The 70s as Fertile Crescent – Here’s to Disco!

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Four major genres came into full bloom in the 70s: funk, punk, rap, and disco. As Prince’s Musicology suggests, funk today is about as fresh as Latin – a dead tongue to be studied in old skool. Punk has permutated into the new bubblegum of Avril, Ashlee, and all the OC sk8tr bands. Rap is rapidly becoming a commodity stuck in a stagnant pool of pseudo-thuggery and bling.

Which leaves disco – or more to the point – dance music as a thing unto itself. Arguably it's the most ephemeral of the genres, but the constant evolution of deejay culture and the dance floor’s insatiable demand for something fresh suggest there’s a never-ending supply of great dance music out there just waiting to evolve.

Am I nuts?

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 08:25 (twenty-one years ago)

About 2 years ago I read an article on how P Diddy [or whatever] was holding back the release of the Neptunes "new sound". I think this is the sound that's been popping up in the R&B/Hip Hop releases at the tail end of '04, things like "Tilt Ya Head Back" [Nelly] and "CarWash". There's a definite disco vibe, be it a little tentative. It's even in that God-awful Strings of Life track. Will be interesting to see if it develops.

― Solitary, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 08:41 (twenty-one years ago)

are you saying funk punk rap are dead and never likely to be not so and disco isn't and has never been?

yeah you're nuts.

also you forgot dub, krautrock, sophisticated soul, kozmic jazz, power pop, post punk / new wave, fuckknows what else.

― thagregman, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 09:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Disco wasn't the first dance music, dood.

― whatsthislooklikeaholidayinn, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 11:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd also add that the "singer-songwriter" genre came into full bloom in the '70s: James Taylor, Janis Ian, Jim Croce, John Denver, Carole King ...

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

>>Disco wasn't the first dance music, dood.

Right. But I think of the disco movement as that moment when modern dance music emerged as its own fully blown genre.

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Right. But I think of the disco movement as that moment when modern dance music emerged as its own fully blown genre.

Makes sense to me, what with the emergence of the dance club as social phenom, the birth of the extended-play 12-inch single, the beatmix, etc, etc.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Four major genres came into full bloom in the 70s: funk, punk, rap, and disco

I can think of a fifth (albeit, it was starting to bloom in the 60s).

― RS, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't forget a big ole genre called REGGAE

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:28 (twenty-one years ago)

How could you say rap came into full blossom in the '70s? There were like two rap releases the whole decade!

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Thursday, 20 January 2005 04:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I can think of a fifth (albeit, it was starting to bloom in the 60s).

FUSION!

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Thursday, 20 January 2005 05:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i agree with the point about disco being an ephemeral thing -- in some cases the beat was the only thing separating some disco from electronic kosmische, synth-based art rock, proto- new romantic, etc. The technology was certainly the same.

― cathy berberian (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 20 January 2005 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah fucking a don't forget the singer/songwriters.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 20 January 2005 05:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Rap is rapidly becoming a commodity stuck in a stagnant pool of pseudo-thuggery and bling.

Well, considering your argument relies on this rather specious claim...

― deej., Thursday, 20 January 2005 05:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Cathy's right...and wrong. From a purist post-facto listening point of view and (maybe) from the pov of the disco vanguard we all hold so dear. But as a teen in the suburbs of the disco era my experience of disco was rather different - less leftfield for sure: beegees, kc, johnpaulyoung etc.

that said there was i guess moroder.

― thagregman, Thursday, 20 January 2005 06:04 (twenty-one years ago)

"in some cases"

― cathy berberian (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 20 January 2005 06:11 (twenty-one years ago)

sometimes my favorite cases still.

― thagregman, Thursday, 20 January 2005 06:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Jody you so need to hear the late 70's work of Indonesian band VST & co. Perfect Beegees rips sung in Baha...yet all the songs are originals. Makes me so stupidly happy.

― thagregman, Thursday, 20 January 2005 06:27 (twenty-one years ago)

besides the nuts mottdterrree yeah disco is a ripe and abundantly fertile gen(r)e-pool. like cathy mentioned its gen(r)e borders are somewhat epehemeral - its a breeder gene disc(o)locating its source contacts into a mix whose only purport is the head/body spin of the dancefloor. it seeds beyond the flashing light continuum though - check its immediate post punk/rock/reggae descendents in the early 80's to locate but few of its spiralling flashpoints.

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 20 January 2005 10:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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