Death of a disco dancer

 

When I was a kid I hated disco. I had no reason to hate it but everybody else seemed to so why rock the boat? People would talk about disco like it committed an unforgivable crime. My first memories of getting into music was the early 80s; MTV, arena rock, new wave, hair metal, pop and rap. Most of those things looked down on disco. I didn’t know it at the time but this was the first instance where I ever experienced what we now call cancel culture. Disco got too big, too cheesy, too commercial and it was everywhere. The record companies and money people ruined it. Radio was flooded with it. Rock bands as varied as the Rolling Stones, Kiss, Blondie, Rod Stewart, Queen, the Clash, Zeppelin and many others dipped their toes into the disco pool and had success. I guess it was too much of a good thing. Yes, it was a good thing. I say that because even though I was taught to dislike disco having grown up in the post disco era, I have really come to enjoy it over time, especially as I learned more about where it came from and what it truly was meant to be. Sure there’s some forgettable disco music out there but there was a lot of excellent stuff too. Since I wasn’t really a part of it but its’ demise happened during my lifetime, I think a lot about how it went from being the biggest thing sweeping the world to becoming the antichrist so quickly.

 

Today people get “cancelled” by doing and saying awful, hateful things. In the beginning, all disco wanted to do was have a good time. It’s not lost on me that the death of disco coincided with the dawn of Reagan and trickle down economics, and all that vile stuff we haven’t been able to get rid of. It was like when the 70s ended, the party was over and a cultural backlash was underway. Of course, systemic change usually happens slowly so while the dawn of the 80s and Reaganism took hold it took many years before we really started to feel the long term effects of the damage they did by giving the rich lower taxes, all the deregulation, the increased privatization and all the havoc the new conservative “leadership” would wreak upon us. While the foundation was silently cracking we still had fun in the 80s supersizing our hair, our music, wearing the bright colors and doing many other totally awesome things so it’s easy to dismiss what happened at the turn of the decade as not a big deal but I don’t accept that.

 

While the decline took time, when disco got cancelled, it seemed like the spirit of the 60s and 70s went with it. I remember a bit where George Carlin talked about the baby boomers and how in the 60s and 70s they took all the sex, drugs and rock n roll and had a free ride. This was true. It might have been the most progressive time in American history. I realize that isn’t saying much. But eventually the free ride did have a cost. The sex party wasn’t the same after AIDS hit the scene in the early 80s. The drugs went from less harmful things like grass, poppers and ludes to increasingly addictive and lethal things like coke and crack. The amount of drug deaths climbed in the 80s as did the number of gun deaths. The music underwent changes, evolved and disco died and gave way to punk rock, new wave, rap and the dawn of MTV. Disco artists were basically shunned and many careers were ended with just a few exceptions. The Bee Gees became public enemy number #1 and a group that had six #1 singles in a row during the last few years of the 70s would never have another. In fact, they only had 1 more top 20 song and that took until 1989 to get there. At the beginning of 1979 disco was still raking in huge money but by the end of that year, the end was near. I find it amazing how quickly this massive bubble burst.

 

Disco started in the early 70s and like most good cultural movements, it began underground with people of color and other marginalized communities. Glorious dance parties happened in warehouses and lofts. The majority of the early attendees were black. They were gay. They weren’t trying to make a buck, they just wanted to dance and let loose. They were people who created fun safespaces that existed on the dance floor. Over time it grew beyond the black, Puerto Rican and gay communities and more clubs and discotechques began popping up around New York City because more and more people wanted to get in on the party. Dancing brought people together... people of different backgrounds, interests, classes. This is because a good time doesn’t know color, sexuality or gender. Fun is fun and dancing to the best music you couldn’t hear on the radio was the coolest. The party kept growing. The movement grew so much that the songs the DJs played in the clubs started to become hits on the charts by 73 and 74. That’s when the money people took notice. What was underground was then becoming increasingly commercial and marketed and sold to larger audiences. Corporate America got ahold of the new fad, watered it down and mass produced it. Many believed they whitewashed it so it would be more palatable for middle America and the like. Then they got greedier. If 1 disco hit is good, 10 is better, no 100 is better. In 1977, 5000 discos opened across America. The oversaturation of the movement was starting. Saturday Night Fever came out and became massive and now common America had a straight white face to place on the craze.

 

Disco was everywhere, in commercials, movies and there were disco novelty songs and albums coming out all the time. It was dominating the charts, the Grammys and selling like hotcakes. It was all over the radio and in these times, unless you had records of your own to listen to, the radio was all you had. Some stations changed to all disco formats. You couldn’t skip songs, stream or play DJ so easily like we do today. Because of where disco had its’ roots I believe there was a racial element to the backlash that finally came. Yes, people were tired of it but who led the charge? If you look at video or pictures of the infamous Disco Demolition night in the southside of Chicago at a baseball game in the summer of 79 who are the angry ones? Young white men. It’s convenient to say these were just rock fans who were tired of disco overshadowing their music and tired of men singing falsetto over dance beats but knowing America like we do, it was be incredibly naïve to say that was the only reason. When people brought their records for the big explosion there were many soul records tossed in the bonfire too. When these angry young white men screamed “Disco sucks” and “F- disco” you couldn’t help but wonder what else some of them were really saying. Do I think the end of disco was brought on primarily by racism? No I do not, but I also think you cannot deny it was a factor for some of the angry men who latched on to the disco fatigue America was already feeling and turned it up to 11. Who were most of the biggest disco artists? Take away the Bee Gees and most of the top disco artists were black women, gay men or multicultural groups like KC and the Sunshine Band, Village People and more. Much like corporate America appropriated disco and softened and packaged it for the masses, I think these angry folks saw an opportunity and were more than happy to help cancel disco and end the party. In this way it was a cultural backlash.

 

At the beginning of the 70s, disco was people just getting together to dance and have a great time. By the end of the decade, disco was massive business and everyone was trying to exploit it and make more money before the train inevitably crashed. Disco was the poster child for excess, decadence, everything the conservative 80s aspired to leave behind during this new morning in America. Did corporate America go overboard on disco? Absolutely… but almost never has a cultural fad been met with such a bitter end. Fads and styles just change and the old ones fade away while the kids tell us what the new thing will be. The old fad doesn’t go through a brutal breakup, it just gets ghosted while people move to the next thing. But not disco. It still blows my mind how we cancelled disco decades before canceling things became a fad of its own. I was too young to understand it and that’s part of the reason why I’m here now, still thinking about it. Why did we end up hating it that much? Was it really that bad? The only thing I can compare it to from the rest of my lifetime was the early 90s when grunge came and hair metal got shown the door, but it wasn’t the same. Kids basically just moved on to the next thing and hair metal got left behind. Winger and Poison weren’t hated, they were just forgotten and not cool anymore. There wasn’t the same vitriol to kill it with extreme prejudice like the way disco died. To those of you who lived it or those of you who care, do you feel like disco deserved such a harsh end? Did you have a problem with disco? Can you think of another fad that got cancelled so severely?