This doesn’t make any sense. Since when was disco “gay”? I thought the stereotypical disco dork was an uber-heterosexual like John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever. Whenever I see parodies of disco culture it’s always all about cocky strutting guys with coke spoons and hairy chests coming onto women. Boogie Nights is disco. Porno chic is disco. Openly sexual, yes, but mostly heterosexual.
Just a few years later in the '80s, all that New Wave music like Human League and Flock of Seagulls became insanely popular and there’s no way that disco was more gay-seeming than that genre of music. I don’t buy the idea that anti-disco was all about homophobia.
Apparently (from what I’ve been told), the village people were the big gay joke, because straight people never figured out the innuendii behind songs about the YMCA and joining the Navy. I wouldn’t know, but I’m guessing it’s since been retconned to be “All disco=gay propaganda.” But that’s just an assumption.
It’s a well-known fact that the disco movement originated in gay clubs in and around New York City. Such clubs as The Ice Palace, Botel, and The Sandpiper in Fire Island; and The Sanctuary, The Tenth Floor, Le Jardin, The Anvil, The Crisco Disco, and The Mineshaft in Manhattan.
Here are some books to check out if you want to know more (though I doubt you do):
The Last Party, Anthony Haden-Guest Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton Turn the Beat Around, Peter Shapiro
Was it well known to folks listening to disco on the radio? On the radio. Whoa oh, on the radio. Whoa oh, on the radio. <ahem> It might have been a well known fact among club goers in places like New York but in places like Texas, Iowa and Oregon? I’m not so sure. We have had threads on this in the past though. Some people arguing that a rejection of disco was based on homophobia in part. Others who claimed to have no idea at the time that disco had its root in gay culture.
Disco certainly has its roots in gay culture, but it’s worth pointing out that, at least as far as I know, it was never meant to be exclusive to them. Discotheques became so popular because they welcomed everybody, and they didn’t ask anything from anybody if they wanted to belong, just to want to dance and have a good time. Now who could put down a musical movement with that kind of philosophy? Plus, those were the days before widespread use of programmed drums and sequencers in dance music - those are some of the tightest players in history.
Didn’t the past decade give us Adele, the Scissor Sisters, and the brief revival of Kylie Minogue’s career? I’d say the disco revival already came and went.
Motown R&B? He definitely reminds me a lot of Marvin Gaye for some reason.
This.
I was a tween during the disco heyday, and didn’t really like it. Now, as an adult and a musician, I’m floored by the talent displayed by the disco-era bands. Those cats could play.
Someone mentioned Lady GaGa. She’s doing mid-80s Madonna, who was doing late-70s Donna Summer-type dance pop. So yeah, it never went away.
I was totally into New Wave/second British invasion bands like Flock Of Seagulls, Human League, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, etc., and in retrospect they were way gayer than disco. But I still like New Wave better than disco.
I’ll give you most of those clubs, at least the Manhattan ones ( I don’t know anything about the Fire Island clubs), but the Mineshaft? Hardly a dance club. More of a sex club. The Anvil was a bit of both – dance club upstairs, downstairs, well, could get pretty freaky.
I actually sort of liked KC & the Sunshine Band (it brings back memories of driving halfway across the country, bombing through Indiana at midnight with the radio blaring “…that’s the way uh-huh Uh-Huh I like it uh-huh UH-HUH…”). The rest can stay crammed down in the memory hole permanently.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right about that one.. that is how it’s described in one of the books I cited. Instead of having a DJ they played tapes featuring music of an erotic nature.
As for the idea that middle America didn’t know disco had a gay tinge, I don’t entirely disagree. Even today I’m sure many Americans couldn’t spot a gay person if the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade marched down their street. But I would argue that a person can have a homophobic reaction without being conscious of where it comes from or what it means. For many, the flamboyant & camp aspects of disco were too much to take, even when straight people were pushing that kind of aesthetic.
“Why the disco backlash” is a complicated subject; difficult to prove one explanation or another. My best guess is that some of it was based in homophobia (overt or sublimated); some in racism (same); and a lot was just people finding the whole phenomenon tiresome after a while, since it became so unavoidably dominant in the culture. And some people just don’t like to dance - let’s not forget that.
No different than the What is Punk? argument: it had its roots in a specific scene, so you are correct AND most folks simply didn’t know those specifics and just thought of it as Saturday Night Fever music.
Understanding what emerges from gay culture has been tricky - I remember a good gay friend lamenting in the 80’s that he couldn’t even wear a backwards baseball cap anymore because “you straight boys took the look”. I had know idea; he and is friends just smiled and said that if it looked good on a man, just assume it came from gay or black culture…