# Exactly what was so horrible about disco? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 27, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307 "2004-05-27T07:26:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/41 "2004-05-28T20:13:11Z")
Three words: Polyester. Leisure. Suits. C’mon, nothing could long survive close association with _that_. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/42 "2004-05-28T20:19:41Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > That’s very feeble to associate the anti-disco movement with anti-gay and anti-black attitiudes. Since it’s pointless to try and justify the alleged “music”, I guess the way to defend it is to attack the anti-disco crowd personally. Yep, that’s pretty insane. I can think of no music “whiter” than Disco. I don’t know what you’d have to be smoking to think that people hated it because it was “black” music. ---
**Author:** ![Freejooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2004, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/43 "2004-05-28T23:31:53Z")
But those are reasons why a select few people claim to hate it- I’m referring to the sweeping, middle america cultural trend of “disco sucks.” You could also argue it was because mainstream rock was at (arguably) its weakest when Disco was king, so it was natural for rockers to feel threatened. I mean, they had…The Eagles and Journey? on their side. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/44 "2004-05-29T00:22:05Z")
I turned twenty-one in 1977, and I resented the hell out of the fact that nightclubs were hiring a single dj to entertain the patrons, instead of paying an entire band of live musicians. For myself, I simply valued live music over recorded. Also, I couldn’t do the dressing, and the dancing, and the general hooking-up. Beach cities suburbs of Los Angeles, CA, in case anyone wonders about the particular _milieu_. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/45 "2004-05-29T00:41:08Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > That’s very feeble to associate the anti-disco movement with anti-gay and anti-black attitiudes . . . The music sucked - plain and simple. Are you aware of the homophobic origins of the slang word “sucked”? Just asking. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/46 "2004-05-29T01:05:26Z")
I see a lot of mention being made of disco’s repetitive and less-than-profound nature. But if that were the source of all the vitriol, why isn’t there a similarly vicious reaction to techno, electronica, etc? For what it’s worth, I’m too young to remember disco’s hayday (turning 24 in a couple of weeks), but I like it. Sometimes I want music with a steady beat, and I enjoy listening to Chrome (the all-disco XM channel) as much as the three main techno/dance channels (The Move, BPM, and The System). In fact, I find Chrome’s playlist to be more varied and less repetitive (in the sense that I don’t hear the same songs being played over and over, something both BPM and The System are guilty of). ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/47 "2004-05-29T01:31:59Z")
Wow. Oughta check up on my threads a little quicker. Thanks for all the responses. Very enlightening, especially considering that I never got to learn this stuff in school (there was an entire course on just the Vietnam War, but nothing about any music trends). Not surprised to hear that overkill had something to do with it. (This is probably the real beef against the “boy band” craze. And Celine Dion, come to think of it.) I am a little puzzled that anyone would object to disco being used in American Idol, however. The songs they pick _have_ to be easy to sing and remember, especially in the early rounds…what better choice than disco? I’d think that anyone who has a problem with the music would be far more likely to have a problem with the complete blandness, banality, and overfamiliarty of the entire selection. not just a single genre (I’m one of them, BTW). As for my music tastes…well, you can go to [http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff/other.html](http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff/other.html) and have a look at my complete mp3 collection. As you can see, I’ve never believed in limiting myself…and luckily, I haven’t lived long enough to develop lots of painful memories from too many songs. 🙂 One caveat, however…if I ever, **ever** hear YMCA again, it’ll be too freaking soon. Geez, is this like the _only_ song the Village People ever did or something?? ---
**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/48 "2004-05-29T02:57:13Z")
> [@Dragonblink](#): > > I see a lot of mention being made of disco’s repetitive and less-than-profound nature. But if that were the source of all the vitriol, why isn’t there a similarly vicious reaction to techno, electronica, etc? Hell yeah, they suck too… for many of the same reasons. The reason they don’t suffer the same kind of backlash is that the music scene is much more factionalized these days than it was in the 70’s. There’s nowhere near as many people into techno as there were into disco… _ergo_, not as annoying. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/49 "2004-05-29T03:51:46Z")
> [@Freejooky](#): > > I’m glad to see _one_ person hit on it before I had to jump in and post. The “disco sucks” backlash was almost entirely about homosexuality/homophobia, \ _WHAT?_ I don’t recall any controversy linking disco to homosexuality, but what do I know, I was only there at the time… > [@Freejooky](#): > > There was also a certain degree of racism going on - disco was very much a black thing at heart\ What planet were you on, where the percentage of black artists performing disco was higher than that of blacks performing other forms of music? Blacks were certainly less prominent in disco than they were in early R & R or pop. The ideas you posted above don’t survive a reality check. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/50 "2004-05-29T06:11:38Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > What planet were you on, where the percentage of black artists performing disco was higher than that of blacks performing other forms of music? Planet Earth. Disco numbers that became Billboard #1 singles in **1974** : _Love’s Theme_, [Love Unlimited Orchestra](http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll) _The Sound of Philadelphia_, [MFSB](http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/mfsb.jpg) featuring [The Three Degrees](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002ADL.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) _Rock the Boat_, [The Hues Corporation](http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/%a5Artist%20GIF%20Images/Hues-Corporation.jpg) _Rock Your Baby_, [George McCrae](http://www.georgemccrae.com/geo75.jpg) _Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe_, [Barry White](http://www.ananova.com/images/web/29949.jpg) _Then Came You_, Dionne Warwicke & The Spinners _Kung Fu Fighting_, [Carl Douglas](http://www.gocontinental.com/photos3/douglascarl.jpg) Every single #1 disco song that year was by black artists. **1979** _Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?_, Rod Stewart _I Will Survive_, Gloria Gaynor _Tragedy_, Bee Gees _Knock on Wood_, Amii Stewart _Hot Stuff_, Donna Summer _Ring My Bell_, Anita Ward _Bad Girls_, Donna Summer _Good Times_, Chic _Don’t Stop 'Til You Get Enough_, Michael Jackson _No More Tears/Enough is Enough_, Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer 8.5 of the 10 #1 disco songs that year were by black artists. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/51 "2004-05-29T06:15:34Z")
Correction, 7.5 of the 10 #1 disco songs of \*_1979_ were by black artists. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/52 "2004-05-29T07:48:38Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > No More Tears/Enough is Enough\*, Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer I’m surprised nobody has leveled charges of anti-semitism yet. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/53 "2004-05-29T10:21:35Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > I am a little puzzled that anyone would object to disco being used in American Idol, however. The songs they pick have to be easy to sing and remember, especially in the early rounds…what better choice than disco? I had no problem with American Idol using disco as a theme. Good or bad, it was a part of American music history, and I don’t like revisionism. But what got me about it was that it followed Elton John when, ostensibly, it is supposed to go in order of difficulty. They considerd music from a man with a 2-1/2 octave range plus a liberal sprinkling of falsetto to be easier to sing than karaoke staples like _Macho Man_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/54 "2004-05-29T14:02:29Z")
Nice bit of homework there, **Walloon**. I wouldn’t have thought that there was a year when all of the disco hits that made number one on Billboard were done by black artists. Thanks for fighting my ignorance. Now to the point: Given your findings, do you think that disco music was/is somehow regarded as “more black” than other forms of music? Do you agree with **Freejooky’s** statement that white male racist homophobes are responsible for the “I hate disco” craze, or is it only the white male racist part you agree with? Do you agree with none of his statements but wished to point out that, like in other forms of music, a number of the successful disco artists were black? Do the skinhead types see disco as different enough to warrant starting a backlash against it? Do the skinhead types have enough influence in pop culture to start _any_ kind of backlash, even if they wanted to? I don’t think so. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/55 "2004-05-29T15:38:00Z")
This needed to be thrown into the discussion: > [@](#): > > It was in the early seventies, well after the idealistic Aquarian myths had crumbled and been discredited, that disco suddenly rose up with a vengeance. The very word “disco” came to mean much more than a club or a way of dancing. It became a life-style of gold neck chains and splay-collared shirts, hair mousse and awful synthesized music, runny-nose street hustlers and star fuckers: decadence incarnate. Once young and sexy, discos turned steamy and grotesque. Poppers and Quaaludes replaced the mellow hallucinogenic drugs of the Love Generation. From the time the twist burst out of the Peppermint Lounge in 1960, popular clubs had been hard to get into; but by the late seventies, lines of pleading discomaniacs craving to get inside Studio 54 or Xenon gave the whole experience an aura of supreme degradation. If one did gain admission to the truly hard-core clubs such as New York’s Sanctuary or the all-gay Aux Puces, the humping bodies and blinding stroboscopic lights presented a hellish vision of carnal freakishness that would have embarassed Dionysius himself. > > Something calamitous happened to the music, too. The rocking songs that made people want to get up and dance lost their momentum and were replaced by what sounded like one endless industrially synthesized Afro-Latin pop tune, punctuated on occasion by a novelty number such as “Macho Man” or “YMCA” performed by the Village People. The disco throb was so dominant on the pop charts that some people started saying rock and roll was dead. > > It’s a tough call to decide exactly which in the disco phenomenon created the more abominable legacy: the celebrity-sucking freak-show scene at the clubs, which motivated such fashion triumphs as Spandex tube tops, designer jeans, patent-leather hot pants, and rhinestone-studded denim urchin caps, or John Travolta’s suit in the 1977 movie “Saturday Night Fever”… > > …the movie was basically a rousing come-and-get-it guide telling viewers how to disco dance, how to disco dress, and how to score with disco girls. It was wildly successful. Disco franchises (2001, Tramps, and Boeing 747) sprang up in small cities; Hilton hotels quickly converted many of their bars to discos; Halston marketed a line of loose and clingy disco wear; airports announced plans to attach discos to passenger terminals for jet-setters with an hour to spare for dancing. Albert Goldman concluded “Disco”, his 1978 study of the fad (“Where it’s all at today”), with a chapter called “Is Disco God?”, answering the question thus: "Of disco one could say exactly what Voltaire did of God: ‘If {He} did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.’ "… > > …Playing Tony Manero, the hottest bum-wiggler in town, John Travolta wore a white suit with vest, shiny black shirt open wide, gold neck chains, and black flamenco-style ankle boots. Because the movie presented him not as a jet-setter or beautiful person but as a regular nose-picker from the neighborhood, Travolta inspired millions of men without movie-star physiques to wear tight white suits, style their hair in a borough pouf, sulk like Tony Manero sulked, and strut like he strutted. A new, truly odious macho style was created. -Excerpts from “Disco”, an entry in Jane and Michael Stern’s Encyclopedia of Bad Taste (1990) ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/56 "2004-05-29T16:07:07Z")
