Simon Price on the rebirth of disco

It doesn't really say that at all, does it?

I hear Stay Beautiful brought disco back

No wait, I'm thinking of fat girls in shitty make-up

Gluing cardboard fins to yr head is the essence of disco. I believe what Pricey sez.

And, back in the UK, some of the sharper thinkers in the indie sector are ahead of the curve. With their Erol Alkan-produced second album Couples, The Long Blondes have amplified their already-latent disco tendencies to stunning effect, while Franz Ferdinand (surely already pretty disco themselves) toyed with the idea of having their third album produced by Brian Higgins' Xenomania, the team responsible for Girls Aloud's finest moments, among others.

I dunno, it could be a shitload worse, but really to write something about the return of disco and NOT mention DFA is pretty fucking retarded.

The article is complete gibberish.

Has any pop dated so quickly as that of the early noughties?

quietus also has a pretty wack article on funky house. i think they need to stop trying.

quietus, stfu

Or employ writers under the age of 50.

Article also fails to mention Fiddy's "Disco Inferno", which would be easily the biggest selling disco revivalist single of the decade by a massive margin, but, y'know, Fifty Cent wouldn't get Chris Martin on a track, so fuck him.

Also, indie kids get confused and scared by names like Fedde le Grand.

PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR ah forget it

Has any pop dated so quickly as that of the early noughties?

Umm, all pop ever? It's kind of supposed to sound ridiculously dated four or five years on. If anything it doesn't sound dated enough.

(Sorry, I'm aware that this is your mutual masturbation session and not really the place for cogent debate so I'll respectfully head off and do something useful)

Settle down Beavis

I was actually going to give you a very cogent answer to your question but from the evidence of your subsequent post I suspect that you're not really interested in that (xp).

Whit Stillman's otherwise disastrously dull Last Days Of Disco = Fuck you moron

I dunno, it could be a shitload worse, but really to write something about the return of disco and NOT mention DFA is pretty fucking retarded.

Fair enough, wouldn't disagree with that (Price seems to be jocking a populist angle, as per, although how The Long Blondes sell compared to the DFA roster, or their recognition factor, I wouldn't be too sure of). Stuff like "...apparently it was all caused by Franz Ferdinand and the Scissor Sisters" just bugs me when people do it on here.

That funky house piece is weirdly amateur, I usually like Melissa Bradshaw

The Long Blondes might be pertinent if any of that album actually sounded like disco, bar one track which is shit.

I saw the Long Blondes on the cover of Plan B. They had pudding bowl haircuts and stripey French fisherman's jumpers and they thought they were it.

In the next issue: how the Frank and Walters paved the way for shanty house...

If you actually bother to read the (admittedly crap) article rather than wilfully misinterpreting it, he actually credits Daft Punk and co for paving the way. It doesn't even remotely credit Franz Ferdinand and, well, any Brit article on a disco revival that excludes the Scissor Sisters (vastly more significant in populist terms than the DFA) is mental.

Sorry, I know this is cranky and boring, but not half as tedious as the stupid grandstanding that accompanies every half-arsed/wrong article ever written about music these days. If you think it's that atrocious, call him out on it in the comments box.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b161/P3Shinobi/1192392913251.jpg

Lol.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56/Streybulletz701/5mic/umad.jpg

Franz Ferdinand and many others are, in their individual ways, proving that it's possible to exhibit a love of disco

I think that qualifies under the "remotely" category.

Are the Scissor Sisters really significant in any terms other than Guilty Pleasures ones?

Yeah that's where it falls down, the Scissor Sisters aren't really much more credible than Staying Alive at this point and if they hadn't had their roots in electroclash I'm not sure anyone would ever have claimed otherwise.

What is relevant, however is about 6 years worth of Italo revivalism. People were going to work backwards from there eventually...

Also working back from Chicago house, which never really stopped being credible.

UK dance mags really never did talk about Italo/80s disco 10 years ago - it must've all sounded shit at that time.

but of course when up against Big Beat, what didn't?

You'd have to ask ex-UK dance mag editor I Alexis Petridish about that.

I phoned Conor McNicholas and he agreed that Tullio De Piscopo was ridiculous.

In this Friday's Guardian Music: "Pepe Deluxe will yet have their day."

UK dance mags really never did talk about Italo/80s disco 10 years ago - it must've all sounded shit at that time.

