Dance Music That's "Too Gay" for America

but why is that? I live in GAY CAPITAL USA and I see plenty of non-gay kids lining up at clubs. Gays are not the only people that like to dance.

that's so junior high

As for music that is too gay for Americans. Well, it's a tricky issue because you have to figure out exactly how particular songs are appealing to certain (groups of) people. For instance, to certain people, anything house-y with diva vox is going to sound completely over the top and probably almost unlistenably gay (at least in earnest). There are other sorts of disco and whatnot that fall into this category as well. This has a lot to do with the fact that you hear often from many people who would say things like, "I'm not homophobic, I have no problem with gay people, but I don't like it when they're flamboyant." As though the sound of a person's voice, the flop of a wrist, or the sound of a particular song, conjures up pornographic closeups of anal penetration and oiled up body builders.

You can't deny that a lot of dance music is definitively gay or straight. A lot of dance music is inherently sexual, in fact, and granted I'm pretty young, but it seems fairly recent (no one mention kraftwerk or other robotic electro, please) that dance music has consciously sought the androgynous or the asexual (or maybe I'm reading most Kompakt stuff wrong).

"DANCE MUSIC THAT'S 'TOO GAY' FOR AMERICA"

The house tunes that THEY were too straight to let you jack to! We at Trax know that Americans are tired of suppressing the incessant homosexual urges that keep you awake at night and make your days an endless erection? So now for the first time on this unique compilation, we bring you the most homosexual records of all time.

Did you know that jack meant something totally gay? Of course you did, and that's why you Americans never did it in the late 80s. But we can tell you right now in Britain being gay as a cultural pursuit has been big since Paul Oakenfold invented ecstacy! Back in those days the Brits were jacking here, and jacking there, every night would end with an extended bout of jacking. "Jack jack!" they'd say, so often that the name Jack became at least as gay as names we Americans consider flaming, you know, like Bruce or Julian.

But we stuffy Americans were too busy fighting wars and inflicting foreign policy on people to take those Brits to jacking school, even though we invented the damn jack! Jack that Britain!

Anyway since house music is now sort of cool here, we at Trax have decided to give you all the gift of jack this spring, Jack is the one who unites all nations, erm..or so we thought at the time......you may be white, you may be........er.....you're probably white......yeah how does the rest go.

Check out this great compilation, we at Trax can assure you Americans all over the country won't think twice about a shower with their Dad once they have heard Joe Smooth's "Promised Land".

whatEVER *said with a flip of the limpwrist*

most of my formative dance music experiences were at gay clubs in the 80's. it was the only place you could hear great dance music here at that time. today, gay clubs here have a soundtrack that is a joke. the worst music i've ever heard. a friend of mine booked me to play at a gay night here recently and i almost cleared the dancefloor. the verdict seemed to be my selection was 'too gay'.

'i wanna fuck you in the ass' is such a great record.

Which is why Blur or Suede never made it there, for instance, as they were doing way too much gender bending and genre bending.

I think of house as being, in a broad sense, intrinsically gay music (the way hip-hop or, y'know, EVERYTHING is intrinsically black music, but not even to that degree). But has that ever stopped straight people from enjoying it? Some of the most homophobic types, like Jersey/Long Island guidos, can't get enough of it (and what they listen to is virtually identical to what queens in Chelsea at Roxy or XL dance to). A genetic predisposition to mousse and self-tanner = a genetic predisposition to big, ugly, gay, trancey tribal garbage.

And, like, aren't there multiple instances of Martha Wash's vocals showing up on Jock Jams?

http://prodtn.cafepress.com/5/17851465_F_tn.jpg

stuff like LCDS fares much better, and lindstrom doesn't do badly for these people (but not nearly as good as lcd)

sheesh, gear, ever hear of culture club? they were gigantic here.

I don't think that anyone who is using the term "dance music" thinks that it is the only type of music that is danceable (or that club music is the only music that can be played in clubs, or that rock music is the only music that can rock, etc etc etc etc etc).

I know. For a while they were at least. But they never did all that much genre bending, really. Plus it helped a lot that hardly any American acts made music videos at the time, so MTV had to show a lot of UK bands (and the UK trend was very androgynous at the time)

Desexualized dance music is boring.

Very true, but he's more of an exception than a rule, right?

Honestly, the only people I've ever hear say that they don't like "flamboyant" gays, have been gay men. I kind of don't think there's anything wrong with it (although I do hang out with a lot of people who are very flamboyant). But I mean, I don't like hanging out with guys who talk about football and talk about "chicks" and say "dude" and feel like, if you want to hang out with guys who wear lip gloss, there's not really anything inherently homophobic about that.

