as Gloria Gaynor once said...."What were these people (at that rally) doing with disco records in the first place?"
I never understood their hatred of disco music.If you don't like something,simply don't listen to it.I despise heavy metal,so you won't find no heavy metal records in my collection.I just ignore that music. | |
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This weekend, Charleston, South Carolina's RiverDogs will attempt to capture the (Disco Demolition Night) magic again in a game against the Augusta GreenJackets. From the Los Angeles Times:
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That says it all right there. They were encouraged to bring something they already had to begin with, which means they previously liked it or they wouldn't have bought it to begin with. And if you hate something that much, you certainly don't go out and buy it for the occassion of bombing it because that will increase the sales of the object of your hate which will help it to grow even more. Which means they were encouraged hate it which leads the question open as to WHY were they encouraged to hate it. Andy is a four letter word. | |
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exactly | |
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Well, Justin Bieber is a spoiled brat little pain in the ass. . But even this is still in that mindset of "let's blow up the fag shit" because he looks very girlish. Every time he does something that makes the news, there are tons of comments on the pages after each article of how "she" looks very pretty or "who is that little girl". Hell, I make them too but not out of hate like some of the comments but more of a "who does he think he's fooling" catty kind of way when we see one of our own trying to pass for straight. But it would be like an orgasm for me to see a shit hop demolition night, not blowing up the records of the little wannabes, but blowing up the records of the hardcore criminal looking assholes out there. Andy is a four letter word. | |
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the funny thing is,disco never really went away.Records that were previously labeled as "disco songs" were simply re-named "dance music" in the early 80s.And now,in today's pop music,you see many artists trying to go for a retro-disco sound. | |
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From what I've seen, is that white racists will enjoy black entertainment as much as anyone else until it starts getting too close to home. As long as it's something strictly on TV or going on accross town somewhere in a black neighborhood, they're fine with it. But when it starts growing to the point that other white people start venturing into black neighborhoods to enjoy it, or white clubs start enjoying it and playing it enough to the extent that they will welcome black patrons in to enjoy it with them and start having an attitude such as ......"Why shouldn't I party alongside black people elbow to elbow on the dancefloor? Hell, they're the ones making this music I like so much so they can't be as bad as everyone else is making them out to be.".....then, they start having a problem with it because white people are beginning to socialize with black people and then may start seeing them as equals and then some of them may even start dating them. Studio 54 was popping up in the magazines and TV news from time to time also as having just the right mix of whites, blacks, straights, and gays all partying all night long side by side along with celebrities. Clutch the pearls, what if this should catch on nationwide? And they partied up next to those faggots too and didn't whoop their ass for being in there? Oh hell naw, we sure as hell can't let that catch on. When you've got a bunch of hate mongers out there observing all of this and it just burns their ass up to see blacks and gays possibly end up socializing with whites in a voluntary setting other than a forced one such as school or work, and add that to the fact that it was only a decade after the Civil Rights Movement and the mindset at the time was that you DO NOT mix with black people, to get someone to give up what they previously liked before is very simple. You simply call them a "nigger lover" if they don't and they will quickly give it up because nobody wanted that label back then. The four or five year time period you're talking about of disco's reign did occur and no, people didn't just wake up one day and say "I hate disco.". The ones that already hated it, sat there and brewed and brewed until they reached a boiling point. Yes, disco would have eventually died on it's own without the backlash but not abruptly as it did. But I disagree that by 1979 it was all starting to sound alike. Donna Summer was adding rock elements to her disco on songs like "Hot Stuff", Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" didn't sound like anything else, funk groups like Con Funk Shun were bringing more of a funky edge to it with songs like "Chase Me",......Hell, Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" album was like nothing else at the time. . Music is a very powerful tool and it does bring people together. Shit hop, as boring and untalented as it is, has brought much more whites and blacks together than disco ever did. Hell, I guess they share a common like for "dull" but it has definately brought more younger whites and blacks together. I saw disco first starting to do that previously but on a much smaller level though because race mingling was still considered taboo by most whites back then so not many were going to go that far and venture into it. But I definitely saw and remember a strong hate back then that white people were going to start liking black people more than just listening to them on their records. . . . [Edited 7/16/14 13:17pm] Andy is a four letter word. | |
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Y'all remember TheRealFiness that used to be on the org? I had this thread over on Facebook and he wanted me to post his reply. . . .
Andy is a four letter word. | |
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everything Vainandy writes about the 75-85 era is 100% gold , and I mean it
listen to him when he speaks about the 75-85, since he's always right, and welcome back | |
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I remember the time pretty well even though I was very young. I might have even worn a DISCO SUCKS button at one time.
