Disco Inferno Revisited: Disco Demolition Night, 30 Years On
By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García
Thursday morning, I chanced upon an ESPN piece on Disco Demolition Night. Growing up a baseball fan, the phrase initially conjures up mostly chuckles: the last great Bill Veeck promotion; a well-meaning bust that it drew more than 59,000 people to watch a typically moribund Chicago White Sox team in some unsightly uniforms — but resulted in the home team having to forfeit the second game of a doubleheader.
But time and perspective change things a bit. DDN, which “celebrated” its’ 30th anniversary Thursday, now stands revealed as the flashpoint of an ugly trend.
Let me be blunt: see any POC in the picture up top? Okay, how about this picture?
Thought not. The event drew in thousands of disgruntled or mock-outraged white rock fans. Most rock documentaries describe the disco era as one of rock under siege, with “real music” in danger of being overrun by hordes of fops in sequined jackboots. Disco represented not only the first popular music wave since Motown Records’ heyday to feature performers of color, but it brought gay artists to the mainstream. Somebody, obviously, had to “save the day” for those oppressed Ted Nugent fans.
Enter Steve Dahl. After getting fired from an all-disco station, he formed what he called his Insane Coho Lips Anti-Disco Army on WLUP-FM. Now, every pop culture wave has its’ regular backlash, but Dahl hit back with a special kind of venom: he reportedly destroyed a copy of “The Hustle,” the morning after the man who recorded it, Van McCoy, died of a heart attack.
Beyond Dahl’s disgruntlement, other parties in the music industry had reason to fan the flame: album rock sales were indeed threatened by the rise of disco, so much so that acts like KISS and Rod Stewart recorded disco albums to keep up. And as Craig Werner wrote in A Change Is Gonna Come, the movement Dahl found himself providing the face for had a more sinister overtone:
The Anti-disco movement represented an unholy alliance of funkateers and feminists, progressives and puritans, rockers and reactionaries. None the less, the attacks on disco gave respectable voice to the ugliest kinds of unacknowledged racism, sexism and homophobia.
By the time the forgettable game – the Sox and the Detroit Tigers were roommates in the American League cellar at the time – came around, the Saturday Night Fever furor had died down, The Knack had overtaken the Bee Gees for the No. 1 spot on the charts, and the Colosseum of disco, Studio 54, was crumbling under the weight of its’ owners illegal excesses, with the club’s exclusionary entrance policies fueling, ironically, Chic’s “Le Freak,” one of the last disco hits, as well as what would become the first wave of hip-hop.
But before Chic and the Sugar Hill Gang could come in, DDN had to go off – with a bang: admission to the game was 98 cents if you brought a disco record, and after rallying the crowd of shirtless Foghat followers, Dahl detonated a crate full of records after the first game, which inspired most of the throng to hit the field and ignore subsequent pleas by Veeck and broadcaster Harry Caray to leave (though they did sing along with Harry on “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”) As mob scenes go, DDN was actually pretty mild: 39 people were arrested, but only minor injuries were reported – which, considering the Chicago Police Department was on the scene, is a surprise.
In the years since, Dahl, who has gone on to become a Chicago radio stalwart, has played the role of the overwhelmed Pied Piper regarding that night. His remarks in the ESPN piece echoed the ones he gave the Chicago Tribune: “I never thought that I, a stupid disc jockey, could draw 70,000 people to a disco demolition,” he said. “Unfortunately, some of our followers got a little carried away.” But this story from a local tv station alleges that DDN was only the largest of three such events he held that year – and that the first two also led to disturbances.
Regardless, the explosion on the field seemed to give radio the all-clear to drop disco from its’ playlists, as the backlash finally became the majority opinion … at least for awhile. Disco was quickly repackaged as Dance music after ‘79, and its’ stylings survive to this day. For its’ part, the traditional rock scene faced an insurgency from within, as punk and metal popped up to mock it with increasingly dark imagery and cries of “NO FUTURE FOR YOU!” But those are stories for other days. The best punchline, for me, came from that ESPN story, which, even as it ignored the racial and pop-culture dynamics behind that hot night at Comiskey, noted that the world champion Pittsburgh Pirates and their fans rode to the championship … while being inspired by a disco song.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Frowner wrote:
Turn The Beat Around is a terrific book that talks about race, sexuality and politics in disco plus the commercialization/whitification of disco that led (in part) to its overmarketing (and to many many horrible records by random non-disco musicians) and the backlash. There’s a lot of interesting and sad stuff about Chic and the racism they encountered.
Disco has this rep as fun stupid music, even among people who basically like it. But actually there were a ton of interesting experimental musicians like Arthur Russell and Chic, and there’s also political disco.
It gets written out of the history of punk, too, that there was a huge amount of punk/disco crossover in terms of the people involved, also in terms of event spaces. A lot of early punk “clubs” were club nights at gay bars, for example. Then as commercialization sets in, there’s this huge investment by [mostly white, mostly male, mostly straight but certainly white women bought into it too] punks and professional musicians and record labels in creating a punk v. disco/ “punk is white, punk is atonal”/ “punk is original and comes out of nowhere” narrative.
Thanks for writing this!
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 9:15 am ¶
shail wrote:
i’ve seen footage of that event for years, and i’d never thought about it from the perspective you shared.
excellent article!
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 9:27 am ¶
Olivia wrote:
I love disco, I love dance music!
P.S In relation to part of the above(1st) comment; Many people are deluded about music, inc. Punk. The Clash(a band many consider to be the best of the genre) took influence(listen to the music) from funk, reggae, ska and of course ROCK N ROLL
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 9:40 am ¶
Matt wrote:
Soundcheck did a good show on DDN recently.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 10:53 am ¶
A.D.M. wrote:
This event led to the creation of house music in Chicago by African-Americans who were mostly gay. How come you don’t mention the creation of house music in Chicago?
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 10:55 am ¶
cocolamala wrote:
Aw, Sister Sledge!
*nostalgia*
as an only child, in the 70s, i used to call these girls up on my fischer-price telephone and pretend they were my sisters!
when i was 5, I was also a big fan of Rick James, especially if he was gonna be on “Solid Gold.” I used to love me some Marylin McCoo!
/nostalgia
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 11:26 am ¶
Evan wrote:
Good article. I think the whole Disco Demolition Night was a good excuse for Chicag0-area rock fans to get drunk and party at the old Comiskey Park.
However, I think there was a socio-economic class element here as well. Punk and hard rock spoke to white kids living in rural and suburban areas. The late 1970s was a time of economic malaise and working class Americans began to see their wages stagnate in the face of globalization and rampant inflation. Communities were suffering from factory closings. Bad economic times generate anger, alienation, and hopelessness.
Disco was about partying and having a good time. Most disco clubs were located in urban areas and the clientele was mostly white upper-class. Flashy suits and expensive dresses combined with the consumption of cocaine was a symbol of gross excess by the American elite. Think Studio 54 in NYC as the most perverse example. Sure, many performers were African-American but this isn’t the point. Disco failed to connect with the working/service class. It wasn’t until Hip Hop came along when angry, alienated working/service class whites and blacks appreciated a new music genre together.
At the time, punk and metal were far more subversive to the traditional capitalist, consumer-driven lifestyle. Punk rock music was able to meld Marxist and anarchical themes with simple rhythms. Angry white kids got the message.
Metal rock, punk and hip-hop have substantive messages and I thank God that these musical forces killed disco once and for all.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 11:29 am ¶
Sean wrote:
Why did flashback images of Denny Terio pop into my head?
Seriously though, disco never fit my personal musical aesthetic either, but that’s an interesting angle that Arturo brought up. I remember at that time, Bruce Springsteen was held up as something of a “great white hope -the savior of Rock & Roll.
Moreover, it’s even more intersting when you consider that violent and misogynist content in hip-hop wasn’t really a national concern until it went mainstream.
Seemingly, they went from destroying disco records in a ball park, to hiding behind C. Delores Tucker in a decade.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 11:55 am ¶
Frowner wrote:
This event led to the creation of house music in Chicago by African-Americans who were mostly gay.