Trying to think of there was *anyone* of note who would have been playing or appropriating it then - maybe DMX Krew or someone else who got sucked into electroclash

I remember Jockey Slut writing about I-F's Mixed Up in the Hague mix (which helped kick off the whole italo revival). I think they may have said it was the best DJ mix ever!

That's 2000 according to Discogs, but it's definitely significant

The thing is, I wouldn't really associate Sissors Sisters with the Disco revival at all, irritating BeeGees falsetto aside, I don't really get the similarity, they remind me more of glammy sixties pop, but kindof eighties sounding too.

'Comfortably Numb' is pretty disco.

Isn't the idea that there's a difference between "disco" as sound (which is where all that Erol Arkan stuff comes in here) and "disco" as genre (which is where neo-camp revivalist like the Scissor Sisters come in)? And that the problem with the article is that it tries to suggest that both are coming from exactly the same place?

Huh?

I just don't think Sissors Sisters sound disco-ey

No, but they look it.

Erol Arkan's disco tigers will bring genocide to the Scissor Sisters.

xp really they just look like arseholes

Surely Scissor Sisters are Elton John-ey

who flirted with disco several times himself

'Filthy Gorgeous' is the most discoey SS number but yeah who cares about them anymore

Surely the Scissor Sisters are multi-purpose kitsch that yeah, borrows as much from Elton John (or indeed Robbie Williams) as disco. I'd say they were diametrically opposed to what Hercules & Love affair are doing, which is a far more reverential, referential, crate-digging way of connecting the dots between disco, soul and early house.

All puffs innit.

phags

I think Scissor Sisters' approach on their first record, while still enormously camp, was closer to that 'referential crate-digging' of H&LA than the second album, which sounds like an Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical about gays.

that should read 'a little bit closer'

no genre ever dies anyway

Except romo, which I killed.

And yet:

http://www.romomusic.com/

Girl on my Facebook claims to have been landlady to at least three romo musicians of minor note.

It's a Michael Myers deal, then.

I think my problem with the article is that it interprets the dance movement within rock, which was so apparent in the Scissor Sisters and Franz Ferdinand, as being influenced primarily by disco rather than dance music or house in a more general sense. I really don't know what is disco about Scissor Sisters or Franz Ferdinand other than four to the floor beats and a upbeat hats and the occasional funky guitar riff. There just seems to be so many degrees of separation in their influences that to attribute them to the current disco movement to which DFA and H&LA are a part seems completely absurd.

Shit article.

Surely the Scissor Sisters are multi-purpose kitsch that yeah, borrows as much from Elton John (or indeed Robbie Williams) as disco. I'd say they were diametrically opposed to what Hercules & Love affair are doing, which is a far more reverential, referential, crate-digging way of connecting the dots between disco, soul and early house.

^^^^ totally agree, the current movement is much more a reinterpretation of disco in a very referential and reverential degree.

for instance, the Max Essa edit of Tullio De Piscopo - 'E Fatto 'E Sorde! E? (Money Money)

otoh it wouldn't be that difficult for the SS to have come up with something like 'Iris' or 'True False Fake Real' (neither discoey) themselves, at least at one point in their development

TS Saturday Night Fever vs Turn the Beat Around

who are Heloise & The Savoir Faire

So, this thread is really a load of people who like disco complaining about an article (by and for people who obviously don't really care too much about that particular topic) that *gasp* innacurately traces the development of current disco vogue?

xpost, yeah, I've heard of them like 17 times today, never before yesterday. Is strange.

A band getting a lot of promo budget spent on them currently. Never actually heard them.

I stood next to Simon Price at a Herc concert in Soho.

I'll be disappointed if he doesn't post on this thread.

Trying to think of there was *anyone* of note who would have been playing or appropriating it then - maybe DMX Krew or someone else who got sucked into electroclash

The answer is Danny Wang.

God, that article made me want to vomit all over Simon Price. I am so fucking sick of this whole "DISCO IS BACK" thing-- it never fucking left, shut the fuck up and quit writing misinformed articles that attempt to track some sort of pseudo-trend you've been sleeping on for the past four years.

hoo, man, i am worked up today.

There were lots of techno and house DJs in the late 90s playing bits and pieces of disco, and yes, Danny Wang was one of them. I was first exposed to italo-disco circa 97-2000 as a side-effect of being into electro-funk and techno and learning about disco. Most of those circa 82 italo records instrumentals are pretty much indistinguishable from techno at times and there was always that history. Electroclash wasn't just the Scissor Sisters doing Bee Gees pink floyd, but Adult. and Fischerspooner and other new wave kids who came out of the techno and neo-electro scenes by digging disco and italo-disco in the mid/late 90s.

