disco as a white cultural phenomenon and bastardization of the Black dance music of the period is kinda wack, but there were good performers among the many shitty ones
I prefer funk to disco for that reason but I still don't get why disco got such a bad rap.
because it's not great music, and it's more like the 1970s equivalent of rockabilly... which, i guess, whatever floats your boat
Totally disagree with this lazy take. Just because white people enjoyed the music doesn’t mean they bastardized it. Yeah capitalism tries to make most music shit, but disco actually united groups and tropes like this one were used to take it down.
This is the same energy as criticizing BLM protesters for having too many white people.
yes, from the start, disco was a late-coming commercialized and watered down version of funk & soul/r&b & electronic music which for a period each of these genres in the early 1970s actually did have real subaltern value & countercultural richness. But then disco became this white urban lifestyle identifier. Donna Summer may have had some of the hugest hits, but it was fucking John Travolta and the Bee Gees who ended up embodying the Zeitgeist.
Hell, even the lead singer of Village People tried to say afterward that he was never gay & never liked the way his music was cherished in these communities.
And I am no outright fan of Frank Zappa, I think a lot of his music is unbearable, but the guy had a lot of interesting things to say. And I agree with F. Z. that the genre was always prepackaged in this anodyne & overly palatable way.
"Disco music makes it possible to have disco entertainment centers. Disco entertainment centers make it possible for mellow, laid-back, boring kinds of people to meet each other and reproduce. People who think of themselves as young moderns, upwardly mobile, go for the fusion or disco – that slick, cleaned-up, precise, mechanical kind of music. And they tend to dislike everything else because it doesn't have its hair combed. Three-chord fuzztone music is not exactly the kind of thing that you'd expect a young executive to be interested in. He wants something that sounds like it might be really good to listen to riding around in a Maserati. So ultimately, that cheapens the music and whatever the musicians have done. ... But like I said, it's a good thing that all that music is there for all those people. Because without it, their lifestyle would lack something"
I know it's contradictory when the mfer built his shitty "rocker" career &lifestyle around rocker entertainment centers & young moderns in the 1960s, but at least he takes the time to seethe about not being famous anymore.
BLM and disco could not be further from the same thing lol, you made that comparison, not me.
Yes their were white people in the space. If you enjoy the genre you’re not listening to a lot of white artists. Any genre black people created white people then bit off it and continue you to do so. There’s a fair critique to be made about cultural appropriation in disco, but that doesn’t define it as a genre. Especially considering disco was the birthplace of hip hop.
It’s music that makes you dance. So the fact it appealed to discotheques, places where people could dance is the whole point. You can call any genre watered down from jazz. And because it’s easy to dance to and makes you feel good it’s easy to commercialize. Not the most surprising thing. That also doesn’t take away it’s counterculture voice.
If instead of “watered down” you framed it as “blends” you start to realize the genius simplicity of the art form. The aesthetic alone is one of the coolest to date. Using a lot 60s psychedelia with more flat designs of the 70s. Bright colors, nature, peace and love. Dance, sing, and enjoy life.
Disco entertainment centers make it possible for mellow, laid-back, boring kinds of people to meet each other and reproduce.
Just a trash take on a whole genre of music that made people less boring and feel more free to be themselves.
BLM and disco could not be further from the same thing lol, you made that comparison, not me
Not a comparison. Similar energy of saying because white people are in the space it’s not lead by black people.
Yeah, the roots of disco are all actually firmly planted and rich organic musical traditions, but disco itself is trash... sorry
I didn't say that disco sucked because of white people, I said that disco was the way that comfortable normie Yuppie white people approached Black musical & popular culture... it's not even a "blend", it's just uninspired tripe
There were always gay clubs & dance halls & roller rinks that played these funk tracks & encouraged a form of DJing that was always evolving, but that's not really what disco became in the Saturday Night Fever craze. That's why Black artists had to reclaim and revive their own more organic forms of expression with hip hop & breakbeat and other sorts of musical traditions outside of mayo Yuppie leisure suits & Studio 54 spotlight. ABBA was okay, I didn't say the music was bad because it's somewhat dance-able, I said it was bad because it's not making funk music any better, it's just making rock music worse.
You know that Studio 54 was the elitist & exclusive representation of 1970s Disco debauchery and decadence and class disparity, right? You seem to like the aesthetic, but it sounds more like you just want to be accepted in the cultural milieu
Hahaha yeah that’s it. I want to be accepted by a cultural milieu from a genre that most people don’t look back on fondly.
Gatekeeping music is highly irritating. I don’t really care if you don’t like it. Just don’t claim it’s because you have some superior understanding of the music or culture. Yuppies liked it therefor I can’t. Imagine approaching your life like that. Hella weird.
You sound like the white moms who complain about their kids listening to hip hop because they’re talking about violence. Except it’s rich white people also listened to disco so now the artist who made the music are bad.
When we’re talking about disco in 2020 it has so many branches like most genres of music. Contemporarily you would be cutting out future funk, French house. Disco House and most vaporwave genres (including labourwave). Disco continues to influence all of them and in quite a significant way.
The only reason it died is because of racism. Burning the disco records (which were actually any record from a black artist) the constant barrage of the Disco Sucks campaigns, calling into radio stations to complain about disco music was lead by young white men to continued the long American tradition of finding any way to hate black people.
I love that disco is making a come back. It never should have left.