That’s super interesting. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the eighties and early nineties and didn’t know this. Although I do remember that house music was considered low-class by my white preppy school mates, and I now see that racism was the unspoken in that little situation. (I was a nerd and never had money, so I couldn’t buy my own music or go to shows; I didn’t even really know what house music was.)
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 12:22 pm ¶
RW wrote:
I always thought The Clash was an interesting “punk” band. As far as the actual genre goes they’re barely punk, but, to me, making very pop songs like Rock the Casbah and Train in Vain is more punk than constantly hashing out loud and aggressive three chord songs just for the sake of being “punk.”
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 1:02 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
Fresh piece, Arturo. Every time I get into a Rockist vs. Popist (or one if it’s variants) debate images of Disco Demolition Night flash in my head and then I throw up a little in my mouth.
@ Evan: “Sure, many performers were African-American but this isn’t the point. Disco failed to connect with the working/service class.”
Actually, disco did connect with a lot of working/service class people. They just were not overwhelmingly white. Trying to reduce this to mere class dynamics (because that’s always an easy feat in America, right?) ignores the realities of, well, those two pictures up top for one. That many performers were black or Latino and or gay is definitely part of why disco was so vilified by the anti-disco movement. That IS the point. Maybe there were massive working-class black and Latino and gay Disco Demolition Nights that have just been under-reported in the history of American music. But I honestly don’t think so.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 1:04 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:
Disco rules!
Disco crossed over with new wave as well as punk, I believe. I think some people have claimed that new wave couldn’t have happened without disco.
I used to listen to Steve Dahl when I was in Chicago in the early ’80s. He was kind of crude and politically incorrect, but entertaining. I suspect he’s one of the forerunners of today’s shock jocks.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 1:30 pm ¶
N wrote:
I dunno, it seems like ANY musical genre that is created by Black and/or Latino people for the sole purpose of ENJOYMENT, is hated and derided by mainstream America.
I now usually refuse to even defend “race music” from attacks or find ways to explain that it actually does have meaningful lyrics or is equal to punk, rock, blues etc etc..
Yeah, we like to make music that is fun so we can have fun and dance. It may have no other “redeeming” qualities. So. That is, IMO, not at all ignoble or problematic.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 1:56 pm ¶
Evan wrote:
@A.D. Nix…
Working class blacks and Latinos demolished disco by gravitating towards rap/hip hop. No record demolition ceremony was required here.
White people didn’t kill disco. Disco died because it had nothing to say to the people. Mainstream media and Hollywood promoted and then co-opted disco itself. Disco was pure escapism with the happy-go-lucky tunes about dancing, fucking and getting toasted on coke. In the end, disco offered no narrative about social struggles. As such, the genre deserved a harsh rebuke and a timely death.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 2:07 pm ¶
Squidfly wrote:
A.D. Nix wrote:
Thank you.
Disco, was the first dance music for the socially alienated.
Look at the History of Paradise Garage. The creation of mixer panels, DJ’s as creative forces; Frankie Knuckles, and the great Larry Levan, two of the legendary DJ’s to work in NYC at the time.
And let’s not forget that, dancing is more than having a good time; when, Black People -Latino, African American, Gay, Straight, Asian, White- ignore the status-quo, and congregate, occupy, the same space…that’s anarchy.
Whiteness, lives under the banner of Conservatism and separation.
Disco was about unification of all.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 2:10 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
First off, I had to put on Turn the Beat Around as soon as I saw the headline. As much rock as I blast in my ears all day, I will unapoligetically get down to some disco.
I always found that disco got the short end of the stick in music history. There was always a message in the disco I listened to, even if it were one of those “mindless” tracks. Understand the period that many African Americans were living in, and one can understand the need for disco. And in regards to the DDN photos, you’d be hard pressed to find people of color there; to be there, it would practically be treason.
@RW: I agree. Rudie Can’t Fail is another one of those Clash songs that I didn’t initially even think was made by them even after I’d seen it in London Calling. As a matter of fact, when I first heard Rock the Casbah I immediately ran to my mom because I though there was some forgotten awesome black rock band out there that people had slept on(crazy!). Punk evolved from some disco elements. Shit, U2 evolved from punk! It goes to show how interconnected a lot of music is; and the best music will transcend its genre(s) as well as its political and social relations.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 2:47 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
good point squidfly. Also, having a good time is a form of escape from everyday drudgery, which I’m sure was notch below those at the night in question.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 2:51 pm ¶
N wrote:
I hear y’all. I just want to say-
IMO, _if_ the message is simply “lets get together and have fun and enjoy life”, that’s a pretty fabulous message. An invitation to be part of communal celebration of life and music and dance, that’s the best message ever.
I say this because even IF music is “mindless”, the belief that music must be more than enjoyable is culturally dictated and I dislike the assumption some make regarding people who have fun simply to have fun. Not everyone is from a Puritan culture that believes fun is a waste of time and energy and not a worthwhile endeavor.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 4:01 pm ¶
Matt wrote:
I like punk. I don’t really like disco. But I really don’t like the claim that punk said something really deep and disco didn’t. For starters, it’s based on a very narrow view of punk that really should be thought of as American hardcore (and much of which I don’t consider punk, though that’s a whole other story).
It reminds me of a time a friend of mine explained his appreciation for “Rock the Casbah” because it was so political. Ignoring the way it goes after easy some targets in potentially problematic ways, the very point of the song is that having fun and listening to rowdy music that other people don’t like can be in and of itself a profoundly political act. Another song playing during the discussion was “Panic” by The Smiths, supposedly apolitical. I asked if he knew what that panic was about. It’s very open, and impossible to read it as any one thing, but I always associated it with a series of race riots in England in the previous year. Goes to show how easy it is to miss politics when they’re not directly about you. Especially body and identity politics. In a way, I find this “political” punk very bourgeois.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 4:02 pm ¶
DANJ! wrote:
and then came the era when artists had trouble getting mainstream radio play or MTV for that matter, because their songs sounded “too Black”. Which is why lots of quality artists/songs from that era don’t even exist to mainstream outlets now… because they were getting no play then unless they jumped thru hoops to make a pop-enough record and a “safe”-enough video. Meanwhile, white groups who nobody in the US had ever heard of could come out with cheesy songs and equally cheesy videos can get play with no problem.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 4:49 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
@ Evan
Working class blacks and Latinos and gay men (and women) made and celebrated disco. The desire to kill it came from somewhere else. And you must realize that the act of listening to something else and the act of getting together and physically destroying representations of music that you do not/would not listen to are very very different things. When I stopped listening to Slayer (so much) it was not an act to demolish thrash.
What you see as “pure escapism” can only be read as such if you ignore the fact that a lot of those people singing about dancing and being free were really struggling to find places of escape. And had a lot to try and escape from.
Also: The word “disco” died. The music, not so much.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 4:54 pm ¶
kikilarue wrote:
@ADM: Didn’t house music get its start in Detroit? (No turf battle intended here, this is a genuine question.)
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 5:33 pm ¶
SeattleSlim wrote:
#3 So true! As soon as I hear the first riffs in “London Calling”, I think “reggae!” I heart the clash.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 5:44 pm ¶
G.K. wrote:
@Evan
I totally agree–as a young black girl growing up in the ’70’s, as a child I listened to a LOT of R&B records my mother bought, which included songs like “Disco Lady”, and my all-time favorite, “I Get Lifted” by George McRae (who also did the 1974 “Rock Your Baby”, considered to be one of the earliest disco songs itself). Disco definitely connected with working-class families like mine—it was just regular,everyday R&B to me. However, I do remember seeing a dance scene from Saturday Night Live on T.V. as a child and hearing my mother say that the white folks in the film weren’t doing anything we hadn’t already done in terms of dancing.
I also remember begging my mother to buy me a 45 of the Bees Gees “Staying Alive” at the checkout line in what I think was a Kmart’s—I can’t remember if I got it or not,though.
Also,you’re being way too dismissive of a whole genre of music—-all punk rock/metal tunes weren’t about social/political problems either—at least half of them were about drinking/partying, or just plain ‘ol having sex,too—haven’t you heard songs like “Love Train” ofr “Money” by the O’Jays, which definitely deal with social issues upfront, particularly the latter. I always thought Detroit techno music was disco music gone underground and remaking itself for the ’80’s. As someone who grew up listening to disco and has a lot of good memories attached to certain songs, I do believe that yeah, there was definitely racism against the music, since it was basically black music to begin with.
Here in Detroit, there’s a lily-white mainstream station that for the last couple of years has its own disco show on the weekends, which tripped me out listening to it, because they play genuinely classic stuff like the Village People, Donna Summer and The Trammps (Disco Inferno). WGPR 107.5 here in Detroit (a popular jazz/R&B station) plays disco ALL day on Saturdays, which is cool with me.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 5:52 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
It sure seems that those demolitionists had no problem forgiving the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart for tripe like “Miss You” or “Do Ya Think I’m sexy.” Chic or the Village People? Yeah, right.
The more I think about it, the more it seems Arturo touched on something. Case in point: classic rock radio stations will not touch Chic’s “Good Times”, but will play Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” to the death.
Related trivia: Queen’s bass player, Roger Deacon, was in the studio when Bernard Edwards of Chic recorded the bassline for ‘Good Times.’ Roger said that later when Queen was recording ‘AOBTD’, he tried to copy Bernard’s bass riff but couldn’t quite match it.
In the end, one tune turned out to be “classic rock” and the other “disco.” Interesting.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 6:23 pm ¶
dejamorgana wrote:
This is a really interesting piece. I haven’t thought much about the Disco/Rock Wars in terms of racial politics.
I don’t think the rise of punk was entirely an assault on disco, though. I’ve always thought of it more as an assault on rock. This was a period when rock was literally dying, as early heavy metal got more stagey and less interesting, prog-rock was drying up and mainstream rock bands dominating the airwaves were about as interesting as dry toast. John Lennon died in 1980; John Bonham died in ‘79, dissolving one of the last truly amazing pure rock bands. I think punk climbed onto rock’s corpse. Most rock fans at the time did not embrace punk as an alternative to disco: they hated both of them with a passion.
But yes, punk was definitely the new music of the disenchanted white youth. Thinking about it that way, I’m sort of surprised punk died at all.
Bit of a ramble here, but I wanted to add that some of my favorite bands from the Seventies have crossed color and genre lines again and again. As others here mentioned, the Clash came into punk from a very distinct reggae perspective. Talking Heads did a lot of “exploring African sounds” and investigating other cultures’ music years before Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel turned “world music” into a commercially viable mainstream venture (and their alter ego, the Tom Tom Club, wrote “Genius of Love”, which has found its way into hundreds of hip-hop songs to close the circle).
And I have to shout out to Hot Chocolate, the sublimely silly mixed-race disco-rock-pop band who wrote about some amazingly hardcore subjects – race included – and have been covered by all sorts of bands with much more “serious”, “hardcore” and, yes, white images than the Chocolates had.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 6:34 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
Those are interesting points G.K. What isn’t widely discussed is disco’s roots in Eurobeat – particularly in Italy and Germany. In the 70’s, producers like Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk were attempting to play their version of African-American funk and dance music. What they ended up doing largely was simplifying the beat from poly-rhythmic and syncopated to repetitive and monotonous. (see my reference to Roger Deacon) This resulted in a mindless, trance-like state for a lot of discotheque patrons.
In fact, Moroder in particular went on to write and produce Donna Summer’s biggest hits. Nelson George analyzed the entire disco culture/craze in his book “The Death of Rhythm & Blues” and interestingly enough, he almost painted Moroder as Beelzebub himself.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 6:48 pm ¶
deb wrote:
Good call, Matt. I listened to it the other day.
I came of age during the disco era and I was always bit sensitive to cries of “disco sucks!”
Oh, snap. Sean, you did not say “Denny Terio”! LOL. Hey, and thanks for the trivia re: Queen and Chic.
Yeah, everyone was catching disco fever. Blondie went disco with “Heart of Glass.” (Loved that joint!) Cher had a disco hit with “Take Me Home.” And even Dolly Parton put some country flava on it with Baby I’m Burning.
Gosh, where’s a mirrored ball and strobe lights when you need ‘em?
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 8:42 pm ¶
deb wrote:
I LOVED “I Feel Love.”
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 8:45 pm ¶
Miles Ellison wrote:
The rock/disco conflict exposed several raw nerves along a lot of different lines. In the white suburb where I grew up, disco, and black music in general, was hated. These were the people that MTV was trying to please during the channel’s infancy. The utter ignorance that surrounds American music and its origins made for risible cognitive dissonance, and MTV was a BIG part of that. MTV rejected videos by black artists because “they weren’t rock and roll.” MTV, like many other institutions in the media and the music industry, has tried to minimize or flat out erase the immense black contribution to popular music. Thus, we were treated to the following ridiculous MTV and radio absurdities:
Queen ripping off Chic riffs is classic rock and roll, but Chic playing the same riffs better isn’t.
Phil Collins singing the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” is rock and roll, but the actual Supremes singing the original isn’t.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ hybrid of rock and funk is worthy of heavy rotation airplay, but Funkadelic, who they stole the style from, isn’t.
The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart singing disco songs is classic rock, while disco itself is subject to racist and homophobic attacks from mullet-wearing metalheads.
Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones’ catalogs have been masticated beyond all perspective by classic rock radio, but artists like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry, the people from whom those artists stole the entirety of their styles, are luck to get one of their songs played on their birthday.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 8:53 pm ¶
Westerly wrote:
What a great OP and a great thread. Excellent posts A.D. Nix. I’ve always seen disco as being highly political just in its very being – especially when I think about the the cultural and ethnic diversity of early disco with it’s African, African-American and Latin inspiration. That along with the overt sensuality and sexuality, the ethic of celebration and revelry and a politics of pleasure, freedom and conversely discipline that was grounded in the body – made it much more genuinely subversive than some of the pompous political posturing and platitudes that you got in so-called credible, “serious” music.
(i.e. anything with a guitar that straight white men make, and other straight white men get in a flap about.)
Disco is flagrantly fun, has a very ‘feminine’ aesthetic and for some reason that seemed to be threatening.
(One of the reasons why I like reggae so much is that while it is overtly political and ’serious’ it has never been above dancing, jamming, community, mourning and celebrating, having fun and falling in love – all of those things that make a music human. And the politics weren’t simply abstract and intellectual – they were at one time, lived and felt.)
I’ve come to appreciate some forms of white rock and even punk later on in life, but when I was younger that music pretty much operated in the manner of a 19th century enclosure, whereas disco has always felt alot more diverse, interesting and well, roomier – until it was aggresively marketed as ‘white’.
In England, punk ‘borrowed’ heavily from ska and reggae and at one point there was even a politics of unity between these forms of music – but once punk went ‘white’ that was pretty much the end of that as it quickly distanced itself from any traces of blackness that had informed it.
It just seems to me that time and time again, ‘whiteness’ means an illusory purity which results in a sterile isolation. But…whatever.
There are many forms of music that irritate me, or that I dislike but I’ve never wanted them wiped off the face of the earth simply because I don’t find them pleasurable or interesting to listen to. The demand for the death of disco, issued by people like Iggy Pop or even average fans of rock really repels me.
Not only beause of the sheer, high-handed, petulant arrogance involved (”I don’t like it therefore it ought not to exist!”), but because of the near- psychotic, almost hysterical nature of the anti-disco reaction that is eerily familiar…
I do find it somewhat hilarious however, that while hardy old disco never dies (it just morphs and reappears time and time again like any living mucis) every five seconds there is always much hand-wringing and bell-riging over the delicate, precarious state of rock.
Has there ever been a music that is always perpetually on its death-bed, and always requiring resucitation or a savior galloping to rescue?
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 9:39 pm ¶
Westerly wrote:
…and what Miles Ellison said. I’ll bet anything that every colonial country has a few of those suburbs.
Where I grew up MJ was ‘gay’ – Prince was ‘gay’. Bob Marley’s ‘I Shot the Sherriff’ with it’s falsetto was ‘gay’, but Eric Clapton’s shitty faux-Jamaican crooning and corny guitar licks ‘rocked’. Hendrix was acceptable, as was Queen until suspicions arose about Freddie being – guess what? (And really, he did hit one too many high notes anyway *eyeroll*)
They’d never even heard of Otis Reedding but drooled all over The Black Crows like they’d invented sunshine and thought that The Commitments butchering Otis (to steal my mother’s description.)
They’d laugh about Stevie Wonder but worship the The Chillies and never make a connection between the two, nevermind that the Chillies weren’t exactly hiding their own love of Stevie.
And don’t even get me started on the love for dreary Phil Collins renditions.
Some of them didn’t even know about Motown. And disco and dance was simply inconceivable. House was ‘gay’ and automatically worthless.
‘Skid Row’ and ‘Poison’ was real music, while MJ was crap.
The mix of homophobia and racism was totally ridiculous and rather sickening, but the thing that really got to me was the combination of arrogance and utter ignorance. They set themselves up as the arbiters of good taste and ‘credible’ music and didn’t know a damn thing about it.
They had no vision of a musical landscape, no notion of a history of music, and coukdn’t tell you where a music was rooted, where it came from and where it intersected.
A perfect example of this was in my first year of university where a girl tried to introduce me to The Cure. (I’d already heard them many times and at least knew of them, but she wanted me to really sit down and listen to them with an attentive ear. I’m glad I did, because I do love them.)
She played ‘Close to Me’. I thought: ‘Hmmm. This sounds a bit like jazz’. But I said nothing because I’d grown up under a tyranny of taste where I liked trivial things like MJ and Mowtown. Then someone in the room piped up – ‘Hey – this sounds alot like jazz.’ The girl who was playing the music looked shocked – and then vociferously objected to the very idea because:
a.) They were The Cure and they were goths!
b.) Just the idea of jazz was disturbing the uniformity that ghostly white image.
c.) She had pretty much nominated herself as ‘the musical one’ in the group. She listened to ‘real’ music (unlike the rest of us) and “knew” music.
If anyone should have known it was jazz, it should have been her informing the rest of us. Anyway, I returned the favour and got them all hooked on The Jackson Five.
But it took me a really long time to figure that even though they behave as if they have the authority to decide what is good and bad music and which music should be revered and which should be eradicated off the face of the earth like a scourge – that in too many cases, it’s coming from a place of ignorance. They don’t have a broad palette and their knowledge of music history is as narrow as their knowledge of ‘history’.
Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 10:34 pm ¶
m. wrote:
Okay. Why does music always have to have a really “deep” message in order to be taken seriously, or to be considered “meaningful”?
For example, when I was a kid I was really into Selena, and I *still* love her music to this very day. Most people wouldn’t consider her lyrics to be incredibly “profound” or “deep”, though. But then again, I guess that makes those of us whom her music is meaningful to either clueless about the world around us or unable to comprehend our own oppression(s). Artists are supposed to connect with the peoples’ ANGER and FRUSTRATIONS. Soulless, much? (Then again, apparently only working class white people are angry and frustrated and in need of a release.)
When it comes to punk, I could say that the lyrics penned by these bands aren’t really “deep” since they are made up of naive, sheltered and self-righteous people who all share a very unhealthy obsession with the individual. I could also say there is nothing “meaningful” when you are re-hashing what was done in rocksteady and ska. But those would be generalizations…about an entire genre that, apparently, includes bands espousing *nothing* but “deep messages” in their music, which contain *nothing* but lyrics of “substance”. Also, people don’t always gravitate towards “meaningful” music like punk and hip-hop because they desire a more “substantiative message” – sometimes they just want to live vicariously through the struggles of those who are more oppressed than them. I certainly got that vibe from all the white people I encountered when I used to go to punk shows (yes, that stuff once resonated with me when I was young and foolish) or who held me/my friends up as tokens, and many that come to check out underground hip-hop artists are the same. As far as hip-hop goes, well – obviously only someone who doesn’t listen to it is going to think that there is no garbage out there…underground or mainstream, not everyone inspires a great deal of thought with their lyrics. It’s the artist/s that create something meaningful, not a genre or a label. So basically, I don’t know what is up with this “punk/hip-hop are great musical forces that killed disco” noise. White people with money just got sick of it – the ones with the most buying power, the ones who determine what’s “in” and “worthy” of attention. Now white people are into punk and hip-hop, and it is NOT JUST “working class” people…though I’m sure they wouldn’t want you to find out otherwise. It seems to me that it is those same types of people who would have been inhaling all the coke and chasing tail around clubs, exclusive or not. But now they have other exploitations to engage in.
If you’re not queer/trans or a person of color, I’d consider how asinine it sounds to applaud the “death” of something that obviously meant a lot to those back then who are. I’m not a fan, but I am not close-minded. Sometimes people just want to dance (shock!), have fun (heaven forbid!) and make connections. My generation (much younger) wants to do the same, regardless of race, class, sexuality, gender, et cetera. By the way? Disco not only paved the way for genres like post-punk-and-funk, mutant disco and other bands/musicians inspired by the genre, but guess what? Younger white (mostly straight) musicians are still appropriating the sound today (dance punk), and queer musicians (mostly white, though I’ve heard of a few musicians of color) are also bringing about a revival (that seems to be pretty popular with punk and ex-punk audiences) – look at Hercules & Love Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_and_Love_Affair) or Glass Candy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_candy).
EVIDENCE OF THAT INFLUENCE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uaFa6d8ev4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlbTgyJOI4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL45YOtbuy0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMvA_oaS1cU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXLHjV-HH0
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 12:30 am ¶
Matt wrote:
That comment about early MTv really cuts deep, Miles. Because I really do see that as a kind of Golden Age with a particular style and aesthetic that resonates with me in a very particular way. One of my favs is Gang of Four, which took George Clinton as a major influence. Now, I doubt many fans of George Clinton would appreciate Go4, but they were R&B in a Marxist straightjacket, absolutely paralyzed with the realization that everything is socially constructed. “History is the reason I’m washed up.” That’s not a sentiment I imagine George Clinton ever wanted to express. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard an R&B act that was willing to sound, let alone interested in sounding, that emotionally cold. Sure, Kraftwerk had influences in dance music. But they were also modernists fascinated by industrialization and dehumanization. The mod aesthetic of The Jam, including a fascination with busses and arrows and council flats as well as short punchy songs, really is different from the R&B Paul Weller was into (which is one reason I don’t like Weller’s later stuff). And I promise you, another video with similar guitar riffs would not provide the endless fascination for me that Oingo Boingo’s Private Life does. And my favorite Two-tone act? The Beat.
But what happened in the debate over disco went way beyond differences in taste and the vaguaries of genre.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 12:44 am ¶
Sean wrote:
@ Westerly
Hey, I LOVED the Cure! If the girl at your alma-mater took objection to ‘Close To Me’ being compared to jazz, she’d flip her wig if she ever heard their song ‘The Lovecats.’ I actually went through a goth phase -straightening my hair and wearing it like Robert Smith. Not an easy way of life for a black dude in the Bronx. LOL!
Yeah, I’m one of those folks who never got into disco – but I can truthfully say it’s strictly a matter of personal taste and/or aesthetic when it comes to music.
deb wrote:
I LOVED “I Feel Love.”
As long as it made you “Feel Mighty Real” that’s what counts! And I’ll admit that Dance Fever with Denny Terrio was mildly amusing. LOL.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 2:54 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
@ Sean
Oh, man. Sylvester spinning in a sequined bat-wing top is right where I go when I think about what I like about disco.
@ Matt
I guess you have to reconcile your love of early MTV with their (boldly and admittedly) racist policies? I’ve had to and it doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate what they gave you. I mean, their little doc celebrating Yo MTV Raps features more than a few people saying that MTV was, we’ll say, more than hesitant to give black and brown people air time – that even up to the mid-80s you had MJ and Prince and . . . that was about it. And only because they could NOT be denied. Although claims at the time were about what did and did not fit the “rock” format (as if that format wasn’t dictated by a certain kind of racialized categorization in and of itself) they’ve been pretty open about it not being that linked to substance. I love Gang of Four but you don’t know if there was a non-white band getting there too because, well, they probably didn’t get very far because they couldn’t get play on MTV.
For YEARS (like . . . until i moved to NY for college at the end of the 90s) I thought that Stevie B was local, SoCal music because i never saw a Stevie B video (or any freestyle videos that didn’t feature a “Lisa” or “Samantha” or maybe a “Jet” if that counts) on MTV. Can Stevie get 3 minutes?
And it’s not like Gang of Four and Talking Heads and Joy Division and Kraftwerk were up there alone designating MTV as a space for a certain kind of style and aesthetic in the just-can’t-be-replicated-with/in-R&B-music vein (and comparison to R&B leaves out a lot of popular non-white-people-generated music anyway). Were Duran Duran and Journey really doing something that much more useful and interesting than Rick James?
MTV was able to reconcile having a Gang of Four and a very early, unproven, everybody-good-times-dance Madonna and even Billy Joel. But it seems they had to draw the line somewhere. And that decision was not made based on the substance of the music.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 8:21 am ¶
bdsista wrote:
cosign GK, I was at Tuskegee during the disco era and believe me it wasn’t just middle class folks, there were folks who went home on the weekends to herd cows and chop sugar cane on their parents farms who enjoyed partying to disco. Burn Baby Burn Disco Inferno were lyrics that took the 60s mantra from anger to a different place. For those of us who love to dance it had young Black folk hustling and doing partner dances for the first time since the jitterbug. We had hustling contests in college and practiced in our dorm rooms and yes the guys who were the most sought after partners were gay. They taught me how to dance. Wonderfully, they went on to be scientists and engineers and finished school, but disco down south mixed with funk like Parliament, Johnny Guitar Watson and blues, and I knew when I came home to MD, I could hook up with my friends and go dancing! Loved me some Labelle too! Used to go the garage in NYC when Disco started including house and the beginnings of techno. Yaz was THE MUSIC for fashion shows at Howard U! By then it was 1983. I remember coming home from college and the hatred I got from my white friends from high school about disco was almost frightening. Inever got an answer from them as to what rock song can I dance to? Of course not you CAN’T DANCE to rock music, another reason why there is a racial divide. Oh and can we talk about the Jazz blends in disco as well? My Dad who is a Jazz Maven LOVED him some Van McCoy and Barry White and Salsoul Orchestra. Disco covered many genres and produced some of the best singing talent today. I love Donna Summer, Martha Wash, Labelle, etc. I really miss Sylvester. Yes there was coke and excess, but not in my crowd, it was about the dance and having fun. Although House really does send me into the zone. I remember when that emerged in the mid 80s in DC between the Prince sets at the club and everyone danced. Yes!
Anyone for a revival?
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 10:06 am ¶
deb wrote:
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 10:14 am ¶
Matt wrote:
Nix, when I have a real connection, I’ll respond more thoroughly perhaps. But, while I do agree with a lot of what you say, you ask if journey or duran duran were doing anything more interesting or useful than rick james. Undoubtedly, they were doing different things. I wasn’t much a fan of either, but the question is “more interesting to whom and why?” There are both good and bad reasons someone might say “more interesting to me, yes.” My examples above were very much about the differences in musics people were finding similarities in. Those differences and similarities are both there. (I also already claimed a certain view of punk as superior was ‘bourgois’ even tho I like punk.)
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 10:43 am ¶
Olivia wrote:
I’m a self-confessed music snob LOL so I’d better not try expressing all of my opinions ‘cos I will be here hours.
FACT: House is a Chicago creation.
FACT: CHIC’s Good Times bassline has been sampled many a time and has influenced many; Queen, Sugarhill Gang, Daft Punk, Blondie etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Times_(Chic_song)#Sampling_and_motifs
FACT: The Cure are my fave. band ever
I love music and have a very eclectic taste =D
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 11:17 am ¶
pm wrote:
I recall the ‘disco sucks’ thing as being an _entirely_ US phenomenon.
I never even heard about it till decades later.
US and UK punk were kind of different I think, so I think the article confuses things with the Sex Pistols reference.
I could be wrong, but I don’t recall UK punk as being particularly about rejecting disco, still less ‘dance’ music itself. Not that it was particularly pro-disco, it just wasn’t very salient, punk here was mostly a rejection of prog rock and ‘aging hippies’ and the likes of Mick Jagger.
Odd that some here say Rolling Stones tracks didn’t get the negativity that disco did – here the Rolling Stones were one of the main hate-figures of punk, more so than disco (which people seemed to just forget about rather than react against).
The whole US ‘disco sucks’ thing seemed to be all about a fixation on ‘rock authenticity’ and ‘musicianship’ things that punk here, publically anyway, purported to despise. To be properly punk you had to pretend not to know how to play an instrument. ‘Rockist’ was generally an insult.
Also I don’t get Evan’s conflation of ‘punk and metal’. The two were mostly unrelated, even in the US, at least until Grunge sort of mixed them.
Metal, in my experience, tended to be followed by working class people in the provinces, punk was more urban and had a strong middle-class art-school element (as well as a working class one, I guess mixing the two was one of its distinctive aspects in the UK).
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 11:39 am ¶
Frowner wrote:
Wow! This thread is pretty much about everything I’m most interested in with music! bdsista @ 37, I’m so incredibly jealous that you went to the garage–on my list of music things/places to go, I would rather have gotten to go there than to, say, even an early Gang of Four show.
Matt@34: On coldness, don’t you feel that James Brown sounds pretty cold and mechanical, at least on some tracks? That’s what fascinates me in his music, the fact that you can hear him working. He’s not restrained, but his songs are all about production and mechanism. This is something that I think Mark Stewart/The Pop Group (sort of in the Gang of Four orbit,very free jazz-inflected, if you don’t know them) really got–they were very cold and sometimes mechanical and there’s this hilarious interview with him where he’s saying, completely sincerely, “….and we couldn’t understand why no one was dancing–we were trying to be James Brown”)
I suspect that if you could put together a complete chart of, say, all the folks involved in late disco/early punk you’d find major, major overlaps but a lot of them would be people who didn’t become famous. You’d probably also find connections to jazz–Don Cherry recorded both an amazing disco track called “I Walk” (which, if you want something to dance to!) and some stuff with Rip Rig & Panic a simply fantastic post-punk band whose members included Neneh Cherry.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 11:56 am ¶
pm wrote:
@Westerly
Ironically, I used to be a Cure fan, and I’d have been very irritated by the suggestion that they were Goths. Pop, New-Wave, fine, but even Jazz would have been a more viable category than ‘Goth’ – as I recall they weren’t really regarded as such at the time. I liked the Cure but didn’t like Goth music. So your friend was wrong.
Unfortunately they seem to have retrospectively been so categorised.
Also someone actually likes Phil Collins? I’ve never met anyone who did. And Eric ‘Enoch was right’ Clapton? Those were pretty much _precisely_ what punk was supposed to bury, surely? Boring Tories and racists, obsessed with technical musicianship. The list of music I dislike gets smaller and smaller the older I get, but those two will always be on it.
But when you say punk ‘went white’, yeah, it was pretty white, but was there really time for it to go anywhere? Surely it was all over by about 1978. Giving away my age, I seem to remember that Two-Tone/second wave of Ska, was the big thing when I was at school.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶
Olivia wrote:
@pm; I wonder why Eric Clapton was never called up on his support of Enoch Powell. I mean, I can’t help but like Layla and Sunshine of Your Love, but am not keen on him solely for that reason.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶
andre wrote:
The cure, the clash, dont you call that punk -funk. Rick James is punk -funk . I think Disco diluted funk and soul music mostly. The fact that it started diluting all music, is the reason why people hated it, but I had this argument with someone who actually lived in this era. There is a racist tinge to this like ‘let’s agree to get rid of disco, because its destroying our music, and then i’ll make MTV for my music,but yours won’t get on it’. Of course Michael Jackson stopped this, or better yet Sony Music. The whole history is messed, i’d rather enjoy what I like. I was listening to a Slave CD. After a while it gets annoying. But Rick James, Bootsy Collins, and that girl Will Smith copied for his song for Men in Black, are pretty ggood artist, maybe because they arent strictly disco.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 1:34 pm ¶
andre wrote:
oh now i remember its Patrice Rushen, listen to Forgive Me Nots lol, complete rip off by Will and Jada lol
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 1:36 pm ¶
Safiya Outlines wrote:
Sean – Queen’s bass player is called John Deacon and their Drummer is Roger Taylor. *Pedant*.
Around the time of the Disco Sucks movement Queen’s career in the U.S pretty much died as Freddie didn’t fit the role of the “Straight Rock Male”. It took two white guys headbanging to Bohemian Rapsody in that Wayne’s World scene to make them popular again.
Posted 18 Jul 2009 at 4:39 pm ¶
Asianlawyer wrote:
Look, bigotry and racism aside, I gotta say Disco does suck. It just does, I can’t stand the stuff and I blame it for all the teeny bopping crap we have to deal with today. Disco ruined American music.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 1:55 am ¶
Whitney wrote:
@Safiya: “It took two white guys headbanging to Bohemian Rapsody in that Wayne’s World scene to make them popular again.”
Unfortunately only after Freddie Mercury died.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 2:15 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
Re: the whiteness of punk (and it was/is very white), see: the very bizarre story of Detroit band Death. Things could have been different. Actually, probably not.
@ pm & Olivia
I had no idea about Eric Clapton and the Enoch Powell business. I’m kind of aghast.
@ andre
When I was young – very, very young – I thought that song said “send me the pygmy nuts” (as in Brazil or walnut). Wrong.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 7:46 am ¶
Matt wrote:
@Frowner, no, I don’t think James Brown was cold. I’m not especially familiar with his entire catalogue, but that brings up something else that’s going on here. I’ve heard before that early MTv was racist, and my usual reaction is “eh, white folks being racist? Big surprise.” But there’s something odd happening in this thread, which is an attempt to reconstruct genre without deconstructing it first. James Brown is James Brown. You might be able to find a clip on youtube that illustrates a certain kind of coldness, but you cannot make me listen to James Brown as if I’d never heard James Brown. Everything I know about James Brown will go into how I hear it. And that includes plenty of James Brown that’s nothing remotely like cold. Try asking people if Blazing Saddles is a Western, a comedy, or both. I’d bet 9 out of 10 say it’s a comedy and definitely not a Western. Aa Bb versus AB ab; which is the right way of grouping them? People organize things into genres in ways that are ultimately indefensible and chaotic and nothing more than reified “common sense.” Go4 is often called post-punk, though they pre-date a lot of what gets called punk by the same people. Even more so with Pere Ubu. Today, new wave and punk are completely separate, but at the time they weren’t nearly as separate and often played the same bills. That change required redefining punk in some pretty gross ways. But that doesn’t mean genres don’t exist or that they don’t have a profound impact on the lens through which we experience art. Perhaps we should tear up genre enitrely. Maybe it’s more of a marketing term than anything else. But then shouldn’t we avoid reconstructing it just to suit our own personal tastes.
Prince, btw, could be cold. See “When Doves Cry.” But, interestingly, it’s Prince consciously doing New Wave. He was very forceful in crossing genres in an attempt to build ever bigger audiences. Some people will say Prince was too big to be denied on MTv, but he also made music he knew would fit into MTv’s aesthetic.
Also, interestingly, heavy metal was originally pushed to a half-hour “Headbanger’s Ball.” And when MTv (re)introduced the music that developed from the new wave they started with, it was on a Sunday-night at midnight “120 Minutes.” So, sure there are race issues going on, but there’s also other stuff going on, too. The backlash against disco was very, very much racially charged.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 10:36 am ¶
Joel wrote:
Great article! Reading this made me see some of DDN’s parallels to how alternative rock was heralded as the “voice of Gen X and Gen Y.” The genre was so eagerly embraced by radio and video outlets that it seemed to almost single-handedly push new jack swing and freestyle off radio stations’ playlists back in the early ’90s, two styles that were dominated by black and Latino artists. Yet less than a decade later, the radio was taken over by the “Latin Invasion” and hip-hop oriented pop music, both of which seem to be doing quite well on the charts. It makes me wonder when the next “backlash” will take place.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 12:54 pm ¶
deb wrote:
On the Soundcheck blog: From Comiskey Park to Thriller: The Effect of “Disco Sucks” on Pop by Steve Greenberg and “Misunderstanding Disco” by John Schaefer
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 1:17 pm ¶
dejamorgana wrote:
This is already way off-topic, but I’ve got to say it: the Cure were very, very Goth. In fact, they were Goth before there were Goths. I’m looking at an entire shelf of my CD collection that is nothing but Cure, and oh man is it Goth. They actually started out punk, like Siouxsie and the Banshees – a band closely related to the Cure, as Robert Smith was a Banshee for a couple of years and has done another side project with the Banshees’ lead guitarist. Their first two albums are all over the punk/New Wave vibe, including a very punk cover of “Foxy Lady”. “Love Cats” is virtually the only song on these albums that has a jazz feel to it. Their next four albums went deep into Goth territory – heavy synths, cold distorted guitars, monotonous drum work, songs all about death, alienation, depression, angst, etc. and their look during this period virtually defined the emerging Goth uniform.
They only went pop for a few tracks on Head on the Door, which includes that jazzy “Close To Me”, and then straight back to Gothville for the next ten albums or so. There is maybe one exception on every album. The exceptions are generally what gets played on the radio (”Friday I’m In Love”, “Love Song” and “Love Cats”, mostly) but those songs are all huge stylistic departures from the band’s usual stuff.
Nobody “retroactively claimed the Cure as a Goth band”. The Cure was one of a handful of bands that created the Goth scene. If there’s any doubt about categorizing them, it’s only because this category didn’t exist when the Cure started out, and they borrowed and experimented a lot.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 4:23 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
Safiya Outlines wrote:
Sean – Queen’s bass player is called John Deacon and their Drummer is Roger Taylor. *Pedant*.
OOops.. I stand corrected, thanks.
Clapton ignited a controversy back in the 70’s, voicing his support for Enoch Powell’s election to British Parliament. Powell was well known for his anti-immigration and racist views. It was a rather surprising and ironic statement from someone who spent his life emulating African-American blues artists.
On the subject of the hetero, white male/guitar meme, I’ve also noticed this tendency to de-ethnicize/de-racialize Jimi Hendrix – one of the few black artists who routinely gets a pass with the Rock crowd.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 4:58 pm ¶
Nick wrote:
Wow, I had no idea of Clapton’s views regarding immigration in Britain. Apparently the remark was made at a concert in 1976. I’d give him a pass (it was thirty years ago – he probably regrets it to this day) but according to wikipedia he continues to stand by his support of Powell.
I don’t know what to say, I really don’t.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 5:06 pm ¶
Nick wrote:
Jesus wept, Bowie too? I hope he was being ironic, even though I don’t subscribe to irony being a reasonably defence unless you’re being really obvious about it. And even then, probably better to give it a miss.
The education continues…
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 5:09 pm ¶
Miles Ellison wrote:
On the subject of the hetero, white male/guitar meme, I’ve also noticed this tendency to de-ethnicize/de-racialize Jimi Hendrix – one of the few black artists who routinely gets a pass with the Rock crowd.
This is a concrete example of the racial/cultural compartmentalization that has gone on in American music for over 100 years. The line of attack is clear: separate black music (which white people like) from black people (which they often don’t). Hendrix was so influential that he had to be de-racialized, lest anyone actually admit that a black person had any influence on popular music.
Another dimension to the Hendrix issue is that black people wrongly considered Hendrix a freak rather than the shining link in the black musical tradition of innovation that he actually was.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 7:16 pm ¶
dejamorgana wrote:
I never cared for Clapton much anyway. Sure, he’s a great guitar player, but I think he’s overrated as a solo musician – and his “I Shot the Sheriff” is just weak compared to Marley’s.
Ditto for Phil Collins ruining “Can’t Hurry Love”. Totally lame rendition of one of the catchiest songs ever. That one actually annoys the hell out of me. At least Clapton can claim to be a good musician. Phil Collins is just another middle-of-the-road rocker who was once in a band that made some good stuff under a different frontman, and completely fell to pieces when Collins took over.
Sean, what do you mean by people de-racializing Hendrix? I’ve never heard anything like that.
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 9:36 pm ¶
Sean wrote:
@ dejamorgana
Check out the documentary “Band of Gypsies” when you get a chance. This is from a period in Hendrix’s life where he wished to reconnect and collaborate with musicians who happened to be African-American, (and get out of a bad contract while doing so) and the sort of backlash he got for it. Record execs initially dismissed the album not only because it did it NOT sound like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but because it sounded too black.