Here’s something that no one has brought up - the Vietnam War and more importantly - **the draft** ended in early 1973. Now people could have the “luxury” of being unconcerned with everything except themselves. No one was going to send you to Vietnam to get your head blown off. Nobody had to worry about getting those all-important draft deferments. Nope - now the big worries were hairstyles, fashion and getting into the good clubs. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/57 "2004-05-29T16:27:09Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > Now to the point: Given your findings, do you think that disco music was/is somehow regarded as “more black” than other forms of music? Yes, it was. And mainly, disco was dance music, and dance was not at all what male rock fans were into. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/58 "2004-05-29T16:35:14Z")
That excerpt from the article on “Disco” keeps referring to disco as being synthesized music, wrongly in my opinion. Memories deceive the author of that article. Back in the '70s, if you heard a string section in a disco number (e.g., _A Fifth of Beethoven_), it was a real, living, breathing human section of string players at work, not some synthesizer. Disco seldom used synthesizers, and when it did, mainly for special effects. In fact, that was one of the main contrasts between disco instrumentation and the New Wave dance music that followed it in the early '80s — the latter _was_ heavily into synthesizers. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/59 "2004-05-29T23:20:56Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > That excerpt from the article on “Disco” keeps referring to disco as being synthesized music, wrongly in my opinion. Memories deceive the author of that article. Back in the '70s, if you heard a string section in a disco number (e.g., _A Fifth of Beethoven_), it was a real, living, breathing human section of string players at work, not some synthesizer. Disco seldom used synthesizers, and when it did, mainly for special effects. In fact, that was one of the main contrasts between disco instrumentation and the New Wave dance music that followed it in the early '80s — the latter _was_ heavily into synthesizers. My sense of the use of the word “synthesized” in this passage is "created though something other than an organic process. Disco music was precisely produced. For example, since an actual human drummer might let the beat waver, and since this was anathema to disco, sometimes they would record some drum hits, then re-use them ad infinitum so that the tempo stayed _exactly_ at 120 bpm, lending disco it’s hypnotic quality. Later, drum machines made this practice easier. Disco was producer’s music, unlike the self-contained band music that had been popular for over a decade before Disco hit it big. This lent it more of a manufactured, or, if you will, synthesized quality. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307/60 "2004-05-30T02:57:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Disco numbers that became Billboard #1 singles in 1974: > > Love’s Theme, Love Unlimited Orchestra > The Sound of Philadelphia, MFSB featuring The Three Degrees > Rock the Boat, The Hues Corporation > Rock Your Baby, George McCrae > Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe, Barry White > Then Came You, Dionne Warwicke & The Spinners > Kung Fu Fighting, Carl Douglas > > Every single #1 disco song that year was by black artists. > > 1979 > Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, Rod Stewart > I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor > Tragedy, Bee Gees > Knock on Wood, Amii Stewart > Hot Stuff, Donna Summer > Ring My Bell, Anita Ward > Bad Girls, Donna Summer > Good Times, Chic > Don’t Stop 'Til You Get Enough, Michael Jackson > No More Tears/Enough is Enough, Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer > > [7.5] of the 10 #1 disco songs that year were by black artists. This will probably look like petty nitpicking, but at least four of the seven songs you cited from the 1974 list (_Love’s Theme, The Sound of Philadelphia, Rock the Boat, Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe_, and _Then Came You_), while they were played at discos in 1974, weren’t strictly “disco” songs–they could also be classified as [Philly Soul](http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70403210158503219&sql=C2635) or (in the case of Barry White) [smooth soul](http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70403210158503219&sql=C7750). Of course, the key word in these two categories of 70’s popular music is “soul.” When you suck the soul out of soul music, the result is disco. In the 1979 list, you’ll notice there’s plenty of disco, but (with the exception of the pre-wack job Michael Jackson’s _Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough_) very little soul. Also, I’m really tired of the implication being thrown around in this thread that if you don’t like disco, it’s because you’re a closet racist homophobe. Attack disco or defend disco but don’t make insinuations about the character of posters you disagree with. If you want to do that, take it to the Pit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/exactly-what-was-so-horrible-about-disco/247307.md?page=4)