CinisterCee said:

!

thesexofit said:

Bro, either it WAS or it WASN'T in existence and in fact it WAS in existence. Nothing pedantic about that, just a simple Yes or No.

If I had to catergorize each song into a style it will be like this;

. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough- Dance
2. Rock With You-RnB
3. Workin' Day And Night-Dance
4. Get On The Floor-Dance/Jazz/funk
5. Off The Wall-Dance
6. Girlfriend-Pop
7. She's Out Of My Life-Pop
8. I Can't Help It-RnB/Jazz
9. It's The Falling In Love-RnB
10. Burn This Disco Out-Dance/funk

I guess dance and disco is interchangeable, depending on how you look at it.
[Edited 5/22/06 3:21am]

Disco, now that is Donna Summer, Bee Gees, Village People, Silver Convention, KC & The Sunshine Band, Alicia Bridges, Gloria Gaynor, Salsoul etc. etc.... maybe some Barry White or Philly International if you want... but Off the Wall? won't fit in this list... if OTW is Disco then so is "The Dude"... naw, I don't eat that


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[Edited 5/22/06 3:33am]

Dancelot said:

R&B, bitch!

Cloudbuster said:

R&B ....mhhh'kay..

still it's save to say that songs like Staying Alive, Night Fever or Tragedy have just a bit of a Disco flavor to them, no? oh, and I don't use "Disco" as a negative descreption here

Dancelot said:

Stayin' Alive is R&B, Tragedy is a rock song, (oh yes it is, go listen again ) Night Fever... more pop than disco to my ears, but if any could be described as close to disco it would be that one.

it's sometimes hard to determine what is "disco" and what is regular "soul music" from that period.I have many disco compilations that include songs that are not really "disco" at all.

Very true. Disco was very similar to funk. It came from funk.

Many of the funk groups were making disco songs also such as The Barkays "Move Your Boogie Body" and The Isley Brothers "It's A Disco Night". Those two songs were disco but more on the funk side. Songs like "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" and "Workin' Day And Night" were funky but more on the disco side. Some of Michael Jackson's songs that year could be played with other jams that same year that had a fine line between funk and disco such as Mass Production's "Firecracker" and The Invisible Man's Band's "All Night Thing". They were the kind of jams that were funky as hell but you could definately hear disco in them.

Disco definately came from funk and it forever changed funk afterwards. Just look at the funk that came along in the early 1980s from 1980-1984 directly after the death of disco. It was far less jazzy sounding. A lot of people say this is because of new wave's influence, which is partially true but disco had left a huge mark on funk after it died. A lot of it was speeded up to the tempo that a lot of disco had been. Funk had become very danceable music...much more danceable than the 1970s funk before disco's impact. I definately hear funk in songs like "Workin' Day And Night". Hell, I hear funk in most all disco, not just Michael Jackson's. Disco's death and me refusing to go a completely opposite direction with rock and new wave, is what introduced me to funk in the first place. Funk was the closest sounding thing to disco. It's like it continued on. Then came house.

vainandy said:

I gotta disagree with you on that one, bro. Because Soul came before Funk and you hear more Soul music in Disco than you do Funk. Artists/Groups like:

Diana Ross - "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (1970)
Isaac Hayes - "Shaft" (1971)
Betty Wright - "Clean Up Woman" (1972)
The Three Degrees - "When Will I See You Again" (1973)
The Intruders - "I'll Always Love My Mama" (1973)
MFSB - "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" (1973), "Love is the Message" (1973)
Average White Band - "Pick Up the Pieces" (1974), "Cut the Cake" (1975)
The O'Jays - "Love Train" (1972), "For the Love of Money" (1974), "I Love Music" (1975)
KC and the Sunshine Band - "Queen of Clubs" (1974), "Get Down Tonight" (1975), "That's the Way (I Like It)" (1975)

Those are Soul records and is where Disco is truly born from, those artists aren't Funk artists, they may have incorporated Funk into their sound, but they are Soul music artists first and foremost. Those records have that disco flave that started it off.

