https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/18hly2n/billy_joel_pissed_but_still_plays_in_the_rhythm/kd7d2qt/
the soviets were afraid to be caught dancing
One of the most popular music genres in the 70s and 80s USSR was disco. People will believe anything about kooky foreigners.
Especially the Italian kind. Eastern Europe is a late career safe haven for washed up or B-List italo-disco musicians like Francesco Napoli. It also applies to bands like Modern Talking.
In general, the amount of restrictions on western music "being banned" is more a case of official releases (vinyls, cassettes) of bands being hard to come by and those that did, usually did so for the fans at a loss (such as the Depeche Mode concerts in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the GDR during the 1984-1985 Some Great Reward and 1987-1988 Music for the Masses tours) due to for example eastern currencies being worthless in the west.
Western music was played in the radio in at least the GDR (recording from September 1989), (exhibit 2, from 1976) and Poland (recording from January 1985), (exhibit 2, reggae special from 1989) - I can't speak about other countries, since I can only speak German and Polish well out of all the Eastern Bloc states' languages.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
in soviet russia, the only dance you were allowed to do is that russian squat-kick dance, and the first one to stop is executed and sent to a gulag
when you turn 16 they send you to the energy gulag where you do the squat dance on a giant treadmill and that's how Russia get its energy. The "gas pipelines" are just an illusion
Reminds me of this conscripts, forced to dance by a bloodthirsty commissar, back in the 60's.
Those who survived the dance session where sent to a Gulag and never seen again.
Source: French sovietologists, probably.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I just realised that redditors are the internet equivalent of gossipy housewives. All they ever do is complain and pretend to know things about topics they really have no clue about because they don't want to admit to themselves that they're wasting their lives.
What use is building a society when we think social activities are for silly women only? (I agree with you, shittalking is normal and not a domesticated white women thing)
Little do people know, Footloose was a documentary about the USSR
Those people were all identified and sent to a gulag as they left the venue. Still think communism is cool?
whoa that's crazy
whats also crazy is that I can look up kino, a huge rock band from the USSR, and watch people dancing to their music in the USSR with lights on them
crazy
Crazy they went through such lengths to hide people dancing
here's Billy Joel's actual account, not just what's on Wikipedia
In a Weekly Wire preview of last week's Billy Joel show at KeyArena, Erika Hobart recounted a well-trod story, first reported in The New York Times, of the piano man throwing a total hissy fit onstage in the Soviet Union in 1987, overturning his instrument after bright lights flooded the auditorium, and declaring: "It's my show!" Our write-up implied that Mr. Joel was upset with audience members and had likened them to characters in an oil painting.
Well, Mr. Joel—lounging, apparently, in his hotel suite with a bowl of green-only M&M's and a fresh copy of the Weekly, as per his hospitality rider—called our editorial offices last week to contest that version of events. Seriously, he did. Here is his rejoinder, as transcribed by an awe-struck Mike Seely:
"Remember, this was the Soviet Union in 1987, and they'd never had a major rock concert before. There was a film crew filming a documentary, and they turned very bright lights on the audience. The audience was having a good time—until they turned the lights on. They froze; they turned paranoid. There was a lot of anxiety—why are we being looked at? And whenever they turned the lights on, anyone who was overreacting was being pulled out of the audience by a security guard. I wasn't yelling at the audience—I was yelling at the film crew. So I threw the piano, and that got their attention. Then they stopped lighting the audience, and everybody started rocking out. That was the reason for that action—not because they looked like an oil painting. That was something I said to a reporter after the big shots in the Communist Party, despite our best efforts, sat in the front row at one of the shows. They looked like an oil painting. The regular people in the back were rocking out. Hey, I hate the camera being on me. If you looked like me, you wouldn't want the camera on you either."
https://web.archive.org/web/20080117165213/http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-11-14/news/letters-to-the-editor.php?page=full
anyone who believes this was unusual or would only happen in soviet russia, has never been to a certified rock conert
The USSR, known for uh, criminalising people for having a good time? Being on camera having a laugh? What nonsense
Yeah, or just seems like the camera crew was killing the vibe. Also not like "Soviet bigshots" sitting in the front row not really partying is unique. Lol at any photos of Western politicians at music events and they're also always super lame.
The guy unironically forgot that in this totally real not made up situation the soviets would see the non-soviets continue to dance even when lit up and logically conclude that they have nothing to worry about. Truly what no materialism does to a mf.
Also, even supposing the "DeCaDeS Of IrOn CuRtAiN aUsTeRiTy" is true, why the heck would they freak out about a spotlight at a concert, where such a thing is expected while knowing they have done laterally nothing that could possibly get them in trouble even with whatever literally 1984 cartoonishly evil authority the libs are convinced existed in the USSR?
Bruce, it’s your cousin Mikhail, Mikhail Springsteen, you have to see this. They are “Dancing in the Dark”
Any country that's more closed off through a language barriet gets this. It's not only Communist countries. They do the same thing with Japan and Middle Eastern countries with how frequently they seem to think gay men get thrown off of buildings because of that ISIS video from like 2015.
There's some serious brain damage to clicking that link fucking hell. These are the kinds of idiots that would think The Lives Of Others had any value as a film
Also
If the Soviets danced too much, it would be evidence of the leadership's lack of ability to maintain social decorum. If the Soviets danced too little it would be evidence of a fearful populace, a country where dancing is outlawed.
The quote
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
-- Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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“TIL that Bruce Springsteen’s dancing in the dark was an ode to all of the people slaughtered for dancing under the bright lights at concerts in Soviet Russia. This was due to the KGB only allowing citizens to show their joy at certain, government-mandated times”
