Is 'Miss You' by The Rolling Stones really that much of a disco sounding song? To me the song's beat has a more funky vibe going on than that of most disco songs. Plus how many disco songs feature guitars, sax and especially HARMONICA in them!
I mean compare the song to the other rock acts who were going disco during this time period like Rod Stewart's 'Do You Think Im Sexy' and the KISS song 'I Was Made For Loving You' and those two clearly have much more of a real disco vibe and can truly be classified as such, not to mention all the other disco songs that the Bee Gees were doing at the time and also the ones by artists like Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor.
When you compare all of those to 'Miss You', to my ears they just have quite a different sound to them.
I do feel that 'Miss You' has really been mislabeled since its release almost 3 decades ago.

By the way The Stones' 'Fingerprint File' was also incorrectly labeled as disco by some 4 years earlier, even though the main guitar riff was clearly funk inspired, sounding like it had come off of the soundtrack to either 'Shaft' or 'Superfly'.

Disco song

KISS did one too - "I was made for loving you baby, you were made for loving me....."

PurpleJam said:

I always question that too


But it's a jam tho'

Personally, I think it's funk at its best!!!




http://www.youtube.com/wa...F2CgvhhzwE

In the disco era,many rock artists and bands were releasing songs that could be considered disco:

"Miss You" by the Rolling Stones (1978)
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart (1979)
"Shine A Little Love" by Electric Light Orchestra (1979)
"I Was Made For Loving You" by Kiss (1979)
"Heart Of Glass" by Blondie (1979)


Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" (1979) is another example of a song that blends rock with disco.


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[Edited 12/10/06 23:52pm]

I dunno. I just know I like it.

PurpleJam said:

Probably my favourite Stones song. Although it has elements of disco (the 4/4 beat, the funky bassline) "Miss You" isn't a disco song. But you shure cxan dance to it. The extended 12" mix is the best.

it's not light-hearted enough to be disco, IMHO.

Shapeshifter said:

yup

i don't think it's disco. i think it's more funk-based, maybe even a little bit no-wave since the song came out around that time and the stones were still a little bit plugged in to what was hip back then.

PurpleJam said:

More R&B/Soul/Funk than disco.

I've never found the Bee Gees particularly easy to dance to apart from, funnily enough, You Should Be Dancing.

Cloudbuster said:

Ja-Ja-Ja-Jive Talkin' ...

Shapeshifter said:

See, right there, that's R&B/Funk.

Cloudbuster said:

Yeah, I've seldom seen the Bee Gees as a disco act. As much as I do like them, I think they just took the disco formula, slowed it down a bit, added more pop appeal to it, threw in a trio of camel toes and called it their own.

TommyRoss said:

I don't think they jumped on the disco bandwagon at all. In early 1974 they were already moving into blue-eyed soul/R&B territory on the Mr. Natural album. Disco hadn't even taken off at that point. Their contributions to Saturday Night Fever were already recorded as the follow up to their Children Of The World album, not actually tailored for the film. Spirits Having Flown is considered a "disco" album as well, but if you listen to it you'll hear, again, R&B/Soul and funk.
With pop appeal, of course.

Nah. The Stones were already doing bonafide funk a good 3 years before this was even released.

It's disco influenced, maybe, but more funky than disco.

But to seperate disco & funk wouldn't really be right. Disco is kind of a popularized, sanitized form of funk.

The Stones just happened to do something timely that wasn't such a jump on the bandwagon that it ended up sounding completely dated. They didn't break character.

blackguitaristz said:

You are certainly right about that! Fingerprint File anyone? A pretty much unkown Stones song with a GREAT sounding funk guitar riff and one of their best musical experiments ever.
You can also add 'Doo Doo Doo(Heartbreaker)' to the list. The Stones were clearly being inspired by all the funk music sounds that were going on in the early seventies?