Disco Ain’t Dead: Songs from the Era Are Still Going Strong
As the summer season begins to kick in, we’ll be hearing more party music during street fairs, parades, barbecues, and outdoor sporting events.
This year, I got a short preview in late winter when I went to Fort Lauderdale for a quick vacation. It was only my second-ever trip to Florida — and given the politics of the Sunshine State, I may not be back again for a while. But that’s a topic for another blog.
As it happens, fool that I am, I booked the trip without realizing that it was the middle of spring break. Thankfully, my hotel room was in the back of the building, so I didn’t hear or see too much of the shenanigans when I went to bed early.
On the first day, I decided to try out the pool area. I got there earlier than the kids, who were likely in deep sleep or nursing their hangovers. But they slowly started to arrive by noon, and it was pretty full by one o’clock.
What surprised me was the music. Everybody owning a business in the city knew it was spring break, and that meant big business. They needed to please their customers, the vast majority of whom were under twenty-five. Yet the music they played harkened back to my high school years, over forty years ago.
I kept waiting for the deejay to change the music to cater to the young crowd. I kept waiting for the kids to request Nas X, Drake, Shawn Mendes, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa.
But no. The music blasting through the speakers was from KC & The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, and several one-hit wonders from the disco days. They weren’t even playing the Rolling Stones or Elton John or the Eagles, all of whom are still popular today. No, it was disco, which had its quick heyday from about 1975 to 1980.
Last week, I was in New York City for the Memorial Day weekend. I stumbled upon a neighborhood block party in Brooklyn, and they too were playing the old disco classics is their playlist. Granted, the age was more varied than in Florida’s spring break, but it is still a testament to disco’s endurance.
I remember the backlash to disco back in the day. Rock promoters and deejays rebelled, and on July 12, 1979, there was a widely promoted Disco Demolition Day, where people could bring their disco records to Comiskey Park in Chicago and burn them in a large bonfire. Interestingly, that summer was probably also when disco was at its peak, led by the Donna Summer’s big #1 hit, “Hot Stuff”. (Interestingly, she was nominated for a Grammy for Female Rock Vocal for that song.)
There was plenty more disco to be heard in the second half of 1979, but within a year it was pretty much over. The last, great gasp came from one of those one-hit wonders, Lipps Inc., who gave us a number one smash in late spring of 1980, “Funkytown”. I heard that one at the pool as well. Dance music continued after that, perhaps ushered in by Madonna, but they never called it disco again.
I try to keep up with the music today, and there are some good songs out there. But if you asked me to sing “One Dance,” a huge hit for Drake a few years back, I draw a blank. Pop music is a long game. It’s not so much what is big in the moment, but what lasts. And those who tried to kill disco back then are getting their comeuppance today. The songs have lasted, and young and old can sing and dance to them.
I once interviewed Nile Rodgers, the genius (along with the late Bernard Edwards) behind Chic, who had a few big, enduring hits during the era. Rodgers also went on to produce some of the biggest albums of the ’80s, for the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie, and Madonna, and is enjoying a late-career renaissance in the music industry today. Anyway, in speaking of that time, Rodgers told me, “A song in the disco era would cross barriers in its purest form.” He went on to explain that that in itself was a threat to the status quo — people of color, gays and lesbians, and straight women, all dancing together in the clubs. In a sense, that needed to be shut down by those in power.
Also, many songs of the era have been sampled in rap songs up to the current day, and so the grooves have become known to new audiences.
That day at the pool, the kids were singing and dancing along to the songs of my day. I shouldn’t be surprised because Billboard recently reported that the catalog albums are now outselling the new albums, which has never happened before, and my niece (twenty-two) and her boyfriend went to Elton John’s Farewell Tour. But to see it in person was mind-blowing. It would be like if I went to spring break in my day (I never did, in reality) and as we sat around the pool, the deejay would be playing Sinatra, the Mills Brothers, and maybe early Elvis and Brenda Lee. No chance! We were listening to the hits of the day — the same ones the kids are enjoying today.
It’s universal music, then and now. Who doesn’t know “I Will Survive”, “We Are Family”, and “Play That Funky Music”?
Disco ain’t dead, and ain’t dying anytime soon. Disco’s had the last laugh.
