Twang welcomes Tiggerlion, Milkybarnet and Moseley Moles to the pod to discuss the enduring phenomenon that is disco. From its fully formed arrival in the mid 70 it quickly overwhelmed all competition through mutations into pop, rock and even jazz and all fell to the irresistible argument that it’s fun and everyone can dance to it. Even mass burning of Bee Gees albums couldn’t kill it, and and when it survived disco treatments from Rod Stewart and Kiss, lesser forms just gave up and went home.
The Afterword #103: Disco!
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And for further pleasure the teem have assembled a playlist of classics and deep cuts so put your hand bags in the middle, form a circle and Disco!
If there was a panic at the disco, this thread would be deluged with comments.
I snuck in one track to the playlist as a joke. I thought @twang might take it out, but delighted to see it still there!
errr own up who put the Steely Dan track in there?? Was that just give you guys a reference point to keep you steady whilst charting these unfamiliar waters ? Cant wait to see how the Tull are worked into this chat !
Pre 1977, the discos I attended played very few actual disco records. There were things like Alright Now, Brown Sugar or Pink Floyd’s Money for the ‘headbangers’, mostly males in jeans & long hair. Soul boys got their Tamla Motown & Northern Soul. Pop hits like Come Up And See Me or Love Is The Drug were popular with the girls. I remember actually dancing to Do It Again (full version) and Haitian Divorce, neither of which were actually disco.
We forgot to talk about girls. There were loads of girls at Discos and they looked gorgeous in their dresses and glittery make up. The Rock/Punk crowd was heavily male. For some inexplicable reason, although I went to a lot of Punk/New Wave gigs, I was still drawn to Disco. 😉
Absolutely right @Tiggerlion – I was at college 69-72 and I remember the discos played stuff like Brown Sugar, Jumping Jack Flash, Alright Now, Get Back as well as Slade, T. Rex and, yes, Jethro Tull! Most of the music was fairly current rock – this was before nostalgia for older music had really started. I remarked on another thread recently that my younger sister introduced me to Do It Again after she heard it at a disco and got the DJ to keep playing it.
Thanks for another great listen by the way – I learnt a lot!
I spent several pleasant evenings at the Pier Disco in Aberystwyth when I lived nearby in the early ’80s.
That’s a reasonable playlist, but with one or two clunkers. Also some obvious omissions.
Fatback Band – I Found Lovin’
Shalamar – I Can Make You Feel Good + Friends
Gap Band – Oops Upside Your Head
Kool & The Gang – Ladies Night + Celebration
Coati Mundi – Que Pasa/Me No Pop I
Was (Not Was) – Wheel Me Out + Out Come The Freaks + Spy In The House Of Love + Are You OK?
That’ll do for now.
*heads to Mike’s gaff*
Forgot this one.
.. and these ones too.
.
I think anyone can add to the Spotify playlist.
Excellent! I’ve added Horn by Nick Drake.
Nice one. Twang is in charge and has the final veto.
The greatest disco track (I think) is Spacer (extended version) by Sheila (and) B Devotion, that better be on the playlist ..
I’m inclined to agree with you. I don’t think the expanded version is on Spotify (or, at least I struggled to find it) but Chic are well represented.
There are some interesting mixes on there. Just grooving to the dub mix. But of course it’s on the list @dai.
In my old village discos I used to pester the DJ for ‘No Fun’ by the Sex Pistols (it was a b-side. Six minutes long.). He said ‘if I do will you dance?’ I said ‘of course not.’
He then played some Boney M.
I hated discos and everything in them.
it generally takes a woman…..
I abhorred disco as a teenager, and, as I gradually accepted the beat via Blondie and Roxy Music, still hated all the classics churned out on saturday evening radio programmes, the only damn things on the car radio if I chose to go out of a saturday. (To the folk club, no doubt.) But, via a series of wives I found some love for some of the disco gold, through HINRG and, ultimately, via techno, to dance music in all its forms.
Here’s some disco, btw….
I think a major hindrance to the enjoyment of disco is my sheer reluctance to dance. I’ve never felt the urge to express my appreciation of the music via any form of physical exhibition beyond toe-tapping and table-top drumming (ideally with two Bic pens but your average HB pencil will do). Lady G is often frustrated by this as she is an ex-ballroom champion with medals and cups and everything.
She has never liked Yes.
That is a major hindrance. Disco is specifically designed to make your body move. Try the playlist. I bet you find yourself more than tapping a toe.
Mmm. I have a natural- or unnatural- aversion to music which is only there to make you dance. I tend to dance (mentally) to lyrics and interesting chord changes.
I think those records were made for more than dancing. They also work as melodies with catchy hooks. Even the lyrics can be decent.
Plus, there are chord changes!
There’s so much going on, it’s mind blowing! A cornucopia of aural delights.
Oh I’m sure that’s all true. It’s just not a genre that has ever greatly interested me I suppose.
Eddie, you might find this helpful then. And you don’t really need to understand Finnish either
Perkele!
Dancing is so silly, vulgar and- let’s face it- completely unnecessary. I often point this out to Lady G during Strictly.
