It’s almost tragic that you have to prove this. Obviously disco hugely influenced the music of the 1980s in all sorts of ways. And as for the “soulless crap”, EVERY genre of music ever created gives rise to soulless crap.

That said, the sampling of disco by hip-hop artists (which as you note, was present at the creation, i.e., Sylvia Robinson’s wonderful brainchild “Rapper’s Delight”) is ironic, because if you ask just about any early hip-hop artist, whether it’s the guys in Run-DMC or Grandmaster Flash or Melle Mel, they will all tell you that early rappers hated disco and were reacting against it. (Punk was also, to a certain extent, a reaction against disco, which is why it is tres ironic that Blondie scored their biggest hit with a disco record.)

People loved to say that disco sucked, but I don’t think anyone with serious music talent ever really believed it.

I think you are way misunderstanding the NYC 70s music scene. I recommend for a better understanding of how the actual musicians weren’t, in fact, all hatefully opposed to each other, read this interesting story:

In late 1978, Debbie Harry suggested that Chic’s Nile Rodgers join her and Chris Stein at a hip hop event, which at the time was a communal space taken over by teenagers with boombox stereos playing various pieces of music that performers would break dance to. Rodgers experienced this event the first time himself at a high school in the Bronx. On September 20th-21st, 1979, Blondie and Chic were playing at concerts of The Clash in New York at The Palladium. When Chic started playing “Good Times”, rapper Fab Five Freddy and what were the members of the Sugarhill Gang jumped up on stage and started freestyling with the band. A few weeks later Rodgers was on the dance floor of New York club LaViticus and heard the DJ play a song which opened with Bernard Edwards’ bass line from Chic’s “Good Times”. Rodgers approached the DJ who said he was playing a record he had just bought that day in Harlem.

It’s not “ironic” that Blondie had a hit that was disco and another that borrowed from hip-hop. It’s evidence that actually, a lot of people working in different genres were supportive of each other. Do some small-minded people wall themselves away from each other hatefully? Sure. But they’re often not the ones who are doing the most interesting stuff.

And what I would say is that punk, at least from the perspective of musicians, was far more a reaction against overblown stadium rock. Thus the rejection of drum solos and extended blues jams in favor of short sweet songs that sound more like early 60s records or artistic genre-bending. Talking Heads and Blondie particularly had an ear for funk, disco, and hip-hop, and were dramatically influenced by it.

It’s not “ironic” that Blondie had a hit that was disco and another that borrowed from hip-hop. It’s evidence that actually, a lot of people working in different genres were supportive of each other. Do some small-minded people wall themselves away from each other hatefully? Sure. But they’re often not the ones who are doing the most interesting stuff.

Of course Chris Stein and Debbie Harry loved disco. That wasn’t the irony. The irony was that the punk movement that they arose out of very much marketed itself in opposition to disco, and for one of the bands that came out of the NYC scene to eventually chart one of the biggest hits of the disco era is a huge irony.

That’s my point. “Disco sucks” was nothing more than populist marketing. None of the talent actually did think that disco sucks.

(As for punk being a reaction against overblown stadium rock, it was a reaction against a lot of things. It was also a reaction against 1970’s pretentious prog-rock, probably much more than it was a reaction against stadium rock. The Ramones were about doing more with 3 chords and 3 minutes than King Crimson could do with an orchestra and 25 minutes.

But believe me, if you started a “disco sucks” chant at a punk show at CBGB in the late 1970’s, it would have carried on for quite awhile. It was definitely part of the marketing.)

Beyond just influence, Moroder and the Bee Gees were writing and producing hits for other people well into the 80s, including Blondie and Diana Ross.

A Chic song that shouldn’t be overlooked is “Why,” a Carly Simon song featured on the Chic-produced soundtrack for the 1982 film Soup For One. “Why” has a great 12” remix that features the singers from Chic on backing vocals:

“Why” video, single version
“Why” 12” remix

“I love a good dance ditty. God, I love disco. I see no problem admiring the Bee Gees and being in The Sex Pistols.” - Johnny Rotten. I don’t know if it’s apropos of anything, but I’ve always liked that quote.

What’s interesting to me about disco and its context within the grand tapestry of American pop music is not just its influence on the music that followed but also its impact on the music of the time. Despite the “disco sucks” chance, big-time rock bands like The Stones and The Who and The Kinks had contemporary tunes with disco-esque flourishes. A great number of classic R&B and soul singers cut singles with disco stylings, and while most sounded terribly uncomfortable, some like Joe Tex and Johnnie Taylor had the biggest hits of their respective careers. Hell, it even had an impact on country music. Your mainstream hit-makers like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton cut tunes for the flashing dance floor, which shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with either singer’s oeuvre, but there were a number of covers of disco hits. Most weren’t even blips on the country charts, but Billie Jo Spears’ cover of “I Will Survive” hit 21 in the States and 9 in Canada. Shoot, Olivia Newton-John was country’s very own disco diva.

On a more philosophical level, about the time disco ruled the dance floors, the whole “urban cowboy” thing two-stepped forth from Gilley’s and, interestingly enough (to me, anyways), a lot of “real country and western music” fans consider that era the beginning of Nashville’s descent into suck. Me, I love that shit.

Also, apropos of probably nothing, I’ve got three versions of the loathed Bee Gees’ second single “To Love Somebody”. James Carr’s version has him at his soul-searing best and comes off as a desperate heart begging for a chance, while Hank Williams Jr. sings like a man who knows that love is long gone. My buddies Slobberbone’s dark take sounds disturbingly like a guy singing to his desired one while hiding in the bushes outside her window. It was supposedly written for Otis Redding and it’s too bad he didn’t get a chance to cover it, ‘cause that would’ve been awesome. That’s a good song, now.

Just wanted to chime in as a musician in a crappy punk band- anyone who says disco sucks/classic blues butt rock of the 70’s rules! needs to take music appreciation courses.  Blues rock is eeeeeasy, disco, done right, is not.

Like I said, Dilan, I have no doubt that many of the punk fans were really stupid about it. I’ve had them denounce disco to me. I never said all punk fans were smart. In fact, like many musical movements, it’s surprising how stupid a lot of people are in it. I also know that the Ramones had songs about not liking disco and wanting punk rock, but I never took that as feeling like it was a deep message or anything.

I’m just generally skeptical of the backlash theory of art. Are there elements of reaction in a lot of musical trends? Sure, but the older I get, the more I see it’s muted compared to the borrowing and sharing that is going on between genres and musical generations. The end result of the punk/disco era was that the two musics ended up melding together, into post-punk on one hand and New Wave on the other. I would genuinely be surprised if that was possible if the smart crowd didn’t listen to disco for inspiration.

Excellent points, Matt. What’s interesting to me is that whenever I’ve clashed with people—-usually older and who had often unexamined reasons for participating in the disco backlash—-on this topic, one of the pieces of evidence they try to use for their position is that so many great rock artists were supposedly tainted by doing disco tunes. I say screw that. “Miss You” particularly is a fucking great song by the Stones. I have never put that song on at a party and not gotten a huge reaction to it. Without all the baggage of being angry at the Stones for “betraying” rock, we’re free to assess the music directly and it rules.

One of the nice things of this era is there’s a lot less pressure to pick a “team” and stick by it; there’s no reason not to have hip-hop next to disco next to rock next to country in your collection.

Butt rock: heh.

KC and the Sunshine Band were also fucken baddeasse, and many of their tunes have held up extremely well over the years. Although from what I understand, the lead singer dude (KC?) has turned out to be some kind of right-wing shittebagge or something.

Another unjust connotation people have with disco is Studio 54-style elitism: exclusivity, snobbery, celebrity-whoring, etc.

But it’s core message was the opposite. The great theme of disco is communal celebration as a way to say fuck-you to your troubles. It’s in “Good Times”, the other stone-cold Chic classic “Lost in Music”, and in “Last Night A DJ Save My Life”, “Celebration”, and so on.

How could someone say that the Rolling Stones ‘betrayed’ rock?  The Rolling Stones are one of the defining acts of rock.  It’s like saying that Annie Lennox betrayed New Wave.

Hell, I was therein the mid-‘70s; as someone I knew said then,“disco employed a lot of jazz musicians.”  The thing with disco, though, was that it was not music you could listen to for hours and hours.  If you weren’t dancing, it was meh.

That said:  “The Hustle” is perfect for driving at exactly 55 mph when cops are following you for ten minutes trying to smoke you for speeding.  Hah!

The thing with disco, though, was that it was not music you could listen to for hours and hours.  If you weren’t dancing, it was meh.

It’s not music you can sit down and listen to for hours but it’s great if you’re moving in general, not just dancing. I put on disco, or techno, or speed metal if I’m cleaning house or quilting (I wish I could at work) and leave the more lyrical stuff for when I can sit and really listen.

Any musical trend is connected to any other musical trend and can influence things in the future. It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the musical genre to say so.

And I’ll note that what disco was as a trend during its “reign” rather than what you want it to be was far from what you make it. At the time it was the center of a sexist white male culture based in meat market politics and a direct rejection of the emergence of exciting female and other exciting developments in rock music. It was the frat douche club dance music of its era and the fact that its followers were too coked out to notice the heavy gay influence on the genre has little to argue for how the trend was seen at the time by those who made it the flash-in-the-pan that it was.

That is not to take away from the handful of artists who were able to make the genre something more, nor those who subverted its culture from within and allowed it to be the gay icon and black history moment that it represents today.

But it does make you continue to look like an idiot when you ignore exactly what the “disco sucks” at the time of the rejection of disco meant versus what it may represent in hipster music circles today.

I really hated Disco at the time, but after many years of further reflection, and being married to someone who likes Disco, I’ve realized that I hated the scene much more than the music that I hated. Those Disco king wannabees were annoying on so many levels.

That said, one of my favorite songs is “I’ve got the Music in Me.” Not sure whether the Thelma Houston or Kiki Dee version is better.

Okay, that was really harsh, so sorry for that.

But it is still kind of galling to see a supposed music historian fail to recognize that the “Disco Sucks” revolution at the time was not some big sexist backlash, but rather a movement of essentially the hipsters of the era trying to strike a blow against the concept of the “corporate monoculture”. The idea that one musical genre was to dominate nearly every airwave, dance club, and major cultural artifact. Especially since a lot of disco’s bad rap comes from how that corporate monoculture made the genre so damn soulless at a time when the other genres were having some really interesting evolutions. The big evolutions of R&B, motown, and soul, the rise of girl-led rock bands, the movement of jazz into fusion that would lead to its creativity infusing and creating disciplines such as techno and hip-hop, the birth of techno, and the first experimentations with what computers could add to music, among others.

I don’t know if the hipsters of this era have turned “Disco Sucks” into a racist, sexist, homophobic rejection of the way disco has grown to become more of a gay icon today. Given your stance, that’s probably the case or at least was the case among the hipsters in Texas and I fully agree with rejecting that shit.

Similarly I also agree that no genre no matter how soulless is devoid of anything at least interesting culturally if nothing else (fuck, in another decade if its not the case already, I imagine that the absolutely soulless raping of motown that was boy bands will develop niche minority revival, be recognized for positive musical and/or cultural influences and will have minority productions of the genre hearalded as “not crap”).

And by modern standards, disco certainly isn’t devoid of anything positive, but was merely soulless and worthless by the standards of the huge evolutions every other genre was going through at the time.

But it is still kind of galling to see a supposed music historian fail to recognize that the “Disco Sucks” revolution at the time was not some big sexist backlash, but rather a movement of essentially the hipsters of the era trying to strike a blow against the concept of the “corporate monoculture”.

The most famous instance of Disco Sucks is the disco demolition night at a Chicago White Sox game, which led to a near riot. I can’t imagine that was carried out by the hipsters of the day. If it was partly a hipster movement, it also had a following among the conservative yahoos of the day.

In “What’s the Matter With Kansas” Thomas Frank remembers seeing “Russia Disco Iran suck” tagged on a water tower in a poor part of Kansas City.

The logic was flawless. As sucked disco, so sucked communism. So sucked Iran. Even more inspiring was the unspoken corollary: as rocked Van Halen, so rocked Ronald Reagan.

I don’t think there was such a thing as hipsters in the Disco era. It was rockers and punks that thought disco sucked so royally. There was a racist angle for a lot of them, many like me just hated the scene, and then to be fair, most of the music really did suck. We mostly just remember the bits that didn’t suck these days. Same is probably true of all music in all eras.

The Ramones were about doing more with 3 chords and 3 minutes than King Crimson could do with an orchestra and 25 minutes.

I have to take issue with that. The Ramones were about doing less, and asserting that less is better.  The problem with Progressive rock was that it was doing too much.  It was inaccessible, requiring too many musicians with too much skill and an audience with too much time and attention.  Punk is the people’s rock; anybody can play it and anybody can understand it.

I get that “doing more” can mean “doing something more interesting” but this isn’t a good context for it.

Butt rock: heh.

Death to all butt metal.

Somebody tell Utilitarienne that the new “quote” button, which not only adds blockquote tags but inserts the text you have selected into the blockquote tags, is as awesome as disco.

Thank you for writing about Disco and CHIC,
they were so great and influential.

I love all the tracks you mention, but one that is almost never
mentioned was a song written for french popstar Sheila.
The song was was called Spacer and it was a hit in 1979
Really quite different from most Disco tracks.

It was later redone by Swedish Disco
band Alcatraz and called “Crying at the discoteque”
and was a huge worldwide hit for them in 2001.

It is my alltime favourite song, I just can’t decide
which version is best.

No one really thinks that the Rolling Stones wrote “Miss You” because they were huge fans of disco rather than making a blatant attempt to cash in the latest craze in a ploy to regain relevance in the music market do they? These obvious attempts to pump up sales helped fuel the backlash for a lot of rock fans.

Excellent points, Matt. What’s interesting to me is that whenever I’ve clashed with people—-usually older and who had often unexamined reasons for participating in the disco backlash—-on this topic, one of the pieces of evidence they try to use for their position is that so many great rock artists were supposedly tainted by doing disco tunes. I say screw that. “Miss You” particularly is a fucking great song by the Stones.

I suspect part of the problem is that when the formula is so fucking obvious, people revolt.

You are right, “Miss You” is a good song. Hell, I can even muster up a defense of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, which at least works as lowbrow camp.

But what happened is that once disco hit, and especially after the Bee Gees (who started out as a folk-rock vocal group from Australia) crossed over and were making zillions of dollars doing disco records, it became the standard “move” for every artist to cross over and do a disco song, the same way every metal band in the 1980’s eventually recorded a power ballad. It wasn’t that the music was bad; it was that the marketing was cynical and people saw through it and it tinted their perceptions of the music.

the absolutely soulless raping of motown

Oh, awesome, a rape metaphor. Christ.

The thing with disco, though, was that it was not music you could listen to for hours and hours.  If you weren’t dancing, it was meh.

This, exactly, was my problem with a lot of disco, and it’s my problem with a lot of contemporary dance music (hello, techno!) as well. I want to hear something more than just a beat and somebody chanting “party, party, party” (which pretty much describes just about any record by KC and the Sunshine Band) or endlessly repeating samples (which describes way too much of what I hear whenever I go out to a dance party these days).

Stating this claim publicly, I’ve learned, especially if you note some of the racist and homophobic underpinnings the straight white male-dominated “disco sucks” movement, gets you a lot of angry pushback.

It gets pushback because a lot of people disliked disco for reasons that had nothing to do with racism or homophobia. I was around in the Seventies, and I remember defending Elton John and David Bowie to grade school classmates who ripped on them for being gay. I also loved a lot of the soul, R&B and funk from the early to middle part of the decade. And there were even some disco records I liked. But as a genre, I hated it, not least because of the way it eventually crowded nearly everything else off the radio. By the time “Saturday Night Fever” came out, pretty much all you heard on top 40 radio was Fleetwood Mac and disco. I finally gave up on my local AM top 40 station after hearing them play “Boogie Oogie Oogie” three times in one hour.

You are right, “Miss You” is a good song. Hell, I can even muster up a defense of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, which at least works as lowbrow camp.

Which Stewart stole in part from Brazilian Jorge Ben.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0_rQhtKGPA

Jesse Thorne did a pretty awesome interview with Nile Rodgers a little bit back where he talks about what an open scene it was and about being inspired to write “I’m Coming Out” for Diana Ross after seeing all the drag queens dressing as her.

The Ramones were about doing more with 3 chords and 3 minutes than King Crimson could do with an orchestra and 25 minutes.

