From strictly a music perspective, disco especially came to be disliked by some people in America because it was thought to lack soul that other genres provided. Disco came to have one beat repeated over and over without as much of an emphasis on lyrics that rock, soul, and easy listening music had.

Dave Hoekstra, in Disco Demolition: The Night Disco Died states that Disco Demolition was “about class structure and music,” and further describes that “At one time, disco was full of adventure and risk…Disco’s roots are full of integrity, ranging from the breathy raps of Isaac Hayes to the lean uptempo arrangements of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff…But by 1979, much of disco was defined by excess” (Hoekstra 21). Interestingly enough, in the book Faking It, authors Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor explain that “even American disco aficionados looked down on Eurodisco as being the most plastic version of the sound” (256). Peter Shapiro also describes this sentiment in his book Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco, where he compares the state of popular music in the United States compared to the United Kingdom: “In Britain it’s always that no one in America is buying the music, it’s always a matter of commerce; whereas in the United States it’s a matter of declining morals and the erosion of the character of its young people” (288).

Undoubtedly, American music did and still in many ways holds the content of music to a high and delicate standard; it’s amusing to think that even American disco fans looked down upon European disco as having too basic of a sound. However, despite the criticism that disco was too superficial and “the same,” other critics note that the disco genre had “deliberately avoided the aesthetics of authenticity,” especially because disco clubs were not concerned with the identity of the performer or reality, but instead desired “a world of glitter and celebration, ecstasy and escape.”[1]

Even though disco “died” in 1979, it might be more fitting to say that the genre merely reinvented itself and affected many forms. While it’s true that rock music did rise in popularity a bit, as this project’s Billboard Top 100 Line Graph shows, there are also many genres that disco came to be a part of. For example, disco music in Chicago went back underground and re-emerged as House music, a genre that still gains increasing popularity today. Disco beats also remained as the backdrop for pop songs, featured in the Music Visualizations page of this project. Artists like Michael Jackson not only re-invented the roots of disco, but defined and dominated the pop genre.

Perhaps the greatest loss from disco culture was the dancing scene itself. However, this element of disco seems to have been lost long before Disco Demolition, as Richard Powers elaborates in the history of dance included in the discussion of Saturday Night Fever. While club culture still maintains the “beat” and DJ emphasis that disco began, partner dancing seems to have gone by the wayside. However, disco music still represents, in many ways, a “guilty pleasure” of