EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
History of Rock, 1970-Present
John Covach, University of Rochester
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Backlash Against Disco Notes taken on August 14, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
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Disco
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just the word is enough to anger 1970s rock and rollers
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how can you get so upset about a style of popular music?
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as if you wanted to stamp it out
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and wish it never existed in the first place
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it was a dance craze for sure
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rejects some important elements of the hippy aesthetic
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the reaction may have to do with the misunderstanding of black pop
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most white rock music listeners didn't know much black pop music
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they may have heard the Ohio Players Funky Worm
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they'd seen Curtis Mayfield on TV talking about Freddy's Dead or The Pusherman
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they'd heard Isaac Hayes talking about Shaft or Can you Dig It
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they knew some Stevie Wonder and listened to the Average White Band
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early days
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the idea of disco was not unlike what was happening at American Bandstand
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when you went to a disco, people played records, and you danced
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there might not be a guitar or a drum set or a base guitar anywhere to be found
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this sort of situation is familiar now but back in the 70s, it wasn't that way, when you went to a club, you went to see that band that was playing there, the people performing
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one reason why disco evolved the way it did
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in the gay community, people who ran a gay club would want there to be music for dancing, but many bands wouldn't play those gigs
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so they were in a way forced to use records for dancing
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developed in urban areas
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people discovered that certain recordings were better for dancing
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bands began to create extended versions for dancing
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disco records began to pop up on the chart almost as novelty records at first
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1973 Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra
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Love's Theme
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was called a disco record but didn't get too many people upset yet
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1975 Van McCoy "The Hustle"
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that still didn't get anyone too riled up
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it was just another one of these AM hits, who cares
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1975 KC and the Sunshine Band
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That's the Way I Like It
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but in 1977 there's a film, "Saturday Night Fever"
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features a young John Travolta
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who know John Travolta could dance
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at the time he had pretty much only been a character on a television show called Welcome Back Kotter
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this film launched Disco as popular music
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it became the craze in America
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1977 Saturday Night Fever, Bee Gees
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Staying Alive
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How Deep Is Your Love
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Night Fever
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Yvonne Elliman
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Yvonne Elliman: If I Can't Have You
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part of the cast of the original Jesus Christ Superstar
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when the disco craze breaks, every artist was running for their disco craze hit
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Rod Stewart
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The Rolling Stones
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even KISS
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was a return of the producers
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Jacques Morali
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Giorgio Moroder
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more euro disco based
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drum machine that could do the beats exactly metronomically
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artists
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Donna Summer
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1976 Love to Love you Baby
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patently sexual piece
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you can hear her enjoy the sexual act
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meant to be heard to draw you in
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1979 Bad Girls
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Disco concept album
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about ladies of the night and the various situations they get into
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songs
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Hot Stuff
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Bad Girls
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Dim All the Lights
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The Village People
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assembled and produced by Jacques Morali
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didn't speak much English
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brought together as a kind of gay monkees
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based on fantasies gay stereotypes drawn from Greenwich Village in New York City
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weren't taking it entirely serious
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most people didn't know, they just like the costumes
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had no sense that the village people had anything to do with gay culture
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a playful approach to the gay underground that for the most part went over the heads of most white, middle-class listeners
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it was so not understood, that the song YMCA (1978)
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essentially about gay guys hooking up at the YMCA
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and still isn't, if you go to a minor league baseball game, in the 7th inning stretch, they will play YMCA over the stadium speakers
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and everybody, Mom, Dad, grandma, the kids will all stand up and sing YMCA without the slightest idea that it has anything to do with gay culture
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they still haven't gotten the joke yet
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1979 "In the Navy"
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The United States Navy licensed the song for recruiting purposes
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on the condition that the Village People could do a video one of the Navy boats
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when they found out what the village people were doing they pulled the plug on it
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backlash against disco
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rock stations start to change format from rock to disco
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the rock fans felt that their stations were being taken away
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Steve Dahl
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shock jock
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1978 moved from Detroit to Chicago
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was fired because the station he was at changed formats from rock to disco
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went to another Chicago station
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July 1979: Anti-Disco Rally in Chicago
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put a big box full of disco records and blew it up
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people started streaming onto the field
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the second game of the double header had to be cancelled
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spurred the "disco sucks" movement
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what upset rock fans so much about disco?
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promiscuity
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disco was about finding someone to dance with and then have a one-night stand
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but when have rock fans been against promiscuity
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not a good reason
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homophobia
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they saw it was from the gay community
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not many people really realized this
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not a good reason
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racism
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certainly racial
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a lot of white rockers thought that disco was black music
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if so, it was not a proud moment in the history of rock and roll
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disco was a music that was fun rather than about serious issues
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about the producers and not the artists
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it wasn't about artistic anything
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it was an assault on the hippy aesthetic
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1966 - 1979 Pink Floyd's The Wall
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it seemed to be gaining ground with radio stations changing format
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along with disco, punk was arising in England in 1977 and into 1978 in America
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two musical genres rejecting the hippy aesthetic