MovieChat Forums > Saturday Night Fever (1977) Discussion > DISCO SUCKS

DISCO SUCKS

posted 8 years ago by bassgoilius
15 replies | jump to latest

So I watched the portion of Behind the Music that was included as a special on the DVD. It stated that before the movie came out disco was very underground: "It was black. It was gay". It says that this movie bought it to light. Then it says that in 1979 people turned against it and there was a scene of a large crowd burning (what I assume were) disco records.

So I was wondering what made its popularity disappear so quickly. And the crowd burning the records looked to be predominantly white. So I was also wondering did disco fall out of favor with everyone or just certain people--like was it still big with black people and gay people?

And in case anyone is wondering, no I don't really think disco sucks.

[–] jackphillips-27678 8 years ago

No Disco does not suck.

Interesting post. I am old enough to remember the backlash and its origins so hopefully I can shed some light for you about the mood of the time. First off although I was around ten at the time Saturday Night Fever was out in the streets, I had two older sister who were teenagers at the time so I was in and around all the records and boyfriends ext. What happened is disco was in around 1974-75 an underground movement that produced some fantastic records. For instance KC and the Sunshine band's "That's The Way I like It" was just one example of something so hot sounding that if you cranked that up today it still sounds fantastic. Keep in mind by time I was a teenager in the 1980s I was into hard rock and heavy metal. I am not somebody who didn't have a keen interest in rock music. And I lived through an era that was particularly harsh to the 70's Disco music. But I was never one to buy into the backlash too much because I knew there was some great disco records. By the time Saturday Night Fever came out the film and the soundtrack (both are great btw) became such huge influences that disco went mainstream in a way that it hadn't before. I remember by 1976 you had novelty records like "Disco Duck" but to the rock crowd nobody really paid too much attention to it- they just dismissed it as radio garbage. Pop music. By 1978... post Saturday Night Fever... disco was everywhere and was threatening to marginalize rock and rock culture.

Yes there was racial and sexual orientation undertones to it all. After all disco was rooted in black R&B and funk, and dance music in general never died even after the disco sucks backlash. Basically it just suffered from overexposure. It played itself out. Pop Culture in those days changed quickly, but if you think about it, pop culture really hasn't changed much at all. I give you an example- in 1989 Motley Crue was selling out arenas. By 1991 bands like Nirvana and alternative music was in favor, marginalizing the hair metal bands of thr late 1980s. By 1992 Motley Crie might as well have been the Bee Gees they were so out of favor with the same kids who were going to their concerts just a couple of years before.

What I love about the legacy of Saturday Night Fever is how it changed pop culture in such a short amount of time. In the early part of 1978 that movie and its soundtrack was huge. It was hot. It was happening. By the end of 1979 the film and its music and disco in general was getting hammered by the very same pop culture that made it hot in the first place.

A new decade (1980s) was just around the corner and the youth wanted something new. Disco had become a fad that they associated with the past. New sounds and new attitudes emerged in the wake of disco's backlash. But I have always wondered- if Saturday Night Fever had not existed, would disco had survived into the 1980s? Probably not but its downfall would certainly not have been so spectacular.

[–] OnlyRocknRoll 8 years ago

I'm also old enough to remember when Beatles' records were burned because some people in the USA objected to a comment made by Lennon. I did not care for The Beatles when they premiered on Ed Sullivan, and still don't. That was my older siblings time.

Disco was my teens and young 20's and I LOVED IT! I loved clubbing and dancing in Vegas, L.A., and Palm Springs. Disco was about FUN not about listening to whiny, groany, political diatribes, or to 20 min. drum solos, or someone playing while on LSD, or any other 'agenda'.

When the BeeGees were playing 'serious music' they did not sell. When they went Disco they made megabucks. Why? Because they realized that by 1976-77 a lot of younger kids, like me, saw college students shot down on the Kent State campus. We wanted to live and to have FUN.

I'm too young to have been a hippie, and too old for all the later 'generational designation names'. Take Techno and stick it where the sun does not shine. I think that a musical generation is far shorter than a biological one.