Also, when Hendrix first started to make the rounds in England, he was billed as “The Wild Man of Borneo.” By the time of his death in 1970, you had the likes of Paul McCartney pontificating that he was neither black nor white, as well as the general feeling from the Foghat crowd (as well as many African-Americans) that he was an alien being of some sort.
Given the prticular racial politics with rock oriented radio (check out what Miles Ellison wrote at post # 30) -along with the fact that Hendrix gets heavy rotation, and you can draw your own conlusion.
@ Miles Ellison
Yeah, weird situation, eh? It’s back to Pat Boone ripping Little Richard off. I can’t help but think of the modern blues scene being so overly dominated by white artists. (many of whom consider Clapton as the greatest living ‘bluesman’ ever) A visit to any House of Blues club is almost like a slap in the face. Here you have a place complete with “plantation shack” decorum, molded black faces and busts in the walls, etc, but:
1. Rarely features blues music.
2. Will not open a franchise anywhere NEAR an actual black neighborhood.
I just get a deja-vu sense from it all: black (cultural) labor for white profit/benefit while our history is being erased, denied or deleted.
Ok where’s my mirror ball? I’m ready to disco dance my blues away!
Posted 19 Jul 2009 at 11:01 pm ¶
perpetual explosion wrote:
I’m a disco hater, but not for any racial reasons, but because it just leaves me cold. It doesn’t stir anything inside of me. Whenever I listen to it, it just sounds, somehow hollow. I like early punk because of the energy in the music, and the rejection of conformity. I like early funk for the same reason, the music has an exuberant spirit. Punk, funk and maybe some metal are among the few kinds of music from the 70s that don’t leave me cold, annoyed and slightly depressed. Whether it’s Abba, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Bay City Rollers, fucking Sha Na Na (whose songs actually make me facepalm,) music in general seems to have been in a sorry state during that decade, with rock too degenerating into endless, pointless, cocaine-fueled guitar solos and special effects.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 1:29 am ¶
bdsista wrote:
Oh and Hendrix was also Cherokee. I was at the NAMA (Native American Music Awards) at Foxwoods when he was awarded posthumously of course a lifetime achievement award. NAMA held its own ceremonies b/c the Grammys refused to add Native American music as a category. The awards btw were awesome, well done, NO glitches, smooth, tasteful with awesome acts and the afterparty I crashed with my girlfriend was really cool as well.
Not only do they deracialize Hendrix as Black but his Native heritage is damn near non-existent. Remember he wore feathers? That was very deliberate. Love this thread.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 2:48 am ¶
pm wrote:
@dejamorgana
I am biased as having liked the Cure from the first (clearly not at all Goth) album, and having disliked the Goth scene at the time (mainly because it seemed to consist of folk with more money and from posher schools). Perhaps I should admit defeat on the topic. Though Robert Smith has expressed annoyance in interviews at being so categorised.
(Some Americans apparently even consider Joy Division as Goth, which seems to really infuriate the Northern ‘wouldn’t be seen dead in makeup’ working class blokes that make up much of their UK fans.)
While on the subject of Clapton and his dislike of non-white immigrants (which includes my own dad, so its kind of personal), I find it very ironic that Morrissey’s fanbase in the US apparently includes a large number of Mexican-Americans (who, I’m told apparently find much in his work and image they identify with), when at home he’s made numerous dodgy statements complaining about immigration.
I don’t think he’s strayed into Clapton territory, but he’s come uncomfortably close.
There is something really _wrong_ when people who play a black-created art form start coming out with stuff like that. I still don’t understand how the likes of Clapton, who was I guess more directly influenced by black artists than most, reconcile that in their heads.
Funny, for me Eric Clapton’s Powell speech was the first thing I ever heard about him, as a child when it happened. Add in the punk year-zero thing and it meant to this day I’ve never actually listened to his music, apart from what you hear in passing on the radio/TV. I still don’t think I’m missing much. Almost the same applies to Bowie, though I think its fair to say his stupid remarks were more facetious than fascist. I don’t know why I find his stupidity harder to forgive than, say, the early punks like Siouxsie using the Swastika for ’shock’ value, or Joy Division their very name, other than saying that they had the excuse of youth.
I find it surprising that anyone even considers Phil Collins PLC (he’s turned himself into a corporation for tax purposes) to be worth discussing. Terrible music _and_ horrible politics, its nice when they go together. I never liked Genesis either.
I don’t really remember disco, other than liking “Le Freak” and disliking the Bee Gees. I’m thinking maybe I should go and listen to some.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 4:52 am ¶
Westerly wrote:
Re: “Punk went white” – I’m talking about the way that British punk was marketed to places like Australia and NZ – as if it was never inspired by or had any creative ties or political afilliation with ska, two-tone, rocksteady and reggae whatsoever; as if was the product of some independent white genius in the attic; as if the “Tide is High” wasn’t a re-make of a ska number.
As if “Heart of Glass” wasn’t orignally written as a reggae number – and then discofied. (Once Blondie was classified as punk it wouldn’t have mattered if Debbie Harry had sung like Calla – it would have been regarded as ‘punk’ no matter what.)
I know that there was a whole DIY/back-to-basics ethic behind Brit punk which was inspired by an near-patronising admiration for the ’simplicity’ Bo Diddley’s chords (as if, Bo Diddley couldn’t *play*) But then I often think that so much well-meaning white music that intends to pay homage to black music is often spawned from a misapprehension of the quality and the complexity of the music, beacause the artists have an effortless virtuosity.
(As if toneless yelling, or hacking at your instruments, putting on a dreadful accent, or breathlessly racing through a set is a good approximation of soul, blues, ska, or rock n roll. As if this any of this were ‘easy’. They never do seem to think that there is any presumption in their imitation. Same principle operates in dance – grab some ‘ethnic dance’ – dumb it the hell down and slap ‘International’ at the front of it, while the culture it originates from is bemused, laughs, or tries to any association with the resulting mess.)
I bought up the example of ‘The Cure’ not because I wanted to debate whether or not they were more New Wave or ‘jazz’ than Goth (to be honest I’m more interested in what they’re influenced by and what they draw on, rather than trying to definitively categorise them.) I just wanted to illustrate the way that rigid preconceptions and categorisation actually deafen people to the obvious. (Like people not being able to recognise the riff in ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ as funk because, y’know that’s black – and Queen rocks!)
My ‘friend’ wouldn’t have heard the jazz in ‘Close to Me’, anymore than she would have heard it in ‘Lovecats’ (which was her favourite song), or picked up in the caribbean percussion in ‘Caterpillar’ girl. I’m sure there are people who would find a way to ignore all of the mariachi inflection in ‘The 13th’ if they could. Fact is, Smith’s musical palatte is broader than some of his fans.
Re: Disco – I don’t understand how anyone could argue that it was elitist on the one hand yet revile it for its popularity. A bit of a contradiction it seems.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 6:47 am ¶
Neville A. Ross wrote:
@PM & @Westerly:
Stop giving Phil Collins so much grief-what did he do, pee in you soup? The reason Genesis changed is because of Peter Gabriel leaving-it should have broken up after that, but it didn’t, so give the guy a break (yes, I’m a black guy who loves Phil Collins, Genesis & Peter Gabriel-so shoot me!)
I’m surprised to hear about Clapton-I will certainly be somewhat watchful of him in future. I’m amazed that he still has black musicians who want to work with him after that, including B.B. King and a lot of others.
As for disco-most of what happened vis-a-vis the Disco Demolition Night is proof positive that most white people were as racist as before, not to mention quite homophobic-traits that would serve the coming Reagan Revolution quite well.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 12:43 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
A.D. Nix wrote:
@ andre
When I was young – very, very young – I thought that song said “send me the pygmy nuts” (as in Brazil or walnut). Wrong.
Ha-ha, you are better than me, b/c I was little around that time too and thought they were saying “send me pee-pee nuts” which makes no sense. But I’d get highly offended when it came on and would ask my Mom too turn the nasty pee-pee nuts song off. Ha-ha. She tried to explain but I didn’t get it. Come to think of it, I was obsessed with pee. I refused to wear a Pea Jacket she got me for a few days b/c I thought it was a jacket you were supposed to wear only when you were peeing. I was a little nut! I got over it though. Ahh good times.
