• scramplunge [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 years ago

      You could say that about every single genre. Doesn’t make it historically accurate.

      • volkvulture [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        yes, it does make it historically accurate. it's the same sort of critique people give of KPOP...

        whether or not you identify with or love the aesthetic or listen to it, could KPOP exist without the brutal and overtly hypercapitalistic formula and pressures of the big labels? doubtful

        • scramplunge [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          Young white cis men killed disco and did it large part because of racism and homophobia. That’s historically accurate. Disco becoming more commercial the more popular it was is the life cycle of all genres.

          Disco did not start off as a hypercapitalistic genre nor did it ever become one. That’s historically inaccurate. If it was such a cash machine it would’ve had a longer run.

          • volkvulture [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Disco was only accessible because of the mass commercial popularization in the suburbs through associated movies and dance crazes etc. Van McCoy's probably great, but like "The Hustle" is not really the best shit imo you know?

      • volkvulture [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        that's not true. certain genres of music are spontaneous & truly syncretic & dynamic and influential whereas disco just has John Travolta lol... I am not saying that electronic music would be better without going through an embarrassing disco stage, but it should come as a surprise to no one that DJs from Chicago and Detroit and NY & UK who were fed up with the way disco music was perverted, then evolved house, which isn't disco... because the pop element is mostly removed and independent innovative artists emerged

        • scramplunge [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          Hahahaha you don’t know anything about disco but what you have been spoon fed.

          “Hip hop sucks. All it offers is Lil John.”That’s you

          but there were good performers

          Also you. At least stick with one coherent understanding of the genre.

            • scramplunge [comrade/them]
              hexagon
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 years ago

              Part of the genre is commercialized therefore the whole thing is commercialized.

              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                ·
                edit-2
                4 years ago

                you're not just gonna both sides the debate about disco music's sudden and total implosion... there are reasons that the genre as a pop cultural cornerstone bottomed out, and same with punk music I would argue, and part of that is because it wasn't something that big labels and corporations merely acquired and opportunistically latched onto, these entities literally invented and tailored it for consumption.

                rap and hip hop on the other hand have always been an organic bottom-up artistic tradition that, while largely commercialized and subsumed within corporate consumerist tastemaking, can't functionally ever be rid of its very real & genuine connection to Black experience. disco never had anything to do with real life experience, or like... anything?

                • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                  hexagon
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  So we’re gonna totally forget the origins of hip hop were disco tracks? This music had nothing to do with the experience of black people, but the genres that were birthed from it were?

                  Hip hop has not always been about the experience of black people nor is it now. One could argue it’s a tool for capitalists to paint a vivid picture of black culture that is inherently not palatable to white people in order to embolden racism. But once again it’s a whole genre of music. Painting it with wide strokes to encapsulate all the different fine strokes of the genre will never give a full understanding.

                  If you look at most the hip hop songs people listen to today it’s telling you to buy something so others will like you or take some drugs to make yourself feel better. And they’re even “killing” hip hop as we speak by making it a fusion genre. So eventually hip hop will die as well and something else will become the popular music. This is how genres work.

                • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                  hexagon
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Let’s just look at the names of some of the most famous disco songs and think about how well these things “sell you shit.”

                  • We Are Family
                  • It’s Raining Men
                  • Boogie Wonderland
                  • It’s Your Thing
                  • Workin Day and Night
                  • Last Dance
                  • Shake Your Groove Thing
                  • Stomp!
                  • I Love Music
                  • Disco Inferno

                  It’s pure dance music. Does that also make it easier to commercialize it, yes? Remember the song “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays? The opening to the apprentice. What does that song actually say? All the shitty things people do for greed. “The root of all evil.” Kinda ironic huh? What about another O’Jays song “Love Train” telling people to start a love train all around the world. Then used by capitalists to sell us a shitty beer. But let’s blame the artists for their music being bastardized by capitalists?

                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    For the Love of Money is soul/funk and so is Love Train

                    It's Your Thing is funk

                    Stomp! is decidedly after disco, and It's Raining Men is mostly after disco too...

                    And I Love Music is very much a funk song, and imo sounds like some 1960s showtune with the string part. I am being real here, but there's a reason that the disco backlash was so major across genres.

                    Michael Jackson is the artist who pretty much single-handedly brought America out of the dreary times and replaced disco

                    • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                      hexagon
                      arrow-down
                      1
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      All of those songs played at discotheques across the world throughout the 70s early 80s. If you want to create your own idea of what fits in a genre that’s fine, but it doesn’t fit the lived reality to the music people were calling disco at the time nor what what people call disco today.

                        • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                          hexagon
                          arrow-down
                          1
                          ·
                          4 years ago

                          Let me point out this one song on your list that isn’t quite disco. Okay...

                            • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                              hexagon
                              arrow-down
                              1
                              ·
                              4 years ago

                              Okay great. five songs we can agree are some of the biggest disco hits that also don’t appeal strictly to white people and aren’t hyperconsumer driven and by artists that have whole catalogues of similar songs.

                              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                ·
                                edit-2
                                4 years ago

                                No, actually I said that 7 of the 10 songs you posted weren't really Disco, which leaves a few of some of the worst fucking songs of the 70s.

                                Are you gonna tell me about how great KC and The Sunshine Band is?

                                • scramplunge [comrade/them]
                                  hexagon
                                  arrow-down
                                  1
                                  ·
                                  4 years ago

                                  Oh now it’s 7. You just make it up as you go along. We are family. What an awful song. Your idea of what music fits inside the genre doesn’t fit with anyone else’s view. Here’s the playlist for an intro to disco created by the database of all genres. https://open.spotify.com/user/particleintroductor/playlist/6lEMZsAwYzwFiwjdelr5ds?si=5ioZxfaPTtSiTLc7lIQP2g . I can see why you dislike disco because you’ve decided you didn’t like it and then any music that others call disco that you do like you refute it as not. Kinda odd don’t ya think?

                                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                                    ·
                                    4 years ago

                                    I didn't say We Are Family was an awful song, but I would argue it's more of an R&B tune made in the disco era. Hot Stuff had it beat in the charts lol, and Hot Stuff is groovy but c'mon man, it's a cheesy song & always used for goofy montages in movies