1985 was about when I began losing touch with what was supposed to be 'contemporary' music. I did not enjoy New Wave, Grunge, Rap, or Whatever Else that has come down the pike since that time including by all of those ugly girls that screamed the same and looked and dressed the SAME and did their hair THE SAME. Here's a tip for them: Yodeling and screaming is NOT singing.

_______________________________________
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED??!!

Maximus Decimus Meridius

[–] baran_erik 8 years ago

Yes, disco sucks. I was the age Tony was supposed to be when the movie came out. Had it not been for Welcome Back Kotter and the BeeGees it most likely wouldn't have been the hit it was. And that's a very large part of the backlash. That falsetto was just soooo......bad and John Travolta was a chick thing, guys weren't all that into going to his movies. Disco wasn't Rock 'n' Roll, what we were raised on, and we didn't like it.

The disco culture was just so repulsive, too. The scene where Tony is getting ready to go out is a perfect example of the narcissistic element drawn to the disco. The freaks, and the wannabes who emulated them, that populated the Studio 54 scene were a joke. Everything about it was just so lame. Why do you think it was here and gone so fast?

I didn't see SNF until just a few years ago, the trailers from back then were bad enough, but this is a really, really bad movie.

Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

[–] frankwilkeson 8 years ago

AC/DC's "Back In Black" album gave disco the coup de gras and reinvigorated the hard rock/heavy metal scene, It pushed dance club music back into the shadows from whence it came.

[–] westmore-55603 8 years ago

Back in the days Disco was the thing Boggie Down Baby
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[–] ChrisCuda 8 years ago

Well, I'm white and not gay....but I was in Jr High in 1979 and can attest that the disco sucks movement was a real thing. For whatever reason, disco's success did have a huge backlash. It was NOT cool...you could have been beaten up for liking The Bee Gee's or The Village People at my school. We were into The Cars, Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, PinkFloyd, Van Halen and AC/DC. Not one disco record got played at our school dances.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] renatom1 8 years ago

The problem with disco was the goofy culture that came with it: the clothes, the shoes, the hair, the dance moves, sex, drugs and the whole exclusive attitude some places like Studio 54 had towards people who didn't cut it. Had those things not been a part of it, disco might have lasted well into the 80s.

Nevertheless, disco never really died. It just evolved into what we would later call dance music, club music, house music, dubstep, etc.

[–] BFPierce 8 years ago

What the hell is wrong with the dance moves? That's dancing. Nobody knows how to dance anymore.

[–] mariocantone-32586 7 years ago

Fame is not a disco song

[–] 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Shiddy 8 years ago

Disco turned into HipHop

[–] ericn2274 7 years ago

Pop replaced Disco. Rap replaced Hip-Hop.

[–] franzkabuki 8 years ago

There's some good sh-t in practically any genre... and I actually do get the appeal of The Bee Gees (even if, for instance, the lyrics for Staying Alive are wildly ludicrous - some sh-t somehow "uses his walk"? Someone is trying to figure out the effect New York Times has on "man" (whether the male sex is meant or the mankind in general, is left unclear)? And there is some further confusion about the family relations concerning the mothers and brothers, except that everyone is "staying alive"... yet it is never explained 'how' they're staying alive and why does it take such an effort or indeed why is it even worth mentioning). BUT. Yes, by and large, disco music is not exactly amongst the more interesting or worthwhile things man has invented.

"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

[–] Negasonic_WoodChipper_Warhead 7 years ago

This movie is not mainly about disco, it's just a setting for the characters.

Disco was fun, people were dancing and having fun, the 70's was probably more fun for most people because of it. You didn't have to like disco to go to a disco to be social and interact with people, but disco made that widely popular. Some of you reading this now probably owe your very existence to disco.

A lot of hate came from people who preferred rock, they were scared rock would vanish and be replaced by disco. But they didn't realize it would wear itself out on its own, just like rock has today. There are no real rock songs tearing up the charts now.

I just want you to know, my safe word is "pineapple". 🍍