Note: My favorite style of music is prog ca. 1970-1974: ELP, King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, a few Tull albums and all their clones.  Triumvirat anyone?

First off, it’s the pedant in me, but KC only used an orchestra once, for The Song of The Gulls from Islands which lasts…4 minutes.  They only had one side-long piece, they were always more in the 7-9 minute range.  Sounds more like ELP that you’re describing. 

Re: that punk was a reaction against prog.  What took them so fucking long? Seriously.  Those bands I loved were either in hibernation (ELP), had broken up (King Crimson) or had moved on/started to move on to shorter, more concise stuff (Gentle Giant, Genesis, Tull) by the time The Ramones recorded their first album (2/76) or more germane to the prog bands, punk started in England in 11/76.  It took Yes a few more years to change.  In other words, the punks were beating a dead horse, a musical style that had run its course years before; ELP and Yes were still very popular in the US well in to the late 70’s, but Genesis didn’t break wide until 1978 because of a Top 40 hit, Tull went back to their typical 4 minute songs and Gentle Giant died because they could never find anything more than a tiny cult audience. VDGG couldn’t even find a tiny cult audience.

Punk killed prog = a big fat lie. 

I had a large circle of friends at the time who were music nuts and while we loved prog, even WE were bored with it by 1978.  It was done, it was played out, we were DYING for something new, all the great 60’s bands were gone or waaaaaay tired.  I’ll never forget my friend Bill rushing in to a listening party with this 45 he was raving about: God Save The Queen.  We’d heard about it because we all devoured the British music papers (Melody Maker, NME, Sounds etc.).  He put it on and after it was over, someone said “That’s it? THAT’S the future of music?”.  We couldn’t believe it, it just sounded like badly produced stuff from the glam rock era to us. [Note: I think it’s one of the best records ever made]

Sure, but the older I get, the more I see it’s muted compared to the borrowing and sharing that is going on between genres and musical generations.

The problem with that Amanda is, to be blunt, you weren’t alive in the late 60’s/early 70’s.  By that I mean, you’re getting your views from your take on what you’ve read in history books, not experience.  To use prog as an example: it was a definite, explicit reaction against two trends: white boys playing the blues (see: the original Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After) and the whole hippie band thing exemplified by CSNY and the Dead and further east, The Band. 

Greg Lake in particular was scathing about the hippie bands habit of showing up for shows 2 hours late, totally wasted, taking 10 minutes to tune up and then playing with their back to the audience (a trend in 1969/1970).  Keith Emerson had a quote along the lines of “We’re English, we’re not old black sharecroppers from the South, it’s silly to pretend that you are”.

That kind of musical reaction against prevailing trends was common in those days, things changed so fast!  Bands were expected to put out 2 albums a year, 4 non-album singles, things changed quickly by necessity.  I mean, Elton John released 7 studios albums (plus a live album AND a movie soundtrack!) in a little over four years (Empty Sky > Goodbye Yellow Brick Road).  ELP put out five (including the live Pictures) in 3 years. etc. etc.  That’s unthinkable now, with bands taking years between albums.

If anyone has the chance, check out the documentary Message of Love, about the 1970 Isle of Wight festival.  It’s startling to see Jethro Tull and ELP, all theatrical and manic energy, compared to the boring old white blues bands and folkies who just stand there, half asleep.  In 1970, Tull and ELP *were* the future.

The problem with Progressive rock was that it was doing too much.  It was inaccessible, requiring too many musicians with too much skill and an audience with too much time and attention.  Punk is the people’s rock; anybody can play it and anybody can understand it.

Prog was inaccessible? By 1974, ELP were the 4th biggest concert draw in the US, after Zeppelin, the Stones and The Who.  Yes sold out hockey arenas well in to the late 70’s.  What I suspect you meant is “they weren’t immediate”, that is it took multiple plays to “get it” as opposed to God Save The Queen.  “Too much skill”? You can never have too much skill as a musician, EVER.  You can *overplay* sure, you can play inappropriately for a certain style, but Steve Howe and Keith Emerson were amazing in their primes, they could play classical, jazz, folk, honky-tonk, ragtime, avant-garde, tons of other styles, with the proper style and feeling.  Emerson, of course, was a pioneer in taking synthesizers out on the road and getting incredible sounds out of his Moog, at a time when everyone else could barely keep theirs in tune.