You didn't grow up gay in South Jersey, then.

I was thinking this just last week when my mom wanted me to rent a movie she'd like. I knew The Notebook was a huge hit among women and so I decided to get that for her at Blockbuster and the whole time I kept thinking that someone was gonna give me some sort of "FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG" remark about it and sure enough when I checked out I got some smartass remarks for renting it. It was sobering to think that it's probably less embarrassing to rent a porno film nowadays and to just come off as a debauched pervert than to come off as being cheesy and mawkish in your taste.

I tend to think this has to do with the prominence of "macho" genres like Rap and Rock and radio programmers having to follow what's popular. Yet somehow, from time to time, some really cheesy eurodance songs like "Listen To Your Heart", "I'm Blue" or that "Heaven" cover make it to the Top 10. So I wonder, what makes these songs more acceptable to a "straight" or mainstream audience?

sheesh, gear, ever hear of culture club? they were gigantic here.

-- hstencil (hstenc!...), February 14th, 2006 1:39 PM.

damn you, stencil

I tend to think it's got much more to do with the lack of any obvious youth culture signifiers attached to dance music. You can't really dress techno in the same way you can dress hip hop or emo. Dance music doesn't have the clutch of associated behaviours, slang and codes that other styles do.

It's also got a shitload to do with the fact that teenagers can't get into dance clubs. Even if you can't get into a hip hop club you can still front your hip hop-ness, but you can't do that with minimal house.

Are you guys talking about the Roxette original or the D.H.T. cover? Because D.H.T. did a couple of different versions -- one was generic Eurodance and the other was stripped to just voice and piano. The latter is what got airplay in the U.S., not sure if the dance mix was played elsewhere or not.

Crossover dance hits in the US in this day and age are, for all intents and purposes, novelty songs.

I think hip-hop and America's racial politics figure way more into America's rejection of Euro dance culture than any homophobia.

The German/Euro disco/electronic stuff which helped galvanise the next generation sounds pretty gay in retrospect although the Hip-hop movement obviously felt some sort of afinity towards it, at least in the early days, which is a pretty wierd paradox if you think about it.

But to be honest, many Americans remain unaware of the cultural impact of Dance music. It started with Saturday Night Fever and ended with a bunch of racists burning records in Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois.

The perceived threat to "real" music, was, and remains, a three pronged one:

It's too gay.

It's too black.

It's too manufactured.

We Brits had it just as bad. Read through a selection of music mags between 1976 and 78 and you would be forgiven for summising that punk had blown away the lot. Brilliant innovative music was being created from Giorgio Moroder to Patrick Adams Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards to Cerrone and DJs such Larry levan but you wouldn't know it...Too gay, too Black (!) and too manufactured.

ROFFLE

I thought they played the Eurodance version, since D.H.T. is a Eurodance group. Still, it doesn't explain the success of "Heaven" or "Better Off Alone".

This is not 1976 - America has made itself pretty comfortable with black, digitally manufactured music.

I assume you mean its impact on the rest of the world, cuz if Americans are largely unaware of the music, how could it have impacted them at all? that's what I was ROFFLING at.

Part of the gay equation has to be the cliche of raver/club-kid style in the '90s. Look at any of the pictures posted as a gag at ILX - clean-shaven bleach-blonde boyish guys dressed in bright colors. It's often the kind of look that's going to make mooks in South Jersey or rednecks in Texas attack someone.

they ONLY play the dance one here. They started playing that last summer and they haven't stopped yet!! all the top 40 stations. i do live near Provincetown though. Maybe that has something to do with it. Cape Cod loves eurodisco! the sounds on that dance version (which i love) give me flashbacks.

I literally ctrl-f'd for this as soon as I opened the thread.

-- Vintage Latin (doglati...), February 15th, 2006.

you havent heard the ultra-gay subgenre, gayber

I so want to make this a genre of music now.

We're also talking a bit of a generational thing here as well. This generation of queer kids seem, from my experience, far more likely to dig hip-hop and indie rock and whatever they stumble across on music blogs, than they care at all about the sort of homogenized, mass-produced generic Diva X house that we've all been beaten with for the last decade or so in gay clubland.