Thread needs Pipecock

So, this thread is really a load of people who like disco complaining about an article (by and for people who obviously don't really care too much about that particular topic) that *gasp* innacurately traces the development of current disco vogue?

yes.

both this thread and the article itself are boring and pointless.

GOD FORBID ANYONE FEEL ANNOYED THAT AN ARTICLE ABOUT MUSIC THEY LIKE MISREPRESENTS THAT MUSIC

AND JESUS CHRIST WHY WOULD ANYBODY START A THREAD ABOUT IT

ITS ALL SO BORING AND POINTLESS

It just seems like this should be so outside the radar of disco fans. I don't think anyone who's getting down to Todd Terje edits is really gonna be convinced that Franz Ferdindand have anything to do with their world, and Franz Ferdinand fans can feel like trailblazers in their heads. I don't really begrudge them that.

And franz ferdinand at least have chic guitars.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f161/ivvo_3/bucketheads.jpg

http://bp3.blogger.com/_xwIcREtkw4A/R3Tp2rrPYfI/AAAAAAAABNU/yYfevf_fYFk/s320/Gusto+-+Disco%27s+Revenge+Capa1.jpg

And to really labor the point....

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/S%27Express_Original_Soundtrack.jpg

Meh. I like this thread because I was vaguely curious about where the "revival" came from, as it feels like a lot more disco beats have been showing up in music that I've heard casually, and since my interest in disco has been from tangential points (early hip hop, Sparks, stumbling onto a copy of The Flirts record a couple years back getting me interested in Bobby Orlando, and one of those old ILX YSI threads that had a bunch of great jazz fusion stuff in it) I'm always kind of curious as to how other people get to the same points of interest.

Luckily, I don't really talk about what music I like in trend pieces, aside from ILX comments, so no one can make fun of me for coming late to Patrick Cowley.

surely you mean cumming late to patrick cowley

I have previously described "Menergy" as "the gayest song I own," though I think that's arguable.

Disco.
Boogie.
House.
Deep House.
French House.
Detroit Electro.
Electroclash.
Nu-Disco.
Hercules & Love Affair.

That's the truth right there. Andy Butler was friends with Danny Wang and Horse Meat Disco. Not fucking Franz Ferdinand.

The big point that annoys me about the article is the writing out of history of dance music per se. How can you treat disco as a subset or style of rock? It's just utterly ridiculous.

And yes these threads are tedious. But still got some significance. If some googler finds this and listens to Patrick Adams and i-F as a result then this is a job well done.

You got a point. Wang's 'Like Some Dream' was 1991!

(and from my bumbling research a couple years back, I discovered Danny Wang went to school with some of the members of Green Day right before that)

I have the same problem with this piece that I have with lots of other writing about disco (and almost all writing about disco's so-called "rebirth"): it assumes disco is this narrow genre that had a good run at the charts for a few years in the seventies. I mean, that's one way to look at it, sure, but by doing so he fails to grasp disco's unparalleled global reach, various formal evolutions, and of course (because this always seems to be the case with people convinced there's some sort of revival going on) numerous disco chart hits that have happened in the intervening years between Chic and Franz Ferdinand (is Mariah Carey's "Emotions" now not considered cool enough to be disco? Ace of Base?).

I guess I just think his real thesis is more about indie's appropriation of disco than it is about disco per se, but it's (frustratingly) not framed that way at all.

Also as 4/4-obsessed Rich Juzwiak has been making a case for a long time now, there's really strong disco stuff happening all over r&b these days. But does Price ever think to look there? Apparently not.

there's a funny danny wang related thread over at djh right now.

i feel like disco was apparent all thru 90's house and pop from all over? and was the uk really not into it in the late 90's ... figured the dub disco stuff like idjut boys was big back then ...

Idjut boys was never big, but mersh house was full of disco samples.

Fuckin Armand Van Helden for chrissakes...

Fuckin Cher's "Believe" for chrissakes...

yeah and hello black box and deee lite

and it's funny that he mentioned sheila b & devotion - i spent some time on an island frequented by many euros and at one of the resorts there were these europeans doing pool exercises accompanied by a cranking remix of 'spacer'. i also heard it in the supermarkets and i was quite sure that some euro or other has released remixes of 'spacer' every year since 79

sounds like one hell of a video, that.

