Disco as a Vision of Adult Fun

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I don't know the extent to which this has been addressed in the literature, but I think I believe a big reason for the 'Disco Sucks' phenomenon was that disco was primarily a vision of adult fun, and thus it was not perceived as being as free-spirited as the fun music of the fifties and sixties (which, obviously, was more of a vision of young person fun).

I think the standard rockist criticisms of disco - that it wasn't meaningful, that it was musically simplistic, and/or that it was mass-produced by alleged professional hacks (singers not writing their own songs) - were mostly a smokecreen. Surely, people could remember (or were at least aware of) a music that was all of these things that they did not hate. I think disco didn't measure up to people not for a lack of good songs or good sounds but because the vision of adult fun was, as I was saying, not as grand as the vision of youthful fun that immediately preceded it historically.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:54 (nineteen years ago)

And I think the issue has greater implications w/r/t pop music in general so perhaps this thread could be about that topic as well.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:55 (nineteen years ago)

Also, the darkies and fags were into it.

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 01:58 (nineteen years ago)

Awesome naus!

― hector (hector), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:02 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know how much the whole "darkies and fags were into it" thing is actually accurate to be honest. By the time there was any backlash disco had been intensely embedded into mainstream culture and was super duper white.

― Period period period (Period period period), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

although there was probably a lot of heterosexual sort of "be a man!" resentment toward disco because the music wasn't about kickin' ass and pickin up chicks like rock was

― Period period period (Period period period), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:12 (nineteen years ago)

I hope you're not serious, Hector, because I wasn't when I used those words. But I do find it odd that early rock'n'roll, which was musically simple, not too meaningful, and often written by those not singing, was started by southern blacks. Some hip white kids got into it, started making it themselves, and it really took off. I think the same thing would have happened with disco, but the minorities who created it in the first place wouldn't sell out to the man a second time. Which is why the backlash, and so on.

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:19 (nineteen years ago)

Naus, how does rap fall into your theory?

― It's Rodney, pimp! (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

"Adult fun" makes me think of swingers and alcoholics, not disco dancing.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

And besides, the "adult fun" thing is here to stay. Seriously, who other than adults can relate to all that multiplatinum hip-hop that talks about hanging out in vip rooms at the back of the club w/ cases of Cristal, strippers, and all that other stuff that minors can't do?

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

Not so much a theory as a hypothesis that I'm formulating on the spot, but rap did evolve from disco and funk (musicwise) and Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron et al lyrically, so it was allowed to stay somewhat insulated from mainstream white America during its most formative years and has evolved into its' own paradigm somewhat. Remember that in rap, white artists are far and away the exception, especially those who command respect. The fact that the majority of rap records are sold to white americans almost screams, "look! here's what we can do if you leave us alone to do our thing without you coming in and fucking it up! you'll enjoy it too!"

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:30 (nineteen years ago)

I was marginally serious in response to your first comment naus. I think homophobia did have some part to play in the disco backlash although there were probably some economic considerations as well. Rock stations not doing well could atract a lot of attention with a record burning, which although a stunning image was probably not symptomatic of any particular turning tide.

Disco had worn out its welcome to a large degree, just as other trends in music had.

"I think the same thing would have happened with disco, but the minorities who created it in the first place wouldn't sell out to the man a second time. Which is why the backlash, and so on."

There was no question of selling out. Disco was a sound that could be used by anyone and also had very few "brands" that needed to be co-opted. Kiss put out disco records for gods sake and need lets not even get into stuff like disco duck or the mickey mouse disco records.

― hector (hector), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:31 (nineteen years ago)

A greaser in my jr. high school had a t-shirt that said, "DEATH BEFORE DISCO". Although I feared him and his outlaw music, I was able to ignore his odiferous influence and vote for "Sailing" by Christopher Cross as my choice to be played at the school dance. A girl who liked to put her hands down the back of my pants and feel my butt in science saw me writing that and kicked me in the shins and laughed 'cause I didn't say "AC/DC".

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:42 (nineteen years ago)

its funny because people like the DFA and lindstromm and all those space-disco-ers are bringing disco back to young people now, like - i feel like the older generation right now probably wants to hear disco beats less than people in their 20s

― CC (cirgenski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:45 (nineteen years ago)

also have you seen the freaks and geeks episode about how disco sucks? they make it seem really pathetic. was it like that? did the gross clingy dork-girls make you take them to some 4X4foot disco floor bar thing and dance in ridiculous polyester suits? or was it like saturday night fever/ studio 51 sex in the bathroom coke in my really long finger nail fun?

― CC (cirgenski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:48 (nineteen years ago)

i grew up in a blue collar area where the racial animosity towards disco was definitely real (i'm not sure if people were hip to the gay thing, at least the young ones)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:49 (nineteen years ago)

After disco was dead in America, those still into it and moving it forward (hi-nrg and proto-house types) remained predominantly black/latino, and gay. A sharp creative turn after the white hetero majority turned its back on it and it went back underground.

I think where disco and hiphop took diverging paths is that despite White America being the largest block of hip hop consumers, hip-hop artists never intended for their music to appeal to said mainstream. Disco had that "everybody's invited" mentality and once rockers realized they were losing ground, for the worst, they joined. The music made by rock/pop groups-gone-disco was what really caused the backlash, right? Some of that stuff was just terrible cash-in crap.

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:12 (nineteen years ago)

A sharp creative turn for the better...

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:13 (nineteen years ago)

I do think the homophobia topic has been addressed on other threads. And racism - sure, of course. But that doesn't account for why, for example, '60s Motown = great/classic, disco = lame. And so, again, I'm interested in the pure (free of racism and homophobia) rockist criticism of disco and whether it was actually this smokescreen. Whether the true issue was that disco positioned itself (apart from numerous records geared more toward kids - which was perceived more as bubblegum soul, probably) as adult fun and whether this vision of adult fun was not as viable as the vision of young person fun in the music of the '50s and '60s.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:25 (nineteen years ago)

I really find it too bad that the primary/sole lingering memory of disco is one of a culture only for gay, African-American, and Latino people, since so many of my favorite disco songs were made by white, heterosexual (or at least primarily heterosexual) males. It's a damn shame that it has to be all or nothing with rock audiences, since I think it would be cool to have strains of still going. It's especially annoying, since most of those crossover singles of the time--Rod Stewart's "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy?," The Stones' "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue," The Kinks' "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" annd ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down"--have been retroactively dismissed as being sell-outs or trend-hoppers, when in reality they were some of the best and most exciting singles these artists had released in years.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think ageism factors in to the whole antidisco thing. Even though kids couldn't get into actual discos, the music was popular, on radio and (i'm guessing) at school dances. Most popular music since the beginning of the 20th century was made by and for adults. Jazz and blues to name two.

I do agree that the whole "music as a vehicle of youthful rebellion" is overplayed, especially by rockists, but don't feel it has had much bearing in real life. It's normally music geared towards the youth that gets dismissed, right?

But then, if 70s kids saw disco as "adult" fun, and not for them, are you saying that they turned to rock by default? Remember, rock took hold in the 50s and was rebellious music then. By the 70s, some kids had parents who were into rock. Not very rebellious liking the same thing as your parents.

Remember, rebellion=young person fun

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:48 (nineteen years ago)

I think the rebellion thing maybe entirely overplayed in relation to disco. Punk, although from a similar time period, was reacting not to disco but to the rock mainstream.

― hector (hector), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 03:53 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not talking about ageism or rebellion. I'm talking about the aesthetic of disco as a fun aesthetic but an adult aesthetic. Yes, kids listened to disco and it was played at school dances, but I think it was still primarily an adult aesthetic music. (And, interestingly, this seems to have had more to do with the music itself than the subject matter of the songs. '60s Motown songs were no less ABOUT adults, but the music seems to have been more geared toward kids.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 04:00 (nineteen years ago)

(And that's why it was better?)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 04:00 (nineteen years ago)

(Sorry, that last bit was simplistic. But I am hard pressed to think of an adult-fun-oriented music with a spirit that contends with the spirit of rock and roll.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 04:11 (nineteen years ago)

Accepting your premise for a moment Tim, perhaps a point of distinction b/w disco and contemporary dance music has been that the latter has been so closely associate w/ youth (young kids overdosing on ecstasy at raves etc.). Mind you current dance music has never been so pervasive in the US as to allow for a second "Disco Sucks" backlash, so it's hard to know whether it would indeed be perceived and treated differently.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 04:15 (nineteen years ago)

I think I know what you're getting at in that the disco dancefloor experience(as presented to me via Saturday Night Fever/Studio 51 et al, I didn't live through the era as such) seemed to put demands on you in terms of dance "skill"/spiffiness/carriage that had been shrugged off in the preceding 20 years as the rock n' roll era got shaggier and shaggier. I don't know if it was the racial/sexual anxieties compounding the 'adultness' anxieties or the other way around, I'd have to defer to firsthand accounts obv.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 04:50 (nineteen years ago)

The music made by rock/pop groups-gone-disco was what really caused the backlash, right? Some of that stuff was just terrible cash-in crap.

