... they can't. It's impossibility.

Who has the *capability* to erase the BeeGee's music from existence?

I *get* that people shouldn't be like, "I hate it so it shouldn't exist" but I question how many people *truly* think that way. Any chance maybe that people on that show could be purposely attempting to be outrageous? I've never seen it so I don't know.

I just find this, frankly, *very* weird. The notion "Disco is Dead" is silliness to me. It makes me smile. We BELIEVED it at the time but here we are decades later and it's obviously immortal, like all music.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bill O'Neal wrote: "Doesn't sound like it at all to me, dude..."

My status is my opinion rant about the episode, not the episode itself. The episode was a documentary of the history of the short Disco Era (i sure wish they had a chance to develop 30 years worth of artists, too), and it explained how those "Disco is Dead" folk felt about it which is 100% reflected in your perspective narrative above. In every way.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bill O'Neal wrote: "Any chance maybe that people on that show could be purposely attempting to be outrageous?"

Look at this: Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago 1979

Muhammad Rasheed - This functioned as the "Disco is Dead" ritual, and the countries' DJ's agreed to "kill it."

Muhammad Rasheed - Since you haven't seen the Unsung documentary, perhaps you should hold back an opinion of it regarding what is or isn't in it?

Bill O'Neal "Since you haven't seen the documentary, perhaps you should hold back an opinion of it?"

I do. And I have. I simply questioned the notion that there are people who not only hate disco, they seek to deny it to others (and are so moronic they think that's even possible.) I *asked* if that particular notion was possibly exaggerated because I know *nothing* about this show in question.

I watched the above Disco Demolition YouTube video at Comiskey. It made me laugh. Repeatedly. Thank you.

So now I'll explain my comments so you understand (maybe) my amusement.

1st and Foremost: my best fiend who I have known since High School is a rabid baseball fan. He's a Cubs fan, no less. (I pity him.) He thinks that going to a baseball field is, literally, like going to some kind of American cathedral.

I, on the other hand, find baseball less interesting than crocheted bunnies. I'd rather watch two worms f**k. Having to sit through a baseball game to ME is a kind of torture... one I endured repeatedly growing up because my only brother loved also sports, the total opposite of me.

Sometimes he'd get drug to the museums I liked. Sometimes I'd get drug to a friggin baseball game.

I once missed seeing a triple play at Riverfront stadium because I was reading a Stephen King book. And even though I know intellectually how rare those things are... I have *no* regrets. BoringX3 is still boring.

So in that YouTube video when I hear the announcers talking about how this Disco disruption was "sad" and a "disgrace"... I'm highly amused.

"I think I saw two people having sex behind third base!"

FINALLY a baseball game that has interest for me!

In all, every bit of the commentary from that time sounded like the same commentary old folks did about Woodstock or even KISS concerts. (The late 70s was the age of not just rock but GLAMOR rock. Destruction happened on stages across America. I personally saw Freddy Mercury trash the entire stage because a flash pot failed to go off during a finale. And I saw KISS destroy guitars left and right from, like, literally 1977-1984.)

Old people just don't understand. LOL

As for the rest of it... first of all... Good Lord, dude, this was 1979!!!!!!

That was the year I graduated high school. Do you realize that every single person who took part in storming the field that day are now certifiable public accounts, car dealers, cops, computer programmers, or actually working now at Comiskey field and haven't done anything remotely like that since... well, since 1979?

(Since Disco isn't being broadcast excessively 24/7 and *hasn't* been in 30 years, attitudes have cooled a bit and the record bombings have all but stopped.)

What do you think this actually SAYS about those people back then?

And do you honestly think it says ANYTHING about them NOW-- 30+ years later????

*I* could have been at that baseball game... if I had been able to stay focused on the DISCO SUCKS message and forget I was actually going to a, you know... baseball stadium.

Would I be proud at the age of Fifty-freaking- five that at the age of 18 we got carried away and created a little property damage? Nope. Wouldn't be *proud* of it but would also know that it ONLY HAPPENED THAT ONCE.