Also, The J5 in the Late 60s-Early 70s started to define the Disco sound with I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save", "Mama's Pearl" (1969-71), so it's easy to see that MJ's "OFTW" does have a Disco sound aong with other genres of music since he (And his brothers) helped shaped the Disco sound.

"Love Hangover" is a disco song even though it's not uptempo until the second part.

CinisterCee said:

Yep!

I agree that disco came from soul first especially with artists making disco music like Thelma Houston, The O'Jays, and Diana Ross. However, with groups making disco music like Foxy, KC and the Sunshine Band, Peaches and Herb's "Shake Your Groove Thing", Kool and the Gang, etc., I hear much more funk influence. Disco even incorporated rock into some of it's songs such as Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" and Hot Chocolate's "Every 1's A Winner".

Disco may have started from soul but it eventually became a combination of many things but set to a danceable beat and tempo. Dolly Parton even made a disco song.
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[Edited 5/22/06 14:40pm]

Cloudbuster said:

It's OK to say it's disco when it is

vainandy said:

Yeah, I'm with all that, I was just countering the claim that it CAME from Funk when it didn't.

Dancelot said:

CO-SIGN!!!

VoicesCarry said:

Fuck off. If the Bee Gees are disco then so is Prince.

I've read many stories of how it came about in the clubs but I've never really read what influenced it. It sounds way more like funk to me than soul.

Whenever I think of 1970s soul, I think of mainly slow groups like The Stylistics, Blue Magic, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, etc. The emphasis seems to be more on the vocals or the way the artists sing than the actual music itself.

I do however remember a documentary on A&E a few years ago where a bunch of people were discussing the early days of disco. A lot of them were saying that James Brown type music was an influence. We all know that James Brown was funk but when people categorize him, they throw him into the soul category. When I hear disco, I hear a drum and bass driven music like funk. Yeah, soul was around first, even before funk, but I hear much more funk influence in disco than soul. Disco sounds to me like they took funk, eliminated a lot of the jazz elements in it, and modernized it.

I never have understood the term "soul" anyway because people seem to throw so many things into the genre. For instance, I've heard people say that Al Green is such a great soul singer but when I hear Al Green, I hear mainly blues. Soul is just too broad a spectrum.
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[Edited 5/23/06 7:08am]

You must have missed the whole "Saturday Night Fever" Bee Gees era. The Bee Gees were definately considered disco and there was a horrible backlash against them at the end of the 1970s.

Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover" was very much disco also. I remember when they had that big disco record burning in that baseball field. At the edge of the fire coming from the stack was the "Prince" album.

vainandy said:

Listen to disco and then listen to those 70s groups and you'll hear the string arrangements that were the early lay-down for what Disco came to be. And I always categorize JB as Soul, even he said it himself: Soul Brother #1

vainandy said:

Nope. I'm well aware of the "disco" tag that the Bee Gees were given. I just don't think they deserved to be labelled as such. It's R&B/funk and anyone with an honest ear can hear that.

Cloudbuster said:

"How Deep is Your Love" is pure Soul to me, one of my favourite songs ever. In fact my favourite part of the film is the end when John Travolta is riding on the Train after the death of his friend and "How Deep is Your Life" is playing. It's a very poignant scene.

whatsgoingon said:

How Deep Is Your Love is disco, not soul.

Apparently.

Cloudbuster said:

Well, it's sounds soulful to me, likewise "Emotions"...

whatsgoingon said:

I was taking the piss out of the "Bee Gees are disco" crowd.

I know it's soul.

Cloudbuster said:

looks like I've found a new signature

Dancelot said:

Looks like I've found a new target for my gun.

CinisterCee said:

he probably ran with a magazine in his leather jacket....did u think about that?

Just checking in to see how many are still in denial that it's disco...quite a few! Disco, and one of the best!

missfee said: