Sunday, January 08, 2006
DISCO: STILL SUCKING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
brendalove@gmail.com
Mentioning disco yesterday gave me my idea for a blog entry today.
I was probably about 12 years old when disco got popular. "The Man" marketed disco really hard to us kids. You were supposed to go see the movie "Saturday Night Fever" and then you would be hooked, the way the rumors went. Actually, the thing I found most compelling about "Saturday Night Fever" was the ability of 150 total strangers to congregate on a Brooklyn dance floor and perform difficult choreography in perfect unison.
Those Bee Gees were so......hairy!
Truthfully, I found the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack rather baffling. Apart from the Bee Gee's songs.....most of the rest of it had almost like a Latin Salsa-type thing going on, with violins. It sounded like something a gangster would listen to in a Miami nightclub while waiting for that big shipment of cocaine to land at the docks! That Latin beat is what they were really stressing at first, but everybody liked the Bee Gees stuff better, so that's what became the selling point....and now that's all anyone remembers about the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack.
I will admit to you that I listened to some it for awhile. There was a teen club in town where you could go dance so that was popular for a short time. And I will admit right here in this very blog that I did (and still do) like Donna Summer a lot. Her music was made entirely with machines and it had such a cold, mechanical sound that I couldn't help but be a little fascinated with it.
And we always watched "Solid Gold" because that was like the only music show on TV (MTV was just around the corner). Its funny though, we watched it all the time...but when I look back all I can remember is being older and seeing Boy George for the first time and my mother was watching too. She kept insisting he was a girl...and I'm like "Mom, LISTEN to his voice! Its a MAN!" and so the horror of realization comes across her face and I'm laughing my ass off, at her AND him. She just shook her head slowly and said "Lord, I've seen it all now!"
Disco died a quick death in our house. Yeah, we fell for the hype for a little while, but one day while the radio was churning out yet another pre-fab dance tune, my sister and I looked at each other and we're like, THIS SUCKS and turned it back to the free-form rock station.
Well, I gotta go disco down to the grocery store now. Saturday Night Fever, indeed.
Posted by brendalove@gmail.com @ 2:01 AM
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