Although a more cynical response might be that they've really just become the same Sufjan-loving, MIA-obsessed, Postal Service-clutching faux-indie sheep as their straight brethren. Which still somehow feels like a micrometer of progress given the prospect of another twenty years of Deborah Cox remixes.

where i grew up i think the stigma of "dance=gay" could've been expanded to just include any pop that leaned in a dance direction or just teenpop in general. if a guy even CONSIDERED buying, say, a britney spears cd, he was, by definition, a 'mo.

Someone, I think it was Giorgio Moroder, was pondering this while he was at a beerfest in Germany. He noticed the white kids there had no problem dancing to the oompah bands there, and he had a eureka moment: Graft a steady four-on-the-floor beat onto soul, toss in a couple of wailing divas, and wham -- you have funk made safe for Eurocrackas.

From this disco was born -- chunk chunk chunk chunk. And then house -- whump whump whump whump.

It's not about gayness or the lack thereof. It's about the fact that virutally all Eurodance music is funk-free, and by funk I mean real James Brown, Meters, Booker T style-funk.

Eurodance is polka with divas and synths, for chrissakes, not music by gay black robots.

And if America is so homophobic, please explain the continuing enormous popularity of the Village People.

I started off by giving a serious (albeit highly sarcastic) answer, but for now I am just going to save keystrokes and assume this is a joke.

And Macho Men?

And why the sarcasm and why the assumption it's a joke? I'm afraid I don't get it.

"YMCA" is till played at virtually every baseball game in America, and I think it's safe to assume that every American over the age of 12 knows that the Village People were extremely gay. Would a truly homophobic society allow one of its most macho bastions to be overrun on a nightly basis by a song performed by overtly gay men that is not-so-covertly about semi-anonymous gay hook-ups down at the gym?

sad to say, but that's not true. I have proof but the story is too personal.

the above beerhal story is nice but...disco existed before Moroder, or before any european producers.

The key cultural narrative for US youth is of finding and asserting their individuality. Rock and hip hop are ultimately both also about individual narratives - stardom, success, lust etc.

Dance music on the other hand is a collective narrative - all of us together sharing in the experience. People in dance clubs in Europe are fairly anonymous. Dressed functionally and dancing in an unflamboyant manner.

It's only in the US that you get the club kid-style display culture in clubs. And it's no accident that of recent dance genres only electroclash which is very much a display-oriented narrative has been any kind of a success in the US.

European youth are different because there is less of a display culture for all the reasons that are way too boring to list here as we all ought to know them.

For further proof, look to Asia. Anonymous trance is massive here. Hip Hop is popular too, but only really as a soundtrack for clubs - the cultural meaning is absent, indeed the subject matter of most Asian hip hop is indistinguishable from Asian pop in general (with some notable exceptions). What characterises the difference between Asia and the US? Asia is generally a less extroverted and less individualistic place...

(usual disclaimer for sweeping statements and use of 'Asia' as a homogenous location apply to the above)

Yes, but not Eurodisco.

This is my favorite post on this thread. Not that I understand it.

it's also safe to say that a lot of them also know that only one of the village people WAS actually gay (and they ARE able to pick him out too!)

America can handle its homosexuals to the extent that they're safe caricatures and not actual humans, which is why we have minstrel shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." And I really think a lot of Americans, particularly those in rural/semi-rural areas like the one I grew up in, really don't know (or don't want to know) what's going on at the YMCA. My best friend in high school had their Live and Sleazy LP on vinyl and swore up and down he had no idea when I outed them to him.

Sorry for the derailing . . .

p.s. xpost: I thought at least three -- Glenn the leatherman, Randy Jones the cowboy, and Felipe Rose the Indian -- were/are gay?

I can tell you that physics geeks enjoy disco dancing and i don't think its just the lack of awareness of social norms ... i mean they actually get into it (shudder).

Even disco was something like a novelty genre, anyone ever look at any of those old American disco compilations?

Sure Donna Summer will be on there, but right next to "Disco Duck".

Or that one track, something like "Star Trek Disco".

Disco was just never taken very seriously by white middleclass audiences. The stuff that in retrospect was very sonically ambitious, West End Records, Larry Levan, etc. just didn't get anywhere as near a wide audience.

Bear in mind I was born in 84, so this is not from first hand experience.

Much better ecstasy on the market in those days....

can we stop using disco demolition night as an example of american culture as a whole, please? i doubt comiskey was even sold out that night, but even if it was, 50-60k-odd baseball fans (who would probably trend conservative anyway - it's the "national pastime" duh) /= "american culture."

Please define success... and for that matter, define Electroclash.