Some of that stuff? Most of it was/is. It was like when every dumbass group in the world tried to do a hip-hop track or two. I know that this has been addressed on threads before, but that is the truly awful 'cash-in' cow of the past twenty years or so, in my opinion.

Mind you current dance music has never been so pervasive in the US as to allow for a second "Disco Sucks" backlash, so it's hard to know whether it would indeed be perceived and treated differently.

Agreed, but I take issue with the 'pervasive' factor. It's more that dance music that sounds like disco (and is current) is not pervasive in the US. Dance music (music to dance to) is always pervasive. Otherwise I wouldn't be lookin all pimped in the club all the time.

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:04 (nineteen years ago)

i think the adult angle is a dead end, tim. off the top of my head, both early to mid 60s rock n' roll and motown = fun, dancing. rock n' roll slowly morphs into rock, which is more self-conscious, serious (with 1,000 exceptions, but still). Disco still mostly = fun, dancing. Rock diehards can dismiss it as being shallow cuz they like "real" music. plus, 60s racial harmony fantasies died rather brutally once you get into the 70s (anti-busing violence, nixon's southern strategy, great society backlash, Carter-era economic malaise hurting white working class and causing anxiety and insecurity leading to convenient scapegoating >>>> see appeal of Reagan to former rock-solid democrats)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:09 (nineteen years ago)

So how do you explain the "'60s Motown = classic/Disco = sucks" perspective?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:15 (nineteen years ago)

"Tamla - The Sound of Young America"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:17 (nineteen years ago)

(That was their slogan.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:18 (nineteen years ago)

people hated disco because the rock djs told them to

― lf (lfam), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:20 (nineteen years ago)

not having been there, it seems like there might be a difference in the anti-disco backlash of the 1970s and the anti-disco fallout left over from punk. both in intensity, reasoning, and demographic.

― lf (lfam), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:22 (nineteen years ago)

also, the 1970s gave people plenty of reasons to hate machines

― lf (lfam), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:23 (nineteen years ago)

I think that a lot of it might just be the times associated with those musics, as mentioned above. Anyone who was old enough to 'experience' the adult culture of the 70s (at least most oldies I know) says that it was the worst decade a person could ever live through, except the 30s. Whereas these same people were sneaking out of their parents' houses at night in the 50s and 60s to go dancing, or at least listening to AM radio from far-away cities under the covers.

In other words, the Disco=Adult Fun vision might just be a product of these people growing up into a dangerous, fucked-up society.

PS-- the rockist criticisms of disco are shit.

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:26 (nineteen years ago)

oh, i thought i had addressed that in my own awkward way, guess not. how about this, in the 60s (at least until 67ish), pop music=ok (this includes rock AND roll and motown) in the 70s, rock fans decided pop wasn't ok because rock (w/o the roll) was real music and serious and art, so disco sux, plus an added enviro of racial tension w/o the pretense that we were all gonna try to get along (which you had for a short time in the 60s, at least in theory)made it seem ok to dis a black style of music in such a nakedly hostile way. Or maybe not.......

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:29 (nineteen years ago)

I was talking about a single perspective that could have occurred anytime from the '70s on - the feeling that '60s Motown was classic but disco sucked. I don't think a person thinking this way was justifying the '60s Motown music as being OK in its naivete because it was from a simpler time.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:34 (nineteen years ago)

'60s Motown music as being OK in its naivete

For some reason, I don't like the association here. Motown? Naive?

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:37 (nineteen years ago)

alternate universe thread #823583274687234

Rod Stewart's "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy?," The Stones' "Miss You" and "Emotional Rescue," The Kinks' "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" annd ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down"--have been retroactively dismissed as being sell-outs or trend-hoppers

since when was "do you think i'm sexy?" dismissed?? "emotional rescue"???

and "miss you" was one of the biggest disco-punk-revival club tracks of the last few years (in america anyway) so not sure where that comments coming from either.

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:41 (nineteen years ago)

not a simpler time, but maybe a more optimistic time. People had fonder feelings (and we are talking about boomers, aren't we?)towards that whole period because of political/social trends that seemed moving in a more progressive direction. The mid to late 70s default outlook was super-cynical, so you can dismiss the latest dance trend as mindless hedonism, not people coming together and digging the same tunes like when i was a teen (which was super rose-colored,no doubt, but there you go)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:43 (nineteen years ago)

x-post: exactly. also:

since when was "do you think i'm sexy?" dismissed??

Since Rod Stewart got sued for loads of money cuz he didn't write it. Also, jeez-- that song is really bad.

