#robert john

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: The Knack, Donna Summer (x2), Chic, Rod Stewart, Peaches & Herb, Gloria Gaynor, Village People, Anita Ward, Robert John. End description]

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We have made it through another decade, everyone. As we reach the end of the 1970's, we are also reaching the end of disco. This is something that makes this genre stand out in a historic sense. Because while we've covered many genres tied to their decade (traditional pop with the 50s, doo-wop with the 60s, etc), those didn't necessarily end the moment the decade switched over. We're still in disco's peak (the dance party before the storm), and many of the songs and artists featured on today's poll are still considered classics. Fun fact, the original name for Chic's Le Freak was called Fuck Off!, which in my opinion is the correct way to sing along to it. The song was written after the band couldn't get into Studio 54, the disco hot spot of the 1970's.

Which brings us to the first crumbling pillar that will send disco collapsing. As disco became mainstream, the aesthetics of disco became less about marginalized people surrounding themselves with opulence and luxury as an escape, and more about...the opulent surrounding themselves with more luxury. The communities who had built this subculture were getting priced out of their own hot spots as the upper class and the celebrities flocked to the hot new thing.

But the disco backlash wasn't just marginalized people and disco purists frustrated with the gentrification and commodification of their subculture. In fact, I think it's safe to say that they were the minority. In reality, the disco backlash had two main prongs: the general music-listening public who was sick of hearing disco on every station, and/or bigots who would hate any kind of Black or gay music they heard no matter how commercialized it became.

So, let's talk about Disco Demolition Night.

July 12th, 1979, the rock vs. disco conflict reached its ugliest peak as tens of thousands of people stormed Comiskey Park in Chicago. Disco records were crushed, burned, and even blown up. The event soon broke out into a riot and thankfully no one was killed, but the demonstration still casts an unpleasant shadow over this moment in music history.

I don't want to diminish the ugliness of this event. As Craig Werner, a professor of African American studies at the University of Wisconsin put it:

"The Anti-disco movement represented an unholy alliance of funkateers and feminists, progressives and puritans, rockers and reactionaries. None the less, the attacks on disco gave respectable voice to the ugliest kinds of unacknowledged racism, sexism and homophobia." (A Change Is Gonna Come)

And to quote Chic's Nile Rogers:

"It felt to us like Nazi book-burning. This is America, the home of jazz and rock and people were now afraid even to say the word 'disco'. I remember thinking - we're not even a disco group."

So I don't want to imply that Disco Demolition Night wasn't a shameful moment, because it was. However, it didn't kill disco. I see a lot of music retrospectives use this event as the one climactic moment that killed the genre and forced music itself to change. And I get why; it's an exciting and narratively satisfying conclusion to come to. But I don't want to say that, because I don't want to give Steve Dahl, the anti-disco shock jock radio DJ who organized the event, the credit in taking down an entire subculture.

Commercialization killed disco. White executives and artists cramming disco into everything without appreciating its roots killed disco. Gentrification killed disco. Changing tastes killed disco. Homophobia and racism killed disco. Capitalism killed disco.

A radio DJ and his angry drunk white boy fans storming a baseball stadium didn't kill disco. But it was the symptom of a disease that was already coursing through the system.

And despite the genre's historic death, disco would actually continue to live on past this decade in a variety of ways. Much like most other genres, disco was able to change and evolve with the times -- it just couldn't do so under the "disco" label as even the name itself became poison.

Also, as I said I keep these polls focused on the U.S. charts because that's where I'm from so I have a better understanding of the musical and historic context. However, it seems like disco's death was mostly contained to this country. When I glance at the various European charts (and any European followers can feel free to correct me), disco didn't seem to drop off in the same way. This will become relevant when we cover some of the European crossovers in a few decades.

So as we celebrate/mourn the end of the seventies with its last dance party, we can all come together and agree that whether you're a rock fan or a disco fan, at least most of your music has aged better than talk radio.