America can handle its homosexuals to the extent that they're safe caricatures and not actual humans, which is why we have minstrel shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

An excellent point. This is something that some Europeans and most Americans don't grasp about our popular culture and how it relates to our real culture. We're still a homophobic culture, but we've moved from outright homophobia to this faux-acceptance we see in popular culture. See "Staright American Slave" off RFTC's Group Sounds.

However... whole "What about Bowie/ Elton/ Village People" argument is kind of getting away from the real root of this thread which is club/dance music; music that is faceless as opposed to Bowie or Queen or Elton John who are popular music and fit into the "gay caricature" view of the issue.

Also, regarding Gay music played at professional sporting events, see "We are the Champions," (ironically about gay culture finally "winning acceptance") and "Rock and Roll pt. 2".

Eh. Around here, it's easier to get into a dance club if you're underage, especially since the illegal ones don't check ID. And there certainly is a raver fashion.
What's weird, though, is that instead of it being house music that drives that scene, it's the trance and pseudo-ambient stuff that's the big draw (at least based on the little quarter-sheets that are EVERYWHERE). And the DEMF was huge until the organizers fucked with it.
I mean, I think a large reason why dance music isn't as huge is that it's not on the radio (songs too long). Aside from that, especially amongst high schoolers around here, it's fucking huge. Or at least the Sasha/Digweed stuff is.

OTFUCKINGM

can we stop using disco demolition night as an example of american culture as a whole, please? i doubt comiskey was even sold out that night, but even if it was, 50-60k-odd baseball fans (who would probably trend conservative anyway - it's the "national pastime" duh) /= "american culture."

-- hstencil (hstenc!...), February 15th, 2006.

I quite clearly wasn't. I was responding to another post regarding the cultural impact of disco. Perhaps i should have made that clearer instead of using the generic term 'dance' But I stand by my original comments regarding that shameful and repulsive event...

If 50000 Americans, in an American football stadium, burning records and shouting racist and homophobic garbage isn't an example of American culture at that time, albeit in microcosm, then what the hell is? Nations are, in the end, (like presidents i guess!) judged by their actions...

not to mention the second sentence just plain doesn't make sense with the first. if people were "unaware" then, and remain "unaware" of the "cultural impact of dance music" (whatever the fuck that means now, then there wouldn't have been the stupid demolition in the first place!

1. I was not attacking American culture as a whole or judging the whole of american culture on the basis of one nasty act 25+ years ago.
I used the terms "many Americans" and "Cultural impact" very carefully...I also attacked UK culture for the same reasons although using a different example.

2. I get really tired of people not reading/not listening/missing the point. I'm a teacher so i should be used to it i guess, but please do the decent thing.

it's pretty clear that you didn't.

Youre telling me that all humans (or all americans?) are somehow minutely aware of their own culture? maybe I should have used the term socio-cultural awareness? How may of us are really aware of other designs for life that exist alongside our own ways and ideas but of which we are not directly affiliated to? Still part of our own culture? you bet... Just because someone is gay/black/whatever, shouldn't prevent us coming to an understanding of where that person is coming from and what their contribution is to the society we share.

well apparently they weren't appropriately aware that they were making, dancing to, or being "impacted" by dance music.

Show me where I said that please.

I can't make this any clearer for you people...

again, this insinuation that Americans are somehow unaware that blacks (or gay robots, or gay blacks robots whatever) are responsible for a massive share of dance music is totally absurd.

Maybe I am...I agree with much of what you are saying here but it's one thing dancing to the music of blacks and gays, and another understanding their culture and appreciating it for what it is, part of your own culture.

What Gear said after your post is OTM and maybe that's why it irritates me so much. ignorance and intolorance (and the vile things people do because of these) irritate me. This has nothing to do with America, I just used an American example.

i dunno about that, hippies in bridgeport??!? mayor daley's neighborhood??!?

then what was all this about?

If 50000 Americans, in an American football stadium, burning records and shouting racist and homophobic garbage isn't an example of American culture at that time, albeit in microcosm, then what the hell is? Nations are, in the end, (like presidents i guess!) judged by their actions...

2. dance music exists in america. not on the same large pop music scale as it seems to in europe, but it exists. i saw a house set last night, and i'm going to see a friend spin tech house tonight. friday it's baile funk, ghetto tech, and more tech house.

3. too black? um, okay ... not sure that makes sense. is that too much soul influence? cause Chicago House is fucking based on that shit. funky house, etc. but TOO black? what does that even mean? dance music is already super fucking black, thank god.

4. too gay? not really. people are just scared. i'm just ready to castrate guitars with sequencers. yes!

5. the origins of dance music were black and gay. yup. that sort of culture still exists. if you don't believe it, go to the Castro in San Francisco. at the same time, yeah ... there has been a serious reappropriation/co-opting of dance music by straight white guys. one difference is that you won't hear a RuPaul remix at a straight night, and the biggest difference is that gay clubs are usually fucking cool enough that they welcome, and make comfortable, pretty much anyone who shows up. unfortunately, the gay guy at a straight night is usually fish out of water.

gay clubs are better. i'm sick of straight dance clubs where everyone has so much posture. gay clubs are all about dancing.

dance!

I'm sure there were at least 10 Ozzy fans in that crowd.

(there are certain hip-hop idealogues who I won't mention who are very liberal politically and groaningly conservative about music)

If 50000 Americans, in an American football stadium, burning records and shouting racist and homophobic garbage isn't an example of American culture at that time, albeit in microcosm, then what the hell is? Nations are, in the end, (like presidents i guess!) judged by their actions...

-- Fritz Wollner (fritzwollner5...), February 15th, 2006

The main point I was making was not just about America...read my original post upthread where I stated that the UK had it's own issues with Disco (and those who were perceived to have created it) and dealt with them in a different, but equally abhorent, way. I used America, more specifically a paticular incident in America to make my point.

Doesn't matter which country, the issue is the same.

http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/lastdaysofdisco/6.html

As is demonstrated on the above, some people haven't embraced their culture as some people, clearly, don't know or understand their culture enough to do so.

1.) Many disco artists were black.

This is not unique to disco. See also jazz, early r'n'r, r&b/soul, blues, funk, ad nauseam.

2.) Many disco artists were hispanic.

I don't think this is unique to disco either.

3.) Many disco artists were gay.

Again, not unique to disco. Tho its reasonable to say that disco was indeed a bit more out and open about publicly embracing a gay identity (and of course this grows out of the gay rights movement, which grew alongside of other identity politics movements of the late 60s/early 70s)

4.) Many disco fans were some combination of the above.

In its early stages yes, but as disco gained in popularity, this def. became less and less true. See housewives dancing to Village People, "disco duck", Sat. Night Fever, etc.

5.) Disco culture heralded an environment where these three minorities could come together -- along with whites and heterosexuals -- to party and enjoy themselves.

okay, kinda true... but again, I think this armchair political browbeating greatly overstates the influence of personal prejudices on musical tastes.

Yup. Actually a lecturer. I lecture in Social Policy mainly, but also Modern (post Industrial Revolution) History.

have your students learned to yawn with their mouths closed yet?

discus

discus

I love good disco music, but had I been at that game I too would have jumped on the field (and stolen second base).

Hmmm. Most of the "gay dance music" I listen to hovers in the 120-128 BPM range, whereas most hip-hop is around 100.

?!

A lot of Souther songs are down around 80 now.

But wasn't disco in general a watered down AM lite version of P-Funk/Sly Stone/Philly?

Sylvester, Larry Levan, Salsoul Orchestra, certainly they were not a watering down of what you mention.

While I'm thinking that some of the various social conditions mentioned upthread do have an effect on Americans' willingness to enjoy dance music - I'm surprised that besides the smattering of robot talk no one has mentioned how musically weird a lot contemporary dance music is: the repetition, the digital sounds, the (sometimes) lack of conventional song structure.

Of course Europe had similar pop music as america and dance is huge there now. So why did Europeans accept this radical shift? Maybe it's because many of the popular music styles of the second half of the 20th century (rock, hip-hop, soul) were originally American. Europeans were used to embracing strange new music, so when one showed up that sounded like it was from outer space - it was just another new exotic sound. Where as in america pop music was more connected to the native culture, therefore more likely to provoke attachment and likewise revulsion to the new gay black robot music.

Obviously pulling this out of my ass after reading the thread. I'm thinking hip-hop avoided the fate of dance music (while sharing many qualities) by having so many easily reconcilable cultural signifiers, keeping familiar song structures and having heavier emphasis on vocals.

"...the real animosity between rock and disco lay in the position of the straight white male. In the rock world, he was the undisputed top, while in disco, he was subject to a radical decentering. Only by killing disco could rock affirm its threatened masculinity."

-Peter Braunstein, "Village Voice," 1998.