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:47 (nineteen years ago)

one of my problems with this thread is that when you say things like:

People had fonder feelings (and we are talking about boomers, aren't we?)towards that whole period because of political/social trends that seemed moving in a more progressive direction. The mid to late 70s default outlook was super-cynical

it seems so vague and hand-wavey. WHICH people? WHO are the "DEFAULT" people?

anyway tim ellison's first post and naus' first post are both on point and i don't have anything else to add except

Also, the darkies and fags were into it.
-- naus (adnaus2...), June 19th, 2006 7:58 PM. (Robert T)

this may or may not be true (and we could argue about it FOREVER) but i think it's important that it was at least a subtext of how some disco saw *itself*. see things like machine's "there but for the grace of god go i".

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:48 (nineteen years ago)

"don't like the association here. Motown? Naive?"

Rock and roll and soul in general as allegedly being naive pre-Enlightenment or whatever.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:51 (nineteen years ago)

"do you think i'm sexy" has been a pop radio mainstay for, like, 20 years now.

and i like jorge ben as much as the next guy but my grandma and i don't want to dance to "taj mahal" at weddings, we want to dance to rod stewart.

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:52 (nineteen years ago)

WHICH people? WHO

I did say I'm assuming we're talking about rock-loving boomers as he ones who dismissed disco. And how could a thread like this not inspire gross generalizing????

but i defer to those with all the scientifically precise data.

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:55 (nineteen years ago)

I think its really much simpler than all this stuff. Most disco was made for a club environment - longer tracks, mixed for club play etc. As such it didn't sound too hot on the radio, at least not for the casual listener who wasn't involved in the scene. The music industry was unused to dealing with 'club' music, as this was a relatively new phenomenon (as opposed to live bands performing in clubs, which obviously wasn't new). So they flooded the radio with disco records, because of disco's cultural success, based on club success. The disco records didn't work in that environment, and irritated a lot of people. Hence 'disco sucks'.

Sure there may have been underlying cultural issues which vented themselves through 'disco sucks' but most people don't care enough about music to make that much fuss. It was probably much more to do with them not liking the way it sounded (i.e. 'boring' to their ears due to lack of lyrical content and repetition - exactly the same reasons why electronic dance music doesn't get played on radio in the US today).

― Jacob (Jacob), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:56 (nineteen years ago)

Paris Hilton is covering "Do Ya think I'm Sexy" for her album!
x-post

― Marmot 4-Tay (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:59 (nineteen years ago)

As such it didn't sound too hot on the radio, at least not for the casual listener who wasn't involved in the scene

but how could that be? disco was HOT!

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:00 (nineteen years ago)

and what about stuff like "john i'm only dancing (1975)"

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:01 (nineteen years ago)

sorry, tim, in rereading your posts, i seem to be off on a not too interesting and well-worn side discussion. but are you saying that it was kids and teens who were the ones who decided disco sux, because it was too adult??

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:05 (nineteen years ago)

i think he's talking about the AMERICAN DREAM of perpetual adolescence

― lf (lfam), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:10 (nineteen years ago)

it is unfortunate that 'do ya think i'm sexy' has been a pop radio mainstay.

lf is right with the american dream remark.

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:18 (nineteen years ago)

but how could that be? disco was HOT!

But rock was COOL! And Marshall McLuhan said radio was a cool medium. Possibly.

― Jacob (Jacob), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:21 (nineteen years ago)

"are you saying that it was kids and teens who were the ones who decided disco sux, because it was too adult??"

Not just kids and teens. Older people too who could accept "She Loves You" and "Stop in the Name of Love" as fun music, but hated disco.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 06:39 (nineteen years ago)

Almost all of the rock bands trying disco songs I can think of are great. Especially KISS's "I was made for loving you." Not kidding.

― Period period period (Period period period), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 07:13 (nineteen years ago)

disco wouldn't have been a nationwide rage if it didn't sound good on the radio. did i miss something or does chic not sound amazing on FM radio?

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 07:45 (nineteen years ago)

Well shit, I LIKE disco but would still say that radio is a shitty medium to listen to it on. Did I miss something of does Chic not sound BETTER in a club?

Anyway surely what's interesting, historically, about disco as a phenomenon is that its popularity DIDN'T stem from radio, but from clubs and from clubs as portrayed in a movie.

And the Bee Gees song from said movie are noteworthy due to NOT being constructed or mixed in the same way as most club disco records.

Anyway, just a hypothesis. Think people often overstate the case wrt disco's subversiveness to middle americans.