This is a great discussion. I am learning lots.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 5:25 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
I’m also disgusted to hear about Eric Clapton and his support for Enoch Powell. That is awful (I first learned about that dude from Monty Python of all things). I hate hearing about someone I like being racist. He actually said something to the effect of the immigration pracitces in the 70’s were going to turn Britain into a “black colony” I mean really! After all they did in Africa to colonize many countries? Shoot, I always looked at black, and Indian and other subjects from fomer colonies immigrating to Britain as the chickens coming home to roost. And despite what he said, Britain is still overwhelming white, slighlty over 90%
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 5:37 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
Oh I looked up David Bowie comments on fascism mentioned inteh Clapton Wikipedia article, and he said he has distanced himself from the comments and makes amends by supporting various things (they mentioned the Jena 6 defense fund). Clapton on the other hand still has these beliefs, or at least as of 04. What a bummer. Oh and Neville, I’m with you, I like Phil Collins too, cheesy or not.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 5:45 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
Fantastic thread! I happen to think that there was a lot of substance to disco, just not in a overt way. As just one example, “(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real” is a tremendously political song about identity, sense of self, freedom, and individuality, which is why it is a gay anthem to this day and has been covered by many latter day artists like Jimmy Somerville and Sandra Bernhard. Just the image of Sylvester, a big, beautiful man of color in drag with a phenomenal voice and a fearless drive to be himself, was more political than ten songs about teenage angst and post-industrial malaise.
All this music is so interconnected, it shows a certain musical ahistoricity and lack of knowledge to deny the overlap, or to say that disco was superficial and had nothing substantive to impart. Tying in to the punk crossover issue, New Order has acknowledged that “Mighty Real” as well as some of Donna Summer’s work greatly influenced the structure, arrangement and sound of “Blue Monday”, and the disco influence in early New Order is fairly obvious. They were also influenced heavily by Krautrock, specifically Kraftwerk, Can, and Neu!, but despite the Krautrock desire to definitively distance itself from the blues influence in rock, it ended up manifesting in dance, hip hop and post-punk, music that is also obviously rooted in disco. The Clash and Blondie are obvious punk/post-punk examples, but someone upthread mentioned Gang of Four (referred to as a ‘dance-band’ by Rolling Stone in the 80’s). Gang of Four has influenced everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Fugazi to Rage Against the Machine to Franz Ferdinand, and Gang of Four has never denied their affinity for disco and funk music. If you don’t think the synthpop of the late 70’s, early 80’s (think early Human League, Spandau Ballet, Heaven 17, etc.) was just as influenced by disco (especially Moroder’s Euro version of it) as it was by Stockhausen and Krautrock, you don’t know your music history. There would have been no Madchester sound of the late 80’s without disco, which, with recordings by the Happy Mondays, 808 State, and others, was an influence on the development of UK acid house and trance. And anyone who thinks disco died or isn’t still shaping and influencing music today has never heard MGMT, Hercules and Love Affair, Passion Pit, Scissor Sisters, or even Kylie Minogue. Interestingly, most of these purveyors of “nu disco”, released on former deep house labels, are white. Of course, this may just reflect the continual cycle of people of color edging or being edged out of musical genres they were once predominant in once they begin to hit the mainstream. Nevertheless, the music is still here, and its roots are showing.
BTW, Brit punk may have been marketed to Australia and New Zealand sans its rocksteady and reggae influences, but Australia had its own growing punk scene, contemporary with the New York scene. The Saints and the Cheap Nasties were doing their thing in the mid 70’s, and actually probably had more success in the UK than they did at home, and ironically, were more like New York punk in sound than any UK groups. I think more of the Aussie punk and post-punk bands took their cues from New York, and it wasn’t until probably the Boys Next Door, with a pre-Birthday Party Nick Cave, that you really had a strong British art-rock influence in Aussie punk.
Also, re: the Cure’s status as Goths, I’ve always been a Smiths girl myself, and usually the twain never meet, but I’ve loved the Cure since I heard “A Forest” in 1981 (boy, have I ever dated myself with this post. Can I just say I was still in middle school when I heard this song for the first time!). Although I can understand why many would consider the Cure “Goth” (not a term we used growing up; bands were “New Wave” or punk, further divided into subgenres like “darkwave” or “hardcore”), I think this was more about appearances than music. They were already crossing over by 1982 with “Let’s Go To Bed”, and their strong commercial sensibilities were evident as early as “The Lovecats”, and certainly by “In Between Days” and “Close to Me”. I remember my friends and I being aghast when “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” came out; with “Why Can’t I Be You?” we knew Robert Smith had sold his soul to the devil for commercial success! I appreciate that album now, but as a snotty teen it was serious selling out. The point is, there is a reason the Cure has achieved a mainstream success that has eluded Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus (despite ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’), Joy Division or Sisters of Mercy. From early in their career, they had a musical aesthetic and sense of songcraft that leant itself to mainstream appeal and accessibility. The very nature of the Goth subculture denies that sort of mass appeal. While I don’t deny Robert Smith’s past as a member of Siouxsie and the Banshees, or the Goth trappings of the band, or the fact that many younger fans label themselves as Goth, or the fact that a case could be made for some early tracks like “The Hanging Garden”, Robert Smith himself eschews the label, and I think in comparison with many of their contemporaries, they don’t really fit it from an aesthetic or musical standpoint either. Just my two cents.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 6:19 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
Whoah, people need to stop relying on Wikipedia for Bowie fascism info!
In a 1970s Playboy interview, during which he was high out of his mind on coke and not especially focused on contextualizing, among other outrageous statements, he dropped exactly two bombs: “Britain is ready for a fascist leader” and “Adolf Hitler was the first pop star”.
I think it’s pretty obvious from albums like “Diamond Dogs” released around the time of those statements that he was fascinated with fascism as a frightening phenomenon, not something to be admired. The quotes were meant more as a comment about Britain and prop stars than fascism and Hitler.
He’s tried to clarify numerous times since. It mostly blew over. This is the first time I’ve heard his statements were a big influence on Rock Against Racism, so I’m not going to believe it until I see a decent historical article or contemporary citation.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 6:20 pm ¶
Westerly wrote:
Hey Neville – good for you!
I find a lot of Phil Collins music numbingly boring and cheesy (but that’s me) – but I don’t “hate” Phil Collins and he did do that drum solo…
What I hated was being surrounded by a white monolith who simply could not conceive of anyone *not* rushing to buy Phil Collins records and couldn’t imagine that not all of us were dying to join in Phil Collins sing-alongs… It’s the ‘normative’ “thing” that surrounds certain artists, more than their work that tends to really annoy the hell out of me.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 6:27 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
And sort of off-topic, but Bowie did plenty of disco songs in the 70s: Diamond Dogs (”1984″: horrible) Young Americans (”Golden Years”: awesome) Station to Station (”Stay”: also awesome). He also occasionally performed a really weird cover of “Knock on Wood” during live shows.
Even more off-topic, following the Genesis comments… this weekend I listened to the entire “Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” double album on a road trip to the beach… I’ve never done that before, and I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole experience or if I want to repeat it.
Posted 20 Jul 2009 at 6:49 pm ¶
Whitney wrote:
@atlasien #72: Wait, wait…. those Bowie songs are considered disco? I never even thought about that before.
And one interesting tidbit, “disco” is used as an adjective in England (not sure about the rest of Europe) to describe someone groovy. As in, “she is so disco!”
Posted 21 Jul 2009 at 12:47 am ¶
Purple.Chuckz wrote:
This partly explains why Nile Rodgers hasn’t yet been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Posted 21 Jul 2009 at 10:26 am ¶
Olivia wrote:
@Winn-No. 69; Great post! Agree with every word.
@Purple.Chuckz; It’s a disgrace. Been nominated a number of times, but never inducted. If him and CHIC aren’t in by next year…
Posted 21 Jul 2009 at 1:50 pm ¶
cocolamala wrote:
@Purple.Chuckz
this also explains why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should more appropriately be called the “Museum of American Music” (MAM for short)
Posted 22 Jul 2009 at 12:03 pm ¶