What you missed was feathered mullets, 4" platform shoes, leisure suits, The Bump, tight fitting rayon or polyester clothes, disco dance lessons, lighted dance floors, gaudy men's jewelry, the word "Boogie." It was forgettable.
But I recommend the BeeGees hits from 1972 and earlier. They are first rate pop songs. They were respected before disco.
I have heard the early stuff and I don't like it as much as the disco era. I should point out that I do dance the hustle so it was not forgettable to me.
Boogie Oogie Oogie, I'm Your Boogie Man, Disco Duck, Car Wash, and many I can't recall. Dancing is great. I wish I had a right and keft foot that could cooperate with each other. Outside of wedding receptions, there is not much acclaim for disco as a musical genre. As dance music, it is simple music to dance to. I did it. I was a senior in HS when it first hit. Then I went to a university where Punk was nascient, Born to Run was everywhere and Carole King's Tapestry was anthemic. Everybody wanted to look like Joni Mitchell, the Allman Bros., and CSNY... Historical perspective.
I Feel Love, Dancing Queen, Le Freak, I Will Survive. For every bad corporate knockoff that tried to cash in on the trend, I can name a song that was interesting or innovative. As for not much acclaim, that is part of an overall trend that dismisses dance music. It became cool to like punk and rock and dismiss disco. I have heard some discussion around the idea that this stigma came about because the gay and black communities were prominent in the genre. A lot of today's musicians have disco influences in their sound - Franz Ferdinand and Dua Lipa off the top of my head but there are many more.
I liked funk, which was the heartbeat of our city's black radio station. I love Earth Wind and Fire.
I'm surprised you took my comments personally. Music is a time-limited, cultural product.
The last CDs Ive purchased over the last 3 months...
A modern Polish jazz album. Estonian classical sacred music.
Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff live with the LA symphony, conducted by Venezuelan maestro, Gustavo
Dudamel
Canadian band, Cowboy Junkies
Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays album from 1981.
David Grisman, Mondo Mando, 1981(Django jazz)
Oh, wasn't swing music, dance music?
I think jazz is a creation of African Americans which is beloved around the world. I've traveled to a number of foreign countries. Heard jazz and blues based rock and roll wherever I went.
I am also a swing dancer so I know a thing or two about the genre. I think there were some racist elements but I think it was the breakthrough of the Village People who were proudly gay, that really started the backlash. It was the music of gay liberation and a lot of people didn't like that and pined for more "muscular music".
While you may feel it's not significant music, that's not an absolute. Electronica's roots are in disco. A lot of the dance music of the 90s have disco influences. There's a mini disco revival with a modern twist going on right now, just like the New Jack movement revived swing music just before the turn of the century.
You touched a nerve because I love disco and have spent decades defending the genre. It's always been trendy to dump on it. Great music isn't time limited and the great songs of the disco era, which includes today's song, are still being discovered and loved 50 years later. When I was researching the post I found a lot of recent covers of this song by young artists, so it is still resonating.
Great spotlight, MK! So many things astound me about this song! 1) This and "Jive Talkin'" from the same album sound like they'd be so at home (or taken from) the "SNF" soundtrack that these two songs pre-dated by two years! 2) The off-hand "Can you scream in falsetto?" question producer Arif Mardin asked (I think all of them) for the end of "Nights," and 3) Barry having no clue as to the extent of his range (or head voice) until Mardin's oh-by-the-way request!
Another producer to whom it never occurs to ask that, and we don't have Barry's unheard-of falsetto, and he also doesn't discover the width and depth of his talent! Likely recorded later in the "Main Course" sessions, this song ("Baby As You Turn Away") has Barry singing the verses entirely in falsetto, moving to chest voice only during the chorus: https://open.spotify.com/track/3MmQJLdDy6Ri11r8XWLDAu?si=ee1c979e45844adc
I actually didn't mind leisure suits, especially ones that used colour. I will give you the lapels and belts were out of control! Most menswear is boring. The white, while generally the wrong shade to compliment skin tones, was at least breaking out of the black and denim. Black folx looked fantastic in the 70s style and tones.
What you missed was feathered mullets, 4" platform shoes, leisure suits, The Bump, tight fitting rayon or polyester clothes, disco dance lessons, lighted dance floors, gaudy men's jewelry, the word "Boogie." It was forgettable.
But I recommend the BeeGees hits from 1972 and earlier. They are first rate pop songs. They were respected before disco.
I have heard the early stuff and I don't like it as much as the disco era. I should point out that I do dance the hustle so it was not forgettable to me.