[I mean the Euros in their swimming trunks, of course.]

i almost said "water sports" but then edited cuz well ... you know

i think they also played like a 140 bpm trance remix of smoke on the water or something

Also as 4/4-obsessed Rich Juzwiak has been making a case for a long time now, there's really strong disco stuff happening all over r&b these days. But does Price ever think to look there? Apparently not.

Which does interest me because in his Melody Maker days he was very much the equivalent of the Lex on that front re: r'n'b and paying close attention to it.

Early 2000s disco-influenced pop: Alcazar, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Junior Senior.

I guess I just think his real thesis is more about indie's appropriation of disco than it is about disco per se, but it's (frustratingly) not framed that way at all.

otm

Surely Franz Ferdinand and even the Rapture, were taking disco influences second-hand from Gang of Four and Orange Juice and so on?

For the first time, straight white people, taking their cue from the black, latino and gay subcultures, were partying in significant numbers.

What on earth does this mean?

"No wait, I'm thinking of fat girls in shitty make-up"

Y'see Dom, that would be funnier if you didn't look like a failed rapist and smell like a tramp's arse in summer time.

The big point that annoys me about the article is the writing out of history of dance music per se. How can you treat disco as a subset or style of rock? It's just utterly ridiculous.

I guess I just think his real thesis is more about indie's appropriation of disco than it is about disco per se, but it's (frustratingly) not framed that way at all.

Surely Franz Ferdinand and even the Rapture, were taking disco influences second-hand from Gang of Four and Orange Juice and so on?

Things on this thread that are through. The only thing I would add to this, is THIS IS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF AN INDIE ONLINE MAGAZINE. The piece really just needed a line saying something like

"while disco, in various forms has permeated the fabric of house, techno r'n'b and pop since its alleged decline in the late seventies, it has remained (despite the efforts of new wavers from blondie to the rapture) something of a dirty word [insert quote displaying the fact that even James chance thought it was "dead music"] in rock and indie"

And in the context of an online indie magazine, I don't get why it gets up the noses of so many people who couldn't care less about indie music.

Y'see Dom, that would be funnier if you didn't look like a failed rapist and smell like a tramp's arse in summer time.

This is unfair. Dom looks like a successful rapist.

(And thx for only addfressing that one issue Quietus guy).

Waiting for updates on the tramp's arse thing

So I know, right?, you must agree with him then when he states that disco was the first time straight white people were partying in significant numbers.

It's not my place to comment on Price's piece. I commissioned him to write it, nothing more - we don't have a party line, just individual voices. If you want to get his attention post on the actual site, he doesn't read this. I don't normally but it's quite amusing to see Passantino frothing himself into a lather.

Angry young man in quasi-misogynist shock.

*sigh* clearly xp

I mean, have you people never read broadsheet reviews? I thought this bizarre misreading/ham-fisted revisionism of trends was pretty standard now.

Hey J, how's it all going over at OTF?

hahahahaha music writers are so far up their own asses until some bossman shows up, then they're like piranhas. get a real fucking job.

http://www.dlptvreview.com/dlptvpics/reviews/sony_projection_001.jpg

like something that matters to other people besides you and your own shithole profession

oh and while you're at it, stop posting to ilx too! kthxbye

http://www.wikinfo.org/upload/6/6a/Mirror.jpeg

Alright Dingbod. It's a bit dull to be honest.

"oh and while you're at it, stop posting to ilx too! kthxbye"

ooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh! Byeeee!

Angry young man in quasi-misogynist shock.

-- John Doran, Wednesday, 16 July 2008 11:08 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Shouting at the dude who pays yr wages doesn't work, so you're going to ride my jock over here?