I don't dispute there was a lot of racism and a lot of homophobia in those days, those views were a lot more commonly stated than today. These days people at least try to hide those views most of the time, back then it wasn't necessary.
But I don't recall the anti-disco thing being really tied to one of the other, at least not how I understood it as a 10 year old. Like I said homophobia was very mainstream but we didn't really know much about gay people. Most were still in the closet and people regarded them as like aliens from another planet. I never heard of disco being associated with gay people until the 80s at least. It was largely black music but you had KC and the Sunshine Band and people like that out there too.
Maybe some of that was simmering underneath and the grown-ups understood it better than I did. I thought it was just about music at the time. I may have been naive and totally missed it. But I think the people who think that ALL disco haters hated disco because they were racist homophobes and for no other reason, are also not quite right.
[Edited 7/16/14 14:23pm] | |
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Thank you honey. Now, where's my welcome back present? I want more than just those black underwear you showed me last time. Andy is a four letter word. | |
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Interesting subject! Pistols sounded like "Fuck off," wheras The Clash sounded like "Fuck Off, but here's why.."- Thedigitialgardener
All music is shit music and no music is real- gunsnhalen Datdonkeydick- Asherfierce Gary Hunts Album Isn't That Good- Soulalive | |
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Vainandy spoke truth, and that response probably should shut down this thread. BUT, my two duckets...
Yeah it was very racist and homophobic. Sadly during that time the so-called disco bubble burst, veteran black artists and groups who clearly were not disco also were shunned, many great albums got little to no airplay, and flopped undeservedly. Why? Black faces on the cover + Danceable Music = DISCO = HELL NO. Looking in your direction, radio program directors.
Also, I found it funny that they weren't going after Christopher Cross, who was selling like crazy, and was no where near rock. I was a kid back then, but many times I overheard blatantly horrific remarks like, "..that nigger music", and "bebop shit" from white teens.
And lets not pretend there was a lot of stellar material coming from rock artists during that time, either. Some great post-punk records, though. Lots of "disco-fied light-rock" coming through the pipes, and they ALL got a pass. Joey Scarbury, Toto, Little River Band, Pablo Cruise, Orleans, ELO, Robbie Dupree, Nicolette Larson, Rupert Holmes, and I dug those records, too. But, all white faces, who Paul Mooney would quote as "having the complexion for the protection."
Katie Kinisky: "So What Are The Latest Dances, Nell?"
Nell Carter: "Anything The Black Folks did Last Year" | |
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I don't think punk really caught on in the US, other than as an underground thing. It never became mainstream or got Top 40 play. It wasn't on American Bandstand or The Midnight Special. I've read that new wave was based on punk, but with keyboards. New wavish music like The Cars became popular. The Cars had guitars and drums though, it wasn't all synths like Human League. Other arena rock groups like Foreigner had keyboards too, unlike many of the hard rock bands. MTV coming about helped the synth pop acts. . It's interesting that disco and then the next craze Urban Cowboy had John Travolta as the face of it. John was also part of the 1950's thing popular in the 70's with Grease. TV shows like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Sha Na Na were part of this too. There was the movie American Graffiti as well. I think the 1970's is when the oldies radio format came into being, which played 1950's and early 1960's hits. In the early 1980's, there was The New Leave It To Beaver, where Beaver & Wally are grown up. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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That's sad as hell. | |
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I was 12 which is only two years older than you and I had no idea of disco's gay roots until I was an adult. I had no idea what The Village People were really singing about on "YMCA" and I think most of the adult straight world didn't know either. I watched "Soul Train", "American Bandstand", "Dance Fever" and our local Soul Train type TV show called "Black Gold" weekly and had no idea that most of the male dancers were gay. Looking back at the old episodes now, I think to myself, how the hell did I NOT know but when you're that young, you don't know much about that type of stuff so you don't really notice, nor care. I knew damn well what those damn "Solid Gold" dancers were though from very first glance. I may have not associated them with actually "gay" back then, but I could see they definitely were extremely sissified with all that damn toe pointing and leaping like ballet dancers. I never noticed it with the dancers on the other shows though because since gay people were talked about so badly and were said to be so nerdy and into things like ballet and classical music, I never dreamed that gay people could throwdown that hard on a dancefloor or even make such a hard funky genre such as disco. When I became an adult years later and found out that disco was full of gay people from the music, to the dancers, to even being started and having it's roots in the gay clubs, it made me extremely proud of the genre for shattering those