Category: Music

Trends in popular music come and go. After Soul there was Funk, then Disco. The PBS series American Experience puts Disco in a historical and cultural context with a revisionist point of view that, in my opinion, forces facts to fit its theory.

“The Death of Disco” emphasizes that Disco was embraced by gay men who were active in the dance club scene of the 70’s. Yet nothing is said about the connection between that free-swinging lifestyle and the rapid spread of AIDS.

The claim in the documentary that Disco wasn’t heard on radio stations until Saturday Night Fever isn’t correct. For example, “Love’s Theme” by Barry White was Billboard’s #4 hit of 1974…

… and at #7 for that year was “T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia)”.

The assertion that Disco’s decline was an immediate result of the Disco Sucks rally in the summer of ’79, by white working class Rock fans at a Comiskey Park baseball game, is another misrepresentation.

Disco Demolition Night was a radio station stunt fronted by shock jock Steve Dahl. In the documentary, Dahl refutes the idea that the event was racist and homophobic by saying it was a protest against Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees dominating radio airplay.

Saturday Night Fever isn’t about being Black or gay, with the caveat that John Travolta’s older brother in the movie, who leaves the priesthood, is gay. It isn’t stated outright, but it’s plainly there. A year after the riot, the movie Airplane! made fun of not only Saturday Night Fever, but Chicago radio’s anti-Disco reputation.

Saturday Night Fever was released for Christmas ’77 (just six months into the Star Wars phenomenon). The movie is itself about working class kids embracing Disco. It was a huge success, and an even bigger hit as a soundtrack. I remember it all well, because I was working at a small commercial AM radio station.

The Bee Gees were straight, white Australian brothers who were old pros by that time, with more than ten years in the music business. If there is outrage to be expressed, it should be that Disco was yet another Black music trend that was appropriated by Whites.

While Saturday Night Fever was still dominating the popular music charts, the Village People had their back-to-back hit singles, “Macho Man” and Donald’s favorite (see the picture a the top of this post), “Y.M.C.A.”

If the lyric “you can get yourself clean” was about taking a shower, it was also a reference to drug use. Doctors were already dealing with a widespread Hepatitis outbreak among urban gay men who injected drugs when “gay cancer” began to appear.

Otherwise, the Village People were a tongue-in-cheek (or wherever) joke, cashing in on a musical genre that was ripe for parody. “Disco Duck” is from 1976, on RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization), the same label as the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack eighteen months later.

I’m not going to deny that Disco came to a fairly quick end, but it had simply run its course, leaving behind a lot of catchy, danceable music. Along with Disco there was Glam, with its own gay subculture. Punk was an early reaction to the slick, highly produced Disco sound. New Wave came along with Punk. Years later, Electronica revitalized the popularity of dance clubs.

As I said at the start, the progression was from Soul to Funk to Disco. Rap was the next Black sound to dominate, and Blondie had already picked up on it in 1980, the year when Disco Fever finally cooled off.

Follow-up: This timely news was announced today. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees has been awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183483424/2023-kennedy-center-honors