[mild hijack]Revisiting the OP:
Huh? Given that I just saw this past weekend news footage from the 70s that showed this exact thing happening, I’m wondering what your basis for this “knowledge” is…
[/mild hijack]
I don’t remeber the Squeeze song, but people were definitely dancing to the others. New Wave was big time dance music.
ArchiveGuy - Um…it was during the Miss America Pageant during…I think it was 1971, might have to look it up again. A group of feminists made a symbolic protest by tossing bras in a garbage can. A reporter covering the incident compared it to the burning of draft cards, and that’s how the legend of “bra burning” started. (I’m omitting a lot of details here, but that’s the gist.)
It coulda happened afterward, yeah, but the incident that supposedly created the phrase “bra burner”…no.
Liberal - Who knows? Maybe they simply had more Elton John songs available.
Come to think of it, if they really want to make American Idol a cavalcade of banal, harmless, colorless, absolutely-nothing-even-remotely-suggestive songs (like I’ve long suspected), it’s probably a good idea not go do disco too soon. 
If think that was snide, then you’re gonna love this…
Basically you’re dislike for Disco appears not be to based on anything except your bouncer trauma… “And again, I never came upon any new wave clubs where some asshole bouncer got to be god and decide who got in and who didn’t”
ouch.
I suppose if you did happened into a New Wave club with a bouncer, you would dislike New Wave too…because I assure you, there were plenty.
Your Blonde, DEVO and Squeeze examples IGNORES that fact that on the same albums you pulled those ‘non danceable’ songs from (that you don’t see those songs as dance songs is telling…), also contained HITS that were dance songs AND defined the group…Blondie’s Heart of Glass, DEVO’s Whip it, Squeeze’s Pulling mussles from a shell…
I could just as easily say that ALL Disco wasn’t Dance Music, if I pulled a ballet from Chic…but I would be dishonest, because I know that Chic was a Disco Group and the songs that DEFINED them were Disco songs…dance songs; even IF they also produced ballets.
You didn’t say that…what you originally said, was that “it all sounded the same.” PERIOD. That blanket statment is simply not true, further one could say the same of Rock and Roll…however, if I said that to ME, the Ramones sounded the same as Blondie, I would imagine someone would ask me if I ever listened to the music or am I just repeating cliche?
Answer me this, is Blondie’s Heart of Glass a disco song? It does have a familar backbeat does it not?
Again Cliche. Sure there could be “moves” in Disco, but the Saturday-Night Fever fantasy of EVERYONE forming a circle around the pretty people didn’t happen. Most people just danced and enjoyed themselves…Further how is this any different than the moves of Rock and Roll? The Twist, the Monkey, the Mashed Potato? How is this any different than Country line dancing? What makes Disco unique in this respect?
Wait a mintue, you’re assuming it was expensive? Are you saying you never purchased “Disco” clothing? Have you ever been to a Disco, or is all this no more than assumptions on your part?
The problem I have with the dressing black, is that it too is cliche…obviously we’re coming from two different places here. If I’m going out to meet women, why the hell would I want to blend into the background? New Wave wasn’t some dark music, it was upbeat and fun and a natural evolution of Disco…many New Wave groups got their start on Black radio and the Black clubs…Heart of Glass, Sweet Dreams, Look of Love, True…long before any “rock” station would have ever played them…if memory serves me.
Further New Wave clothing could be extremely expensive, as most “party” clothes can be. My peer group purchased imports from Europe as the American Clothes were simply too far behind the curve…it’s hard to be cutting edge, if you’re wearing clothes from Alexanders, but that was a choice…not some unwritten law.
Disco was no different and most halfway decent clubs have a dress code of sorts and most people seemed to want to look their best, i don’t see the problem here…Christ even the local dive has one, " No shoes, No Shirts, No Service…"
holmes-
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree here.
I am not basing my opinion of disco on being excluded from a club by a bouncer -
that never happened to me, but it did happen to friends of mine.
And I certainly visited many new wave clubs that had bouncers and in my experience I never saw any of them capriciously decide to exclude someone - if they could pay the cover and had ID they were in. You’re saying it did happen - fine - that wasn’t my experience at that time.
I never said there weren’t any new wave dance songs - it’s just that I never perceived dancing as the core of that movement. Sure Blondie had Heart of Glass
(which I loathed by the way), and Devo had Whip it (which was never on any album with Jocko Homo or Mongoloid save for a Greatest Hits collection), but again, this is a matter of perception; you look at these bands as dance musicians with non-dance tunes mixed in; to me it was the exact opposite.
A lot of new wave style clothes could be dug out of early sixties styles, and with me living with pack-rats, this was easy to accomplish. Disco styles were “new” at the time and had to be purchased “fresh”.
In my wildest dreams would I ever have considered new wave a natural evolution of disco - try running a poll on that concept and I think you would lose.
You’re correct in asking how are disco moves any different from the Twist, the Monkey, the Mashed Potato, Country line dancing. They’re not, and I dislike all those “stylized” dance forms. I just disliked the disco “culture” more.
" We got a tag ‘The New Romantics’ and in a way we were, we were against the kind of dourness of punk. Our clothes were outrageous, strange mix of baroque and futurist. We went to Birmingham, of course we don’t play our normal rock gig, we play the botanical gardens, we get a band asking us if they can support us and we say no we never have supports. We all got to sleep on this guys floor that night, a whole load of us, and I remember sitting next to this other guy who said we wanted to support you tonight but you didn’t want us to but you know the show was great, we really enjoyed it, and he was the lead singer with a band called Duran Duran. I think really you have got to look at the music that was coming out from bands like ourselves and Duran Duran in 1980 to really to start to see the bridge between white music and dance music - a big influence from Chic."
