Alice Echols’ book Hot Stuff offers a wide-angle view of the disco scene in the 70s. The music, the fashion, at least some of the celebrity, glitz and drug use… and the cultural subtext.
Who knew that disco – which seemed to be all about dancing and shaking your booty and “ringing your bell,” if you know what I mean – was actually an expression of empowerment for gays, women, and African-Americans? I mean, we know that now, because of books like Hot Stuff, but back in the day? By the time disco reached the mainstream, in the mid-70s, most of us thought of it as a simple, or simplistic, style of party music.
I have to say that I hated disco. The reason I have to say it is that as a fan of punk, I was pretty much expected to. But I never wore a Disco Sucks t-shirt, never burned a disco record at a ballpark, and occasionally, on really rare occasions, a song would catch my ear – I remember hearing “Cherchez La Femme” by Dr Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band wafting out of the window of the girls’ dormitory one night; with its big band horns and glittery production, the song felt like a relentless musical “come hither.” At least, I think it was the song… I mean, what else could make a teenage boy feel like that?
Anyway, I had no use for most disco, though I gave a pass to Donna Summer because her backing tracks sounded like Tangerine Dream. But all the people I knew who were into disco were white and apparently heterosexual, since they were always dancing to these songs at proms and mixers. I wonder how I would’ve reacted if I’d known then what disco represented. After all, giving a voice to the unheard and downtrodden was part of punk’s attraction, so maybe I would’ve cut disco some slack.
But probably not.
The fact is, just as sketchy characters can produce great music (looking at you, Richard Wagner), a laudable ideal or goal doesn’t mean the music won’t suck. (Which disco mostly did.)
What do you think of disco?Leave a comment.
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