America (and everywhere else) has been dancing to (and buying) mediocre music for as long as it has been available. You really think that the proliferation of sub standard music was the cause of the disco sucks movement?

The argument that society might be "homosexualised" is a bit closer to the truth, I believe. The press had finally picked up on the gay, underground origins of disco. Not only that, but the fact that disco culture had originated in a black and Hispanic subset of that subculture. And now American was dancing to music, wearing fashions, and partying all night long just like these...well, marginal folks.

It, quite clearly, wasn't merely the music that people found offensive. Middle America had spoken, And there were undeniable homophobic overtones to what they said. They finally understood the lyrics to "YMCA" and they didn't like what they heard. Dancing was for sissies. Real men play ball, so to speak.

Many people find homosexuality offensive, no need to debate that one, they just do. You are right in saying that much of the music being put out under the disco banner was poor, pathetic even, that's capitalism for you. The record companies saw a cash cow and milked it.

I switch on my radio and hear a constant dribble of Coldplay, James blunt, watered down comercial hip-hop and cheesy cover versions of MOR tracks speeded up and given the new millenium dance "treatment" but it doesn't make me want to burn cds, carry banners or whatever militant action it seems to fire in you. I just turn the fucker off and put a Fall cd on instead.

Think again.

In case you haven't noticed, there haven't been any sizeable CD-burnings or banner wavings about Euro/techno in America. Hell, I can't think of ANY such behavior in America in the last 30 years (apart from maybe some Christians w/80s metal). If Americans are so threatened by the GAYNESS of Euro/techno, why aren't they reacting in the manner of the hysterical, threatened homophobe, as opposed to the more common American reaction of bored indifference? Again, an overemphasis on the Comiskey Park episode pointlessly clouds the issue...

America is the real enemy here, BURN BABY BURN!

They all come onto boards like this and whine instead.

Anyway, I was just reacting to the words of another poster who claimed he would have willingly joined in.

Not sure it does cloud the issue. I have made little comment about the attitudes of Americans at the present time other than pointing people in the direction of a board that shows present attitudes to dance music in America.

No one is claiming attitudes haven't shifted. we might just be debating about how much...

Dixie Chicks, 2003. At least in a couple of shitholes like Shreveport.

In fact, people were so deeply disturbed by the lyrics of "YMCA" that they made up a funny little dance to go with it (spelling out the letters Y-M-C-A with their arms) and sang and danced to "YMCA" at most sports events, weddings, and bar mitzvahs of the next 25 years.

haha - yeah, and even that's a very specific, political thing (similar to Tom Leykis running a steamroller over Cat Stevens records after the Salman Rushdie fatwah)

-- Fritz Wollner (fritzwollner5...), February 16th, 2006.

I've witnessed my grandma and grandad dancing to "relax" at more than one wedding...

-Peter Braunstein, "Village Voice," 1998.

http://www.gawker.com/news/peter-braunstein/make-your-own-p

You know there is actually a really good thread on here somewhere wherein the homophobia or lack thereof of the disco sucks movement is intelligently discussed. I'm not sure how to search for it, off the top of my head, but somebody should. It beats this one,

http://www.gawker.com/news/peter-braunstein/make-your-own-peter-braunstein-papercraft-145480.php

origins of fear/hatred of disco

ts funny how in these discussions about black gay robots (and how much white rockists hate them), the consistent and overwhelming homophobia of America's black community never gets mentioned.

underground dance culture = on the DL

Also, remember, Travolta (playing a gay black robot) was a NEW YORKER. The Disco Sucks movement hits its apex in the MIDWEST. So there was regional pride/chauvinism stuff at work in there as well. (Even though lots of disco acts themselves came from Mid-America, obviously. But Studio 54 didn't, which is more to the point.) (i.e.: disco sucks was mainly ANTI-BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, a prejudice I admit I relate to to this very day, despite its often unsavory aspects, and despite the fact that disco is one of my favorite musics ever.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), April 5th, 2005.

After all this was before the arrival of Autotune.

This may also have to do with the fact that the disco hits were for a large part produced in the USA (even though some of the producers were European by origin) whereas house music, other than the first Chicago underground wave that didn't do well anywhere commercially, quickly turned into a very European thing.

-- jhoshea (totalwizar...), February 15th, 2006 7:31 PM. (later)

Except in, you know, Detroit, where the Belleville 3 plus some guys from Windsor were making most of the music that inspired Europe.

my favorite part is the entry about that seventh avenue record. genius.