Topic: Response to "when 'disco sucks' from raprock newsletter
- Jul 13, 2009 03:45am by NRG - livin the art that is life !
www.64111clinic.com fam
www.nrginmotion.com massage
www.myspace.com/nrginmotion world community Location: havenhouse KCK/ 64111 Clinic 4 Life
Response to "When ‘Disco Sucks!’ echoed around the world"
Just goes to show you how irrelevant critics can sometimes be. Disco is still a very popular dance format. And it is not, in and of itself, a musical genre. It is a blend of many genres of music. It is as a culture and lifestyle that flourished and developed its unique imprint on the global culture. The "disco sucks" movement had a sensational but only momentary impact on that culture. I am a DJ (among other things) and I can tell you factually that in Nassau, Bahamas in mid June of 2009 people were dancing to a medley of "Bad Girl" by Usher, "Bad" by Michael Jackson, "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer, "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, and "Umbrella" by Rihanna. And it was all disco because that's what dancing to recorded music is called. The original name "discotheque" is indeed where the abbreviation comes from. And it differentiated itself in that manner, discotheque being a club genre as well, but often utilizing live bands. A lot of the "disco sucks" movement incorporated the idea that live bands were losing gigs due to recorded versions of popular rock and roll songs. Disco informed the hip hop culture in a big way as well, in that poppers and rockers could be found on the dance floor by the middle eighties. Break dancing to a boom box on a street corner owes as much to disco as anything else, by the way. It was a natural reaction to expressing one's self in an urban and affordable manner. "Miss You" by the Rolling Stones exuded the disco culture as much as it did rock and roll's. If you listen to the opening strains of Michael Jackson's 1980 recording of "Rock With You" the disco "sound" is prominent. Hip Hop, or Rap, music started out as a dj and a mc. MC did not stand for master of ceremonies. It is the microphone controller. Live and recorded music blended together. Dancehall music in Kingston, Jamaica started way back in the 1950's with folks like U-Roy and Joe Higgs doing the mc work. Notice that i am showing roots that grew trees and bore fruit. By 1965, dancehall was favoring ska versions of popular Motown, Memphis and Chicago area hits. The Miami Sound Machine brought it up a notch by generating original beats to extended plays of Caribbean tunes. By the time "Saturday Night Fever" came along, the mixed genre was in grand eloquence. And, still today, perhaps the greatest contribution to industrial dance genres that the disco "era" has made is in popular evidence. It's called the re-mix.
David Sawyer