old nerdy dorky stereotypes of gay people being geeky "Waldos". . I think a lot of the adults at that time had no idea of it's actual gay roots and references at the time either but could spot the "sissy" look out more than we could and could put two and two together and figure out that the gay ones were either gay or at least speculate that they were gay and back then, if it was speculated that you were gay, you were hated as much as if you actually were gay. I heard far more racist rants about disco back then than I heard gay rants because you can immediately look at someone and know if they're black but you have to kind of observe someone for a while to see if they're gay. But I also heard plenty of gay rants also and I don't think they knew the roots of disco either but just hated it because they could see a little more of the "sissy" look than we noticed and could sense it's presence. . . . [Edited 7/16/14 15:16pm] Andy is a four letter word. | |
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yes!!! it would get ugly in there and the discussion wouldn't be as healthy as here. Pistols sounded like "Fuck off," wheras The Clash sounded like "Fuck Off, but here's why.."- Thedigitialgardener
All music is shit music and no music is real- gunsnhalen Datdonkeydick- Asherfierce Gary Hunts Album Isn't That Good- Soulalive | |
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Going off what Mickey said as well... i wonder if the disco thing hurt Travolta for awhile. He had Midnight Cowboy & Staying Alive... but weren't most his movies duds in the 80s? Pistols sounded like "Fuck off," wheras The Clash sounded like "Fuck Off, but here's why.."- Thedigitialgardener
All music is shit music and no music is real- gunsnhalen Datdonkeydick- Asherfierce Gary Hunts Album Isn't That Good- Soulalive | |
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Ain't that the truth! Andy is a four letter word. | |
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You think? | |
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Regarding rock artists that jumped on the disco bandwagon, I made this playlist awhile back of top 40 songs by rock artists that also got played in dance clubs: http://prince.org/msg/8/405547 and it's interesting to see how the songs evolved from a distinct disco influence in the late 70s (The Rolling Stones, Kiss) to a stronger rock sound after the backlash in the early 80s (Survivor, Joan Jett) and then rock songs getting a remix for clubs in the mid-80s after dance music became accepted again (Bruce Springsteen, ZZ Top). | |
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I think Staying Alive flopped. After Urban Cowboy, I don't think John had another hit until Look Who's Talking, which was 1989. That was considered his comeback at the time. Urban Cowboy influenced the mechanical bull craze and line dancing. Country music started to crossover more in the late 1970's & early 1980's. Kenny Rogers Gambler movies were a big thing and rural/country based TV shows like Dukes Of Hazzard, BJ & The Bear, Barbara Mandrell & The Mandrell Sisters, Hee Haw, Carter Country, and Sherriff Lobo were hits. The Dukes became so popular that the studio made millions of dollars on merchandising and had a cartoon spin off. This probably began in the mid-1970s with Burt Reynolds movies like White Lightning, Gator, and Smokey & The Bandit which helped to popularize CB radios. Even Good Times had an episode about a CB. . Like it's been pointed out, soft rock acts like Christopher Cross & Air Supply were a big thing in the early 1980s. It was harder for R&B music to get Top 40 pop airplay after "disco" died. Some people today wonder why did Michael Jackson release The Girl Is Mine as a 1st single. It fit what was popular on pop radio in 1982. Paul McCartney was still big then too, so that helped, and Paul was considered light rock/adult contemporary. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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Being from Mississippi, I loved "Urban Cowboy" because I could relate to all that scene because it was going on all around me. The trailer parks, the country music, the rednecks fighting, the skinny, trashy trailer tramps with the halter tops and no bras, cowboy boots, and faded jeans so tight that you could see the actual crack of their cat in them, the heffers getting beat up by trashy redneck boyfriends, the heffers riding in the pickup trucks with entire passenger side of the seat empty because she's got her trashy self parked right up underneath his ass while he's driving. Just pure trash honey! Trash! I think that movie was pretty successful. I remember seeing advertisements for "Staying Alive" but I never watched it because it didn't look very appealing to me. I just remember seeing him on the advertisements with a more "buff" body and what appeared to be "leaping" like those sissy ass Solid Gold dancers so the dancing sure wouldn't appeal to me. I don't know if it was successful or not. I do remember him being in an Olivia Newton John music video in the early 1980s that appeared to be clips from some movie that they may have done together at the time. I don't know though because I never was much into movies unless they appealed to me from seeing the advertisements on TV. I don't remember hearing a lot about John Travolta after that until the 1990s. . As for Blondie, they were very diverse. I know they did rock and the disco record "Heart Of Glass", back to rock with "Call Me", then she did kind of a Carribean type tune called "The Tide Is High", then she got totally funky and did "Rapture".
Andy is a four letter word. | |
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