I read a great bit from the British journalist Chris Welsh, who was a big prog head.  He said that what turned a lot of people off to prog was the rhythm sections: the drummers refused to play 1 & 3 on the kick 2 & 4 on the snare (more like 7/8 alternating with 5/4) and Chris Squire would have laughed at you if you said “Hey, why not play a steady pulse of 8th notes”.  It was explicitly anti-dancing, it was head music meant for listening on headphones. 

Plus, all my favorites had a thorough grounding in British pop songwriting, to a man they had played in previous bands that were either pop bands or they’d played Day Tripper 3 times a night for drunk US soldiers on the club circuit in Germany.  They were fantastic songwriters, especially Genesis and Ian Anderson of Tull.

As for the audience, guilty as charged.  My first mindblower was Cream’s Crossroads, 80 zillion notes in 4 minutes, powerful, intense.  I *loved* all 17 minutes of In-A-Gadda-Vida (yes, even the drum solo); my first concert was Iron Butterfly in Honolulu in 1969 (too bad it wasn’t the classic lineup).  While my sisters were listening to CSNY and James Taylor, I was listening to Jimi’s 1983…. and Third Stone From The Sun.  etc. etc.  I simply never saw the point of playing Sex Pistols records over and over and over, I got it by the 3rd time.  There was no *mystery* or *surprise* to be had.

I was around in the Seventies, and I remember defending Elton John and David Bowie to grade school classmates who ripped on them for being gay.

Yep, and to think, with Bowie, it was 98% made up BS, largely attributed to his quote in 1972 about being bisexual. 

I also loved a lot of the soul, R&B and funk from the early to middle part of the decade.

Hell yeah! The Philly sound was incredible! Those complex rhythm tracks, the lush orchestrations, the killer players, the great singers.  I also loved Norman Whitfield’s stuff for Motown.

And there were even some disco records I liked.

I still think Stayin’ Alive is one of the greatest records ever made, and I love all the classic hits, even the cheese like The Village People. 

[snip] it eventually crowded nearly everything else off the radio. By the time “Saturday Night Fever” came out, pretty much all you heard on top 40 radio was Fleetwood Mac and disco.

and The Eagles.  *shudder*

I finally gave up on my local AM top 40 station after hearing them play “Boogie Oogie Oogie” three times in one hour.

Hey Obama, we’ve got your torture device for Gitmo right here!

It wasn’t that the music was bad; it was that the marketing was cynical and people saw through it and it tinted their perceptions of the music.

This.

it became the standard “move” for every artist to cross over and do a disco song, the same way every metal band in the 1980’s eventually recorded a power ballad. It wasn’t that the music was bad; it was that the marketing was cynical and people saw through it and it tinted their perceptions of the music.

Oh please: that’s been a part of the music scene since people started making money off music, roughly about the time money was invented. Some musicians and bands are groundbreaking: the vast majority, including those who are very popular, are always playing follow the leader, and most will try doing at least something that reflects what’s currently popular, if it’s not the style they use on their own regularly.

I got into the punk/new wave stuff in 1979, when I was a senior in high school and first heard Graham Parker’s “Protection”.  I felt like everything I listened to up till that point in my life was total shit.  Sure, it was an immature overreaction that could easily go in a nasty direction, but since mostly I was tossing out Eagles and Billy Joel records you can see the appeal. 

I can’t really speak to what punk was rebelling against in 76, but I was music director of a college radio station in 1980/1 and the enemy then was clear: classic hits radio that was preventing great music from getting a hearing and the closed minded audience it appealed to.  It was so frustrating to turn on the radio and only hear the most overplayed music by the Stones et al when there was so much fresh music just sitting there.  Not only the obvious ones (Elvis C, Graham, Patti Smith, the Clash, etc), but you could even go down the food chain to someone like Wreckless Eric or the Specials or English Beat.  It was all so great and it never saw the light of day, while Stairway to Heaven was still in heavy rotation.

Even at the time I never minded people who genuinely loved the Stones and played all their records and knew all the songs on Exile on Main St.  But I had nothing but contempt for my fellow students who only wanted to listen to Hot Rocks and refused to listen to Imperial Bedroom or Sandinista.