("I plead temporary insanity, Your Honor. YOU listen to Staying Alive for the 400,000 time and tell me *you* haven't gone a little mad!")

And please please do *not* discount the very real fact that everyone who ran onto that field knew that it was being broadcast on TV. This at at time when we had only THREE TV STATIONS. (No Reality TV. No CHANCE of being an American Idol. Chances to appear on national TV were actually honestly *rare*.)

Teenagers could say to teenagers, "Did you see me on TV last night? Yeah. Disco sucks."

There is NO VICTIM here, my friend.

None.

What happened during the few events like this one where BeeGee records were blown up as a public stunt (staged, usually, by radio stations)? What happened was rockers who'd NEVER buy Disco albums bought Disco albums to destroy them!

Getting people who'd never buy disco records to buy lots of disco records... that's both insidious (kidding) and genius .

It's easy to look back at a time that you weren't a part of---not *fully* understand the *silliness* of the time and get outraged about silliness, thinking it's actually serious.

You wrote... "EVERYTHING that is super-popular is over-played to excess until it finally levels off. Who doesn't know that?"

What you do *not* have an appreciation for is that notion of "leveling off." For decades, rock songs appeared on the charts, rose, hit the top, stayed there a while, and disappeared. That had happened, literally, since the birth of rock in the 1950s. Then in the late 70s, along comes the BeeGees stuff on Saturday Night Fever. Beyond being #1 for something like 32 weeks, they stayed on the radio/charts for a couple YEARS. No level of saturation had *ever* been like that theretofore and that saturation (again: more inescapable than grandma) lead to events like Comisky above.

If people were 1) acting like this still today and you had a video that *wasn't* 30+ years old, perhaps I might not be so amused... and if it were true that ANYWHERE you could back up the notion that people advocate that disco be *unavailable* to those who want it... I'd see harm and real cause for outrage.

But seriously... even in the "ripping the field apart" video above that includes sex behind third base... NO ONE in that video said Disco should be wiped off the face of the earth. That's just a bunch of extremely young (probably drunk) kids bonded together by a mutual hatred of particular type of art who are acting out big time because they know it's their 15 minutes of fame. ("Hey, ma! I'm on TV!")

Nothing Orwellian to see here, dude.

And again: even if people *are* saying Disco shouldn't be available to those who want it (which I've yet to see any evidence of).... if they say that, they are FOOLS. The Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, as of something like 2010, was in the top 10 grossing albums of All Time.

Finally, if you happen to be someone like my best friend love baseball... please don't kill this blasphemer.

Disco just sucks. It's OPERA that should be utterly unavailable to the masses. wink emoticon

Muhammad Rasheed - You said a LOT of stuff in this post that directly contradicts the actual history of that genre.

In the Age of Radio, the new genre was actively demonized and killed off by the special interest group that actually had the power to do so: Radio DJs. There were only so many areas where we listened to music in those days, and if radio air play was being picketed by a major force in music during the time... who actually represented one of the faces of popular media, with the inherent indoctrination powers that come with that, it explains why people always blush and act sheepish whenever they casually admit to enjoying disco.

Muhammad Rasheed - The Disco craze was also just on the other side of its peak, just starting to come down at that point of over-saturation when it would drop off naturally. The active social movement attack against it worked as a death blow during that time of vulnerability. There was nothing wrong with Disco; just like every other art genre it also had the high art super star stuff at the top, a bunch of mediocre journeyman stuff, and the genuine crap at the bottom, crapped out just to make a buck off the craze. Of course the insane critics seized upon the latter to represent the whole.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bill O'Neal wrote: "For decades, rock songs appeared on the charts, rose, hit the top, stayed there a while, and disappeared. That had happened, literally, since the birth of rock in the 1950s."

It also had a chance to evolve as an art form over that time, as new artist/innovators brought along new sounds that represented mini-eras along Rock's history. Disco was sabotaged before it had a chance to do the same.

No comments:

Post a Comment