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l266/Revolos55/Macros/SamEagle.jpg

"wages"

"dude"

"jock"

In the middle of a raging thunderstorm, a traveling circus accidentally leaves behind some very precious cargo--a baby zebra. The gangly little foal is rescued by horse farmer Nolan Walsh, who takes him home to his young daughter Channing. Once a champion thoroughbred trainer, Walsh has given up horse training for a quiet life with Channing on their modest Kentucky farm. The little zebra, or "Stripes," as Channing calls him, is soon introduced to the farm's misfit troupe of barnyard residents, led by a cranky Shetland Pony named Tucker and Franny, a wise old goat who keeps the family in line. The group is joined by Goose, a deranged big-city pelican who's hiding out in the sticks until the heat dies down in Jersey. The un-aptly named bloodhound Lightening keeps a lazy eye on goings-on at the farm - in between naps. The Walsh farm borders the Turfway Racetrack, where highly skilled thoroughbreds compete for horse racing's top honor, the ultra-prestigious Kentucky Crown. From the first moment Stripes lays eyes on the track, he's hooked--he knows that if he could just get the chance, he could leave all those other horses in the dust. What he doesn't know is--he's not exactly a horse. But with characteristic zeal, he devotes himself to training for the big time, with a little help from Tucker, who has coached a host of champion racehorses in the past.

Shed Seven 'Disco Down' - that's a good track

Another night, another town.

The straw-breaking moment for Bruno Brookes was when he announced Shed Seven's first album as being called Change Jiver.

I don't remember that Franz Ferdinand bringing back disco and I srsly doubt they did.
Neither does this dude;http://www.jamesgaunt.com/notetoself/wp-content/uploads/charris.jpg

Lolz at journo's starting wars on t'internets.

http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/3d6/222687713_1673536.gif

We don't make love baby, we make magic.

It must be great being on the dole.

^love this dude

http://www.watchitrot.com/images/bucket_of_water.jpg

Like, seriously JD, why are you so radge? I know being 45 and having the highpoint of your career being seventh-in-command at highly successful Future Publishing launch Bang Magazine must be something that weighs on your mind, but it's the summer big man! Let the joys of summer in.

"Radge"? Where d'you pick that one up?

Scottish dude that delivers the mail at work.

Figures. Glasgow slang, I believe. It's a good one, isn't it.

I've got a chest infection that I can't shake off. What with me being 37, I find it harder to get over stuff like this than you tweenagers.

I am permanently in a bad mood. It is true.

Do you still stand by your 2006 review in Playlouder that declares "Alright, Still" to be an album comparable to "Nevermind" and "Off The Wall" in terms of quality?

I can't remember writing that. If I did, no, I don't stand by what I said about the Nirvana bit. Alright, Still is a far superior album to anything that misery guts did. What in God's name was I thinking?

Anything else you want from me before I get back to work?

http://fanart.lionking.org/Artists/FireLemming/Huggles2.jpg

I've got to go and interview a popular beat combo. You crazy kids get some work done!

Should have been 65daysofstatic xp

"radge" is more east coast than west coast

I hope this is another random googler that sticks around.

I only say radge when I'm back north. It's not part of my London vocab.

isn't John Doran the guy in popular American medical sitcom The Scrub?

"radge" is 100% east coast.

x post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFT7ZCfIlvY

Fucking obsessed with this since Hercules played it at Glastonbury.

Is dude with tiger Ned Raggett?

hahahahaha music writers are so far up their own asses until some bossman shows up, then they're like piranhas. get a real fucking job.

HAHAHA - it's true. I don't care if you're up your own ass, but bickering like children about the path music took (I guess no one ever heard of musical trends and fads, which tend to be, um, nebulous and non-linear) and taking potshots at each other's jobs?!? I agree - get a real job. It'll help your faux-intellectual insecurities a lot more if you don't invest all your internet emotions in something like this.

protip 4 u: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco

Is dude with tiger Ned Raggett?

There's a vision.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f161/ivvo_3/bucketheads.jpg

-- PappaWheelie V, Wednesday, July 16, 2008 2:50 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Link

http://bp3.blogger.com/_xwIcREtkw4A/R3Tp2rrPYfI/AAAAAAAABNU/yYfevf_fYFk/s320/Gusto+-+Disco%27s+Revenge+Capa1.jpg

-- J@cob, Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:47 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Link

OTFM

Meeeh, you see what I mean.

man, another potentially interesting thread, devolved into god knows what any of you are talking about.

and yeah, i guess i'm just being one of those annoying ilm people who comes on a thread to gripe about how boring it's become to post on ilm, but anyway, whatever, carry on.

Talking about music journalists is boring, more videos of obscure disco gems please.

couldn't find one with a proper video, but here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvClX3AVsnM

Gawd, I worship Tantra. Has The Double Album ever been released on CD? And to link it to this thread, Tantra's "Top Shot" is one of many disco songs that were borrowing from rock (and new wave) which confuses any notion of one-way flows or hybrids relegated only to certain historical junctures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vym6VhPvNtw