The wounds are beginning to heal.
Disco was among the greatest music from the late seventies. I like it when rock acts embrace dance music. Some of them made brilliant dance/disco tracks of their own. Blondie obviously. Heart of Glass and Atomic are two of their best ever songs. Roxy Music Dance Away (extended). Very suave. Stones Miss You. Disco but still distinctively them. Bowie Fashion, among others.
I like Donna Summer a great deal, especially side 4 of Bad Girls, the electronic stuff. Sunset People and Our Love. The latter ripped off by New Order for Blue Monday (as they admit), in fact they pretty much built a career out of that one track, you could say.
Angel Eyes was the real disco Roxy Music. The transformation from album track to extended disco mix is astonishing.
Also the ideal track to display my locally renowned Bryan Ferry impression, which essentially involves hunching my shoulders, narrowing my eyes, and singing through clenched teeth.
Yes granted.
Mini barney between @tiggerlion and myself over ABBA: I think they ‘went disco’ – in fact were the ultimate going disco band in terms of sales. Tigger countered with the correct view that my poorly-chosen example Dancing Queen ‘lopes’ a bit too much for 4 on the floor disco. However this and many other tracks from Arrival and Voulez Vous ARE disco I would contend.
In the seventies nobody described them as Disco. Their outfits were actually derived from Glam Rock (Waterloo was 1973). Only a handful of tracks have the four to the floor beat and where’s the open hi-hat and the heavy bass? They had a Wall Of Sound but not lush strings and horns. Is there a Tom Moulton extended remix?
They are unashamedly Pop, in my view, and smart enough to nick a few tropes from whatever was a commercial success at the time, including Disco post 1977. They are actually quite difficult to dance to. There are whoops with delight as the record starts but, twenty seconds later, the floor is filled with people struggling to keep time. They may be much loved at weddings but never in an actual club when Disco was king.
This is certainly not the first time that I have heard Abba described as disco. It’s difficult, perhaps impossible to define disco. With Abba it’s the programmed rhythms that is the link. I do remember being at a club in the early 80s when the DJ was doing a live mix of Lay All Your Love On Me which was most definitely disco. I had never heard mixing before and didn’t know it was a thing. I just left thinking where does the DJ get these records from?
There is an interesting article here about disco here with a playlist of photo disco and disco.
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726180343/searching-for-discos-cro-magnon?t=1583961519192
How can he talk about the search for Disco patient zero without mentioning Isaac Hayes? All the elements are present and correct on 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul. By August 1971, he’d sped things up with Shaft.
And let’s salute Gamble & Huff as we do in the cast.
Apropros of the discussion on nightclubs here is proof of Rotters existence and that logo at the top of Oxford Road… nothing says disco glamour like ‘Also at Stockport’
Nowt like a mention of Stockport….By the way The Beatles played at Rotters when it was called The Palace “On June 13th, 1963, The Beatles played at the Palace Theatre Club on Turncroft Lane, Stockport, Cheshire, their only performance in the town. … The Beatles played for around 30 minutes, to 300 mostly screaming fans.”………
Anyways for me Disco has produced some magnificent songs and its nonsense to say that its only for dancers….Advice: Spark up a doober throw on “Risque” and you’ll soon be marvelling at the fab telepathic interplay of Rodgers and Edwards, dazzling music from the comfort of your armchair.
Yes, eddie-g. Try Chic for the finest musicianship you will ever hear.
Well obviously I’m very familiar with Chic. I never said disco as a genre was plagued by poor musicianship. I personally don’t really care about technical ability as long as the end result is in any way interesting and no one but a fool would deny that Nile Rodgers is a musical giant. All I said was that, despite acknowledging that it has its strengths just like any genre, ultimately I am not terribly moved by disco. I do have a couple of Chic albums as it happens. I tap pencils to them quite happily.
You tap Pencil’s what?
Not entirely sure if this qualifies as Disco but it’s great anyway (especially the 12″ which i couldn’t find on the tubes
Good chat as ever guys – impressed by your knowledge of genre I put it down to the young chap in the group ( the one born in ‘77 – I was already saving into a pension scheme by then!).
What strikes me listening to the playlist is how tame they sound now – great songs but more pleasant toe tappers than shaking yer bootie on the dance floor although the last time I did that with any seriousness was in the last century.
I’ll be putting together a mix of Euro disco from the 70s. There will be synths, vocoders, female moans, and starting off will be Boney M. Frank Farian was a bubblegum genius. As well as writing some great songs, he chose some interesting covers. Also Keith Forsey gets a mention – former Amon Düül II percussionist, he drummed on Boney M, Giorgio Moroder and produced successful stuff in the 80s. The musicians on Boney M were great. Here’s a good example – I think Jerry Dammers may have listened to this one….
and while I remember it, Stephen Stills played timbales on the Bee Gees “You should be dancing”, and Edgar Winter played the sax solo on Dan Hartman’s “Instant Replay”
Róisín Murphy’s latest is classic disco:
No Soul Weekender complete without this one:
When’s the erection section?