Through the lens of time, the anti-disco backlash looks a little ugly. What was disco, really? It started as an underground dance movement propelled by blacks, gays, and Puerto Ricans. It was a liberating and hedonistic music of the oppressed, and people from those groups gathered and mixed in the early downtown clubs.
Yes, it eventually was hijacked by the bridge and tunnel crowd and became uncomfortably linked to ugly clothes and terribly hairstyles. But disco invented the club scene. Disco invented the modern the DJ. And disco music wasn't inherently worse than Jethro Tull, Peter Frampton, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were all taken very seriously.
I'll say it: "Last Dance" is a much better song than "Stairway to Heaven." And disco stayed dimly alive -- enough to bubble back up with this summer's disco volcano.
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GUESTS:
- Jamie Kastner - Director, Writer, and Producer of “The Secret Disco Revolution”
- Barry Walters - Contributor to Rolling Stone, eMusic, and Rhapsody
- Eric Danton - Contributor to Rolling Stone, Salon, and The Wall Street Journal