Punk was reacting negatively to everything mainstream.  Disco was mainstream.  There was a punk movement outside of NYC in the 1970s.

Punk killed prog = a big fat lie.

I never said punk killed progressive (in fact, I disagree with you in the other direction, as progressive rock (in the form of Asia, Genesis, etc.) survived well into the 1980’s—it was more pop oriented, but Genesis was still doing stuff like “Domino” and “Second Home by the Sea”). I said that punk was in part a REACTION to progressive rock, in the form of “we don’t need all that instrumentation and classical influences and long-ass songs, we have everything we need with 3 chords and the truth”.

That kind of musical reaction against prevailing trends was common in those days, things changed so fast!  Bands were expected to put out 2 albums a year, 4 non-album singles, things changed quickly by necessity.

This is a profound point that isn’t made often enough. The evolution of pop music has slowed considerably for exactly this reason—artists both make most of their money from touring and playing their hits over and over again, and record companies don’t have the contractual muscle to force artists to continue writing and recording new music.

Prog was inaccessible? By 1974, ELP were the 4th biggest concert draw in the US, after Zeppelin, the Stones and The Who.  Yes sold out hockey arenas well in to the late 70’s.  What I suspect you meant is “they weren’t immediate”, that is it took multiple plays to “get it” as opposed to God Save The Queen.  “Too much skill”? You can never have too much skill as a musician, EVER.  You can *overplay* sure, you can play inappropriately for a certain style, but Steve Howe and Keith Emerson were amazing in their primes, they could play classical, jazz, folk, honky-tonk, ragtime, avant-garde, tons of other styles, with the proper style and feeling.  Emerson, of course, was a pioneer in taking synthesizers out on the road and getting incredible sounds out of his Moog, at a time when everyone else could barely keep theirs in tune.

I also agree with this. Progressive rock included PLENTY of what we would call accessible pop music. Even ELP had that section of Karn Evil No. 9 and Lucky Man, which were totally radio-friendly. And Genesis, of course, eventually developed a formula that fused progressive rock and pop music, which made Phil Collins one of the most successful musicians of the 1980’s.

I DO think that some of the excesses of progressive rock were begging for a backlash—I don’t have any particular reason to listen to “Supper’s Ready” again in my life.

Oh please: that’s been a part of the music scene since people started making money off music, roughly about the time money was invented. Some musicians and bands are groundbreaking: the vast majority, including those who are very popular, are always playing follow the leader, and most will try doing at least something that reflects what’s currently popular, if it’s not the style they use on their own regularly.

I agree with this too. It’s just when the 40th artist records their “disco” record, it’s unavoidable that some music fans are not going to judge it fairly. That was the point I was making about the “Some Girls” era Rolling Stones.

Remember, a lot of music is symbolism. People listen not only because things sound good but to be a member of a certain tribe. And people are self-congratulatory about their critical skills. All those crossover disco records carried a certain symbolism that alienated some fans.

Hey Henry Holland, I seem to recall you writing compellingly about prog rock in some other forum when I had made an offhand derogatory comment. I had gone through a phase where I liked it but then kind of unthinkingly bought into the punk critique and was influenced by one of my favorite punk rock songs (at the time) by the Gizmos. I used to really like prog rock, especially Yes and ELP, but that song caused me to start paying more attention to the lyrics, and they are often silly. Anyway, you write well about it. Thanks.

A couple random notes. I never knew Tull was considered progressive. They were my first concert in 1972. And my recollection of “Miss You” was that Jagger liked Disco, or at least going to Discos. And punk was a reaction to a lot of overblown tripe, but any list is incomplete without prominently featuring “Free Bird.”

I never said punk killed progressive

Sorry, I didn’t make it clear that I was editorializing there, I wasn’t responding to your excellent point.

I DO think that some of the excesses of progressive rock were begging for a backlash—I don’t have any particular reason to listen to “Supper’s Ready” again in my life.

Hahahaha.  Yeah, double albums with four songs largely based on a footnote in the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda might be a bit much.  I love Tales, I just wish it was recorded better, it doesn’t have the great production that Fragile and especially Close to the Edge did. 