Boogie Oogie Oogie, I'm Your Boogie Man, Disco Duck, Car Wash, and many I can't recall. Dancing is great. I wish I had a right and keft foot that could cooperate with each other. Outside of wedding receptions, there is not much acclaim for disco as a musical genre. As dance music, it is simple music to dance to. I did it. I was a senior in HS when it first hit. Then I went to a university where Punk was nascient, Born to Run was everywhere and Carole King's Tapestry was anthemic. Everybody wanted to look like Joni Mitchell, the Allman Bros., and CSNY... Historical perspective.
I Feel Love, Dancing Queen, Le Freak, I Will Survive. For every bad corporate knockoff that tried to cash in on the trend, I can name a song that was interesting or innovative. As for not much acclaim, that is part of an overall trend that dismisses dance music. It became cool to like punk and rock and dismiss disco. I have heard some discussion around the idea that this stigma came about because the gay and black communities were prominent in the genre. A lot of today's musicians have disco influences in their sound - Franz Ferdinand and Dua Lipa off the top of my head but there are many more.
Racism? Not buying it.
Chic grew up about 10 miles from me.
I liked funk, which was the heartbeat of our city's black radio station. I love Earth Wind and Fire.
I'm surprised you took my comments personally. Music is a time-limited, cultural product.
The last CDs Ive purchased over the last 3 months...
A modern Polish jazz album. Estonian classical sacred music.
Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninoff live with the LA symphony, conducted by Venezuelan maestro, Gustavo
Dudamel
Canadian band, Cowboy Junkies
Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays album from 1981.
David Grisman, Mondo Mando, 1981(Django jazz)
Oh, wasn't swing music, dance music?
I think jazz is a creation of African Americans which is beloved around the world. I've traveled to a number of foreign countries. Heard jazz and blues based rock and roll wherever I went.
I am also a swing dancer so I know a thing or two about the genre. I think there were some racist elements but I think it was the breakthrough of the Village People who were proudly gay, that really started the backlash. It was the music of gay liberation and a lot of people didn't like that and pined for more "muscular music".
While you may feel it's not significant music, that's not an absolute. Electronica's roots are in disco. A lot of the dance music of the 90s have disco influences. There's a mini disco revival with a modern twist going on right now, just like the New Jack movement revived swing music just before the turn of the century.
You touched a nerve because I love disco and have spent decades defending the genre. It's always been trendy to dump on it. Great music isn't time limited and the great songs of the disco era, which includes today's song, are still being discovered and loved 50 years later. When I was researching the post I found a lot of recent covers of this song by young artists, so it is still resonating.
Great spotlight, MK! So many things astound me about this song! 1) This and "Jive Talkin'" from the same album sound like they'd be so at home (or taken from) the "SNF" soundtrack that these two songs pre-dated by two years! 2) The off-hand "Can you scream in falsetto?" question producer Arif Mardin asked (I think all of them) for the end of "Nights," and 3) Barry having no clue as to the extent of his range (or head voice) until Mardin's oh-by-the-way request!
Another producer to whom it never occurs to ask that, and we don't have Barry's unheard-of falsetto, and he also doesn't discover the width and depth of his talent! Likely recorded later in the "Main Course" sessions, this song ("Baby As You Turn Away") has Barry singing the verses entirely in falsetto, moving to chest voice only during the chorus: https://open.spotify.com/track/3MmQJLdDy6Ri11r8XWLDAu?si=ee1c979e45844adc
Pretty sure those 2 songs were the template for the SNF album! It is so amazing that such an iconic sound nearly didn't happen.
I think the SNF movie and the soundtrack both had their stories of plenty of speedbumps in their respective roads!
Maybe it's a gender thing. Men's fashion never looked worse. It's embarrassing to think about white shoes, leisure suits, and white belts.
I actually didn't mind leisure suits, especially ones that used colour. I will give you the lapels and belts were out of control! Most menswear is boring. The white, while generally the wrong shade to compliment skin tones, was at least breaking out of the black and denim. Black folx looked fantastic in the 70s style and tones.
I watched Soul Train back then. Funk and disco were mistaken for the same thing.
Stevie Wonder's "songs in the key of life" is a masterpiece. It hit in the heart of the disco era. Many songs were danceable...
Not all disco was funk. I deliberately mentioned songs that aren't funk but are recognized as disco. But yes, a lot of funk was mistaken for disco.
Wow I’d forgotten how much I loved this song! I’d always assumed it was in the SNF soundtrack