― Jacob (Jacob), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:03 (nineteen years ago)

i agree. and i think this part is much more important than anything else

its popularity DIDN'T stem from radio, but from clubs and from clubs as portrayed in a movie

i disagree that disco sounded bad on the radio - it sounded great! still does! "club" disco / "pop" disco whatever ... everyone likes glossy production and catchy tunes, unless they're trying hard not to.

i DO agree with the dude who wrote "love saves the day", that the backlash came down mainly to lots of people feeling like they didn't want to be told to dress up / look nice / perm hair etc. the exclusionary / velvet-rope thing killed it.

in this sense disco's not particularly different from the rave boom and crash. we fall in love quick w/ subcultures but drop them as negative stereotypes start to accrue.

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

the thing about "adult fun" was that disco, for middle americans, was like "youthful fun" + "adult anxieties" (about looks, wealth, class, etc)

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 08:20 (nineteen years ago)

Much relevant discussion here:

origins of fear/hatred of disco

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 10:19 (nineteen years ago)

i'm surprised no one has yet brought up Disco Demolition Night as a straw man for violence towards blacks and gays, like in the 200 other threads we've had about this.

― jinx hijinks (sanskrit), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 11:44 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking as someone who was in his early teens at the time, and intensely into music to boot, I think this 'adult fun' angle doesn't add up. Disco was definitely popular among schoolkids (mostly girls). I don't at all recall it being thought of as adult music by my peers. And yet there was certainly a division between those who liked and those who disliked disco. At the age of 12 or 13, we didn't know about the gay tie-in, so it wasn't that. It was "girl's music" though, so there was something gender-related going on with it. And all that implies, of it not being "serious" music etc.

(As for the Motown = good, disco = bad, I don't think that applies either. The people who didn't like disco were not listening to Motown. They may not have actively disliked it, but they weren't listening to it, not the younger ones anyway. Music in the mid-seventies was much more in-the-moment, less looking back than it is now, you didn't really hear much from the sixties except the Beatles. Even then, Wings were probably better known than the Beatles.)

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:04 (nineteen years ago)

The people who didn't like disco were not listening to Motown. They may not have actively disliked it, but they weren't listening to it, not the younger ones anyway. Music in the mid-seventies was much more in-the-moment, less looking back than it is now, you didn't really hear much from the sixties except the Beatles

O RLLY? you were a remarkably observant, even clairvoyant child.

nostalgia -- esp for the 20s and 50s -- was pervasive throughout the 70s. Right around the time disco first emerged on the national scene (ca 1975) the Happy Days 50s throwback thing was raging full-on. Along with the futurism of Eurodisco there was always an elegant, decadent straing to disco that harked back to some vaguely defined golden era. And in stark contrast to "The Kids Are Allright" stance of rock, a lot of disco songs celebrated "adult pleasures" such as going to exclusive nightclubs, dressing UP in something other than jeans and halter-tops, surviving the storms of romantic relationships and star-crossed "One Night Love Affair(s)" (as opposed to fantasing about getting laid for the first time).

In other words, I think Tim was really onto something that happened in the 70s with his initial post and a lot of what follows is revisionist history and/or anachronistic (weaving our current cultual assumptions and obsessions into the fabric of the past.)

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

nostalgia -- esp for the 20s and 50s -- was pervasive throughout the 70s.

Well, I'm unpersuaded. Yes, there was nostalgia in the mid-seventies, but no more so - and perhaps less so - than at other times. What about all the nostalgia in sixties rock? All the music hall stuff from the Beatles and Kinks, all the wild west stuff from various American bands...

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

nostalgie is america's favorite collective emotion

― lf (lfam), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_tv/happydays_91.jpg

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.filmsite.org/posters/amerg.gif

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:54 (nineteen years ago)

No, 50s nostalgia in the 70s has not been replicated since. With American Graffiti, Happy Days and Grease, it was everywhere. It was baby boomers, the dominant generation, nostalgic for childhood. Sometimes I feel like I was raised in the 50s.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:54 (nineteen years ago)

Hmmm. Thinking about it maybe I do see something in the "disco is adult fun" line, with all the emphasis couture clothes and elite nightclubs. But I still don't see that as a primary reason for the disco hatred. I still see it as mostly a gender thing. The disco world and the world of dancing is a rather "feminine" world. And the type of masculinity it does cater to is a "peacock" showy, masculinity that sits much better with certain black and latin cultures rather than with the conventional, buttoned-down anglo-saxon masculinity.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:12 (nineteen years ago)

nostalgie is america's favorite collective emotion

mmm-hmmm.

"why can't people...be more like governments?"

― trees (treesessplode), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

hip-hop artists never intended for their music to appeal to said mainstream.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

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