• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

From Disco Revolution to Disco Demolition: Triumph to Tragedy in the Disco Era Eve Lazarski Junior Division Historical Paper Word Count: 2,500 INTRODUCTION On July 12, 1979, Steve Dahl, a popular Chicago rock station radio host, blew up hundreds of Disco records in the middle of the baseball field at Comiskey Park in Chicago during an afternoon double header baseball game. Promoted as the “Disco Demolition” the event was seen as a way to increase attendance by tapping into youthful resentment and anger about the Disco music and lifestyle. Ninety eight cents and one Disco record got you into the game. After Dahl blew up the records, the field flooded with people rioting and chanting,”Disco sucks! Disco sucks!”1 The second game of the two game double header was forfeited due damage to the field.2 Although Disco music started out in underground gay and african american clubs and house parties in New York City, by the late 1970's Disco had taken over popular culture. The 1977 movie Saturday Night Fever and it’s best selling soundtrack solidified its place in popular ​ ​ culture and extended the reach of Disco to every corner of the United States.3 Disco was so popular many radio stations began to ditch rock music and adopt all Disco formats. It pushed rock music, their fans and their identity to the margins. For hard core lovers of rock and roll, like Steve Dahl, who was fired from the all-rock Chicago radio station WDAI when it adopted an all Disco format, this was not acceptable.4 They wanted Disco to die. While some scholars argue that the Disco Demolition was a tragedy. They see it as an event attended by people who not only hated Disco music, but the black and gay performers and fans. Other researchers say the Disco Demolition was a harmless promotion that tapped into pre-existing attitudes and ideas about an already unpopular musical genre and the event 1 “On This Day In History, Disco Died In Chicago.” CBS Chicago, CBS Chicago, 12 July 2018, ​ ​ ​ chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/07/12/disco-demolition-steve-dahl/. 2 Dahl, Steve, et al. Disco Demolition: the Night Disco Died. Curbside Splendor Publishing, 2016. ​ ​ ​ 3“Gold & Platinum.” RIAA, ​ ​ www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&ar=BEE+GEES&ti=SATURDAY+NIGHT+FEVE R+(SOUNDTRACK). 4 Dahl, Steve, et al. Disco Demolition: the Night Disco Died. Curbside Splendor Publishing, 2016. ​ ​ ​ was just harmless teenage fun5. However, the Disco Demolition is actually a combination of these two ideas. Although the organizers did not intend the event to be racist or homophobic, it was based off of hate for the Disco genre and led to thousands of people rioting. Ultimately, the Disco music genre was a triumph for the African American and Gay people who were at the forefront of music for the first time on an equal playing field. The 1970’s disco era enabled and allowed minority populations to assert and establish their own unique identities. At the same time, the event of the Disco Demolition was a tragic and unfortunate end to the Disco era. Disco Music Disco music is characterized by a consistent and throbbing 4/4 beat, at least 140 beats per minute, often includes “Disco breaks”, extended instrumental segments, and lush orchestral or digital instrumentation. Disco features more artificial sounds than natural sounds, and is very hard to reproduce live. In Disco clubs, disc jockeys would mix the beginning of one song into another so it was impossible to tell where one song began and the other ended. The first songs that could be described as typical “Disco music” descended from a combination of Soul Music, Gospel Music, music from Detroit’s Motown label, and Philadelphia or “Philly Soul” music originating from the Sigma Sound Studio. From Gospel, Disco adopted the “gospel break”, which gradually removes instruments and then builds the song back up by adding one instrument at a time. This production technique was used so much it became known as the “Disco Break”. Disco also adopted the 4/4 or “four-on-the-floor” beat from Motown and orchestral instruments from Philadelphia Soul. The group MFSB (Mother, Father, Sister, Brother) - a group of over 30 musicians who were the house band at Philadelphia Sigma Sound Studio - are the ones who truly took 5 Ibid,pg 12. ​ Philadelphia Soul and turned it into Disco.6 Known for their lush productions that featured strings and horns, musical scholars point to numerous songs they provided orchestration for as being the origin of the disco sound.7 According to Peter Shapiro, a music critic and author of “Turn the Beat Around, The Secret History of Disco”, the drumming and singing in the 1973 