Squeeze into an old pair of flares, polish the gold medallion, start gyrating those hips, point to the ceiling, now the floor. And big smile. Yes, it’s that disco music…
On the night of Thursday 12 July 1979, disco was declared dead. More than 60,000 people – ten times the usual midweek crowd – descended on Chicago’s Comiskey Park at the behest of a local DJ who had offered a discounted entry fee for that night’s Chicago White Sox games to anyone who turned up with an unwanted disco record. After the evening’s first game, chaos ensued as a large box containing all the unwanted disco records was blown up to the deafening chants of “disco sucks” from the crowd…
Disco folk didn’t take events in Chicago at all well: “It felt to us like a Nazi book burning. This is America, the home of jazz and rock and people are now afraid even to say the word ‘disco’,” hyperbolised the guitarist from the band Chic. But the undeniable fact was that tastes were changing and people were getting bored of disco. It wasn’t just white, straight, male rockers from Illinois who had a beef with it, it had had its moment and people wanted something new.
Fast forward thirty odd years and disco is enjoying something of a revival. The recent passing of Robin Gibb and Donna Summer has added to the sense of nostalgia. Oh, those heady days of nylon flares, three day weeks, Skol lager and Sister Sledge. I was of course only a young nipper then, but I (sort of) remember it. So, let’s sit back and enjoy a few disco tracks that should make the most curmudgeonly of Dabblers tap their slipper-bedecked feet.
There is much controversy over what is the first ever disco song, but that’s one glitter-coated jump-suit of a debate I’ll leave for another day. That said, one of the big contenders is the legendary track Kung Fu Fighting from Carl Douglas. It topped the US and UK in charts in 1974 and sold 11 million copies in all – which is about 11 million more copies than any other record he made.
Let’s now turn to the undisputed Queen of Disco – Donna Summer. In 1975, she released the track Love to Love You Baby which was the first ever disco hit to be released in an extended version – 16 minutes in all. All that grunting and groaning ruffled a few feathers. The BBC declared it contained 23 orgasms and promptly banned it from the airwaves, which of course propelled it to the top of the charts. In an interview, Summer responded to the many questions about the process of recording the song: “Everyone’s asking, ‘Were you alone in the studio?’ Yes, I was alone in the studio. ‘Did you touch yourself?’ Yes, well, actually I had my hand on my knee.”
No post on disco would be complete without the Bee Gees. Love them or hate them, their extraordinary impact on popular music cannot be denied. They sold more than 220 million records and wrote hit songs for Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Dionne Warwick.
I think my favourite Bee Gees track is Massachusetts. It’s a song where vacuous sentimentality trumps all. The band had never actually been to Massachusetts before writing it – they just liked the word. And a fine word it is too. It rolls nicely around the mouth and conjures up all sorts of good things in the mind. Names of places are such important imaginative triggers. One feels for Staines and Grimsby.
As Massachusetts isn’t a disco track, I have turned to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. So Dabblers, what are you doing lazing around reading this? You Should Be Dancing…
I have just two words for you, Mr Ash: Village People.
That and the fact that ‘Love to Love You Baby’ dirges on in the background of Abigail’s Party (screened 1977) which suggests that the BBC must have relented ‘for art’s sake’.
Whilst disco may have suffered a backlash in ’79 it continued throughout the 80’s, with acts like Imagination, Indeep and the camp hi nrg of the weather girls. Followed of course by the wonders of stock, Aiken and Waterman….
You’ve got me dancing, Toby – after Kung-Fu Fighting I never stopped. By the way, is that Biddu, of Biddu Orchestra fame in Carl’s backing group? Some fabulous slit-to-the-waist white jumpsuits and snake-hip action in this video clip.
And there were some funky disco releases in the ’80s too, Worm… like Dayton’s The Sound of Music
A college friend referred to the disco era Bee Gees as “the singing dolphins”. As for their earlier incarnation–“I Must be Going Back to Massachusetts”, “I Just Gotta Get a Message to You”–I think of the line from “Horsefeathers”: “Drill a hole in yourself and let the sap run out.”
I never cared for the music. However, the 80s-and-onward tendency for vain young men to shave or wax their torsos has made me think the better of the 1970s style of gold chains nestled in chest hair.