I read an interview with Chris Squire once and he scoffed that punk killed off prog.  He was emphatic: it was the Mahavishnu Orchestra.  He said that Yes went nuts for the MO (as did a lot of others) and they started to get in to a “anything you can play, I can play faster and in a weirder time signature than you” mindset, that they got away from strong songwriting.  He cited Sound Chaser as the example.  ELP were another group that got bit hard by the MO bug; the tempos for the songs towards the end of the Brain Salad Surgery tour are too fast for the music to breath.  It’s impressive, but playing fast isn’t why I revere ELP from 1970-74. 

I used to really like prog rock, especially Yes and ELP, but that song caused me to start paying more attention to the lyrics, and they are often silly.

Ah, Jon Anderson’s lyrics.  They’re actually good on The Yes Album and Fragile; they’re hard to unpack, but they address things like the destruction of the environment.  He lost me after Relayer though.  ELP, well, the lyrics were never a priority, Lake claims Emerson never cared what he sang about but they’re OK lyrics, especially after Lake brought in Peter Sinfield.  The words to Karn Evil 9 and Pirates are fantastic. 

Another example is Tull’s A Passion Play.  It’s been heavily criticized since it was released for the alleged obscurity of the lyrics, what’s the meaning of ‘em? It’s right there in the first verse!

Do you still see me?
Even here?
The silver cord lies on the ground
And so I’m dead
The young man said
Over the hills, not a wish away

A young man dies and journey’s through heaven and hell. It’s right there, it’s not obscure or difficult but dumbass reviewers acted like it was as difficult to grasp as Finnegan’s Wake. 

Peter Gabriel/Tony Banks lyrics for Genesis, Ian Anderson and especially Peter Hammill’s lyrics for VDGG are top notch.  I’m a huge fan of good lyricists, it’s why I love the first three Elvis Costello albums so much or put up with Dylan’s caterwauling voice and horrible harmonica playing. 

I never knew Tull was considered progressive.

They get lumped in but it’s really only three albums: Aqualung (mainly because it’s a concept album) and especially Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play.  The rest isn’t really prog in any meaningful way. 

Anyway, you write well about it. Thanks.

Thanks back atcha.  I simply don’t get the hostility that the classic prog bands generate, though King Crimson gets a bit of a pass because of their heavier things like Schizoid Man and the song Red.  I mean, even a genre that’s totally risible like hair metal gets a pass because it’s treated ironically: “Hahahaha, Winger and Warrant are so bad they’re almost good!”. 

I mean, what is the obsession prog haters have with Rick Wakeman’s fucking sparkly cape?  People go nuts about glam and write thesis’ about it,  but Wakeman’s cape is beyond the pale?  Fine, people don’t like the music or they think that anything longer than 3 minutes and containing more than 4 chords isn’t rock music but it goes beyond that.  In it’s prime, it was a genre that mixed different styles of music, went beyond boring old verse verse chorus bridge verse chorus songwriting, had great stage performers (Anderson, Emerson and Gabriel especially), made innovations in how concerts were staged, took album cover art and things like tour programs seriously and they did it all with a wicked sense of British humor amidst all the seriousness.

The problem with that Amanda is, to be blunt, you weren’t alive in the late 60’s/early 70’s.  By that I mean, you’re getting your views from your take on what you’ve read in history books, not experience.  To use prog as an example: it was a definite, explicit reaction against two trends: white boys playing the blues (see: the original Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After) and the whole hippie band thing exemplified by CSNY and the Dead and further east, The Band.

THIS.  Amanda’s take smacks of revisionism and retroactively applied political correctness.  At the time, fucking disco was inescapable, with its boring repetitiveness and banal lyrics, and merely escaping it was a goal in itself.  It was the elevator music from Hell.

Maybe in the 21st Century it’s fun to cherry-pick the good stuff and think “Geeeee whillikers, this stuff is great!  They should play this more often!!!1!”  In, say, 1976 you simply couldn’t get away from that shite.

My crowd were both rockers and prog enthusiasts, FWIW.  We liked putting on “Relayer: Mountains of Delirium” at ear-damaging levels.  ELP and Yes were the favored bands.

And Henry Holland@38:  YES, the truth about Dylan’s abysmal harmonic playing can never be pointed out often enough.  That guy stinks on the harp.

A great number of classic R&B and soul singers cut singles with disco stylings.