song “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes established the Disco sound. “While drummer Earl Young basically created the next two decades of dance music with his snare pattern and hi-hat work on ‘The Love I Lost’, it was perhaps Pendergrass taking gospel sermonizing to new levels of excess that really marked Disco as a separate entity from soul.”8 In other words, Shapiro these musical elements created by members of MFSB were the musical foundation of Disco. In Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture by Alice Echols, ​ ​ MFSB drummer Earl Young explained that he played 4/4 on the bass drum in order to make different patterns on the cymbals which was a clever inverting Motown’s rhythm.9 These music patterns became the signature Disco rhythm. The next step in the musical development of Disco was lead by DJ’s in New York City dance clubs. DJ’s and studio producers learned to mix instrumentals and stretch songs to create longer, more danceable versions of songs. In New York City, Tom Moulton was the first producer to mix Disco records. Moulton would take a record and separate the tracks, then put the instrumentation at the forefront so that the vocals weren’t the main element. His real accomplishment was mixing different songs together so that you never had to leave the dance floor. According to Moulton getting people to stay dancing was the point. ”It's funny, watching all the kids dancing, this is in Fire Island,10 it was so exciting to see, and you could feel the energy 6 “MFSB: The History.” MFSB, www.thenewmfsb.com/html/history.htm. 7 Echols, Alice. Hot stuff: Disco and the remaking of American culture. WW Norton & Company, 2010. ​ ​ ​ 8 Shapiro, Peter. Turn the beat around: The secret history of disco. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. ​ ​ ​ p.145 9 Echols, Alice, pg 17. ​ 10 Fire Island is located near Long Island. It was a well known resort town for gay men. and the excitement, but it was only three minutes worth.” Said Tom Moulton. ”And you could sense when this new song was being mixed in, it was sort of limbo. And I said, my God, you could almost feel the excitement that they were trying to get and I said, God if I could only stretch it out and make it longer to keep this feeling and maybe it could bring them up to another level.”11 He did this by repeating the end sections of each song and stretching them out so that they would blend together and you would keep dancing into the next song, not knowing the song had ended. As DJ’s continued to mix and experiment with this new type of dance music, their musical style became popular in underground gay night clubs in New York. According to Echols “Gay men were among the first and most legendary Deejay’s, its earliest audience, and at the height of the glitterball mania practically ran the industry.”12 Going to a gay club was merely a place to congregate and meet other people. In an era when gay people could be arrested for holding hands, dancing to upbeat joyful music was a liberating experience. Embracing gay identity and empowerment through Disco music was partly possible because of the 1969 Stonewall uprising was a turning point in the power and perception of gay people. The Stonewall Inn was one of the most popular underground gay bars in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.13 At the Stonewall Inn, you could dance with whoever you wanted whenever you wanted. In order to maintain this freedom, the Stonewall Inn made regular payoffs to the police. But on June 27th, 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn without any warning. However, the patrons fought back and the police were under siege. The Stonewall Inn riots marked a turning point in the gay power movement and a shifting in consciousness. 11 “Rock and Roll; Make it Funky; Interview with Tom Moulton [Part 1 of 2].” WGBH Media Library & ​ Archives. Web. February 17, 2019. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_732DE028F5744940938BE2F8674334F4>. ​ ​ 12 Echols, Alice. Hot stuff: Disco and the remaking of American culture. WW Norton & Company, 2010. ​ ​ ​ 13 Ibid, pg 40 ​ Being gay in the 1970’s was difficult and dangerous. The freedom of Disco music and the dance floor provided a release and a place where you could be your true self. Not only were gay’s some of the biggest listeners of Disco, but many Disco artists were gay, though most were not out at the time.14 While Disco did not erase homophobia, it helped take major steps in the gay rights movement, one of the triumphs of Disco. It also allowed black and white singers and producers to be seen on the same footing-no longer ‘black’ and ‘white’ music as in the 60’s, but just music.

Load more

  13

Copy Link