You do know who Chic was, right?
Methinks Dewey has a point there.
Mine was lime-green with white stitching. And a ghastly floral-patterned polyester faux silk shirt that was so loud it showed up on radar. And big clompy shoes. I was Hot Stuff.
I tell my children if they don’t get good grades in school, I will show up for parent-teacher conferences dressed like that. Their therapy bills are going to be something to see.
Regards,
Shodan
Well you got me on this one - I like(d) Spandau Ballet too, I just never looked at them in that light. In fact I never really got into them until their last album.
You chided me not to make generalizations and I would say to you that claiming
all new wave is evolved from disco is just that, a generalization, and a bad one at that. Try to tell me the Ramones descend from disco and I would have to scoff.
Why not? I’m sorry but it doesn’t take a degree in music, to hear the roots of disco in Spandau Ballet, Haircut 100, Heaven 17, ABC, and Blondie and most “New Wave”…it just doesn’t.
As well you should as the Ramones were punk and not new wave…however as I’m sure you know, references to Disco are in many of their songs and NOT in a negative way. To them, Disco was just a fact of life, like driving around in a GTO. Also Disco really didn’t become mainsteam until 75, the Ramones were formed in 74.
I don’t believe I’m making a generalization, I didn’t say ALL new wave evolved from Disco, I said it was a natural evolution…spliting hairs? maybe.
Again listen to the music, i can’t believe you can’t hear it. The ‘movement’ of new wave borrows heavily from ‘black’ dance music and that’s disco…
Hot funk, cold funk
Even if it’s old junk
Still rock ‘n’ roll to me
That is all.
I guess when it comes to dance music I must have ears of tin because I do not hear roots of disco in the bands you referenced. And honestly it matters not to me that The Kemp brothers or Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet say they drew their inspiration from Chic. I remember some nameless female vocalist gushing about how Barbra Streisand was her greatest inspiration and this girl’s music sounded nothing like her. The only thing they had in common was that they were both female. Inspiration doesn’t equal evolution.
So look, I don’t necessarily say you’re crazy or wrong; I just say I don’t hear it - no need to insult me about it.
I actually understand where you’re coming from. You obviously appreciate some nuances that are escaping me. Similarly I’ve had to deal with people who tell me that Tull/ Floyd /Yes/Genesis all sound the same to them. No point in arguing the point in that you can’t invalidate a person’s perception.
You may have taken me too literally when I said all disco sounds the same. If I heard the Bee Gees I could recognize them and not confuse them with Andrea True. I meant that the music is similar enough that it would evoke the same response in me and it was not a positive response. Period. No room for debate there; that was and is how I feel.
And nothing is 100% either. I actually liked the Bee Gees song “Tragedy” from '79.
Now disco was waning at that point but I would consider that song in that genre.
New Wave was all about dancing. That was pretty much the point. Then it gave birth to electronic dance music.
Um… how old are you?
In the period I was discussing, WPLJ WASN’T a top 40 station. It later became one, yes, but in the disco era (late 70’s), PLJ was a free form rock station.
On a top 40, singles-oriented pop station, you’re going to hear whatever singles are popular at any given moment, whether it’s the Bee Gees or “Afternoon Delight” or “Convoy.” But a radio station that proclaims its devotion to rock can and should show ore discretion.
Old enough to have memory laspes…You are correct, got my timeline screwed… Funny thing is, even though I know it’s not true, I still remember PLJ as a top 40 station in the late 70’s.
It’s starting to come back…didn’t they used to play WHOLE albums sometimes…or do rock from a to z or was that WNEW? It’s been a long time and I think I have memories of being in the car with my dad on long night drives…but it wasn’t MY music, it was HIS and that’s big component that’s overlooked.
That’s the problem with some Rock and Roll purists…nothing can EVER take it’s place and it just stagnates…how many times can a station play the entire White Album, when the next generation just doesn’t get it anymore or care or have the attention span? Further, who’s gonna pay the bills for that?
I didn’t wanna hear PennyLane anymore, I wanted to hear* Love to Love You Baby* EXTENDED…I didn’t want to hear black music filtered through some midwestern hippie white boy anymore, I wanted it from the source…fresh, not watered down or from some dead guy and that was Disco.
WPLJ and the others just wanted to survive or keep profitable, i don’t know if being the station where ROCK LIVES, in a world where even Ethel Mermand was doing Disco would have been enough. It would have been nice if it could have been, perhaps this resentment wouldn’t be here.
God help us…I shutter still…“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” to a Disco beat.
Funny example you chose of unadulterated “black music”: a Giorgio Moroder creation.
You know, when I played “Love to Love You Baby”, my mother ran into my room and stopped the record player and visibly blushed…it wasn’t Johnny Lee Hooker, it wasn’t the Supremes or Nat King Cole… it wasn’t Jazz or R&B or Gospel or even THE BLUES…I mean sure there was tons of sexually in the traditional stuff, but it was subtle…not this, not this.
I stand by my choice…it’s best the example I have between what my parents considered acceptable “black” music and I what I did…and at least the men didn’t have processes.
God i how i wanted to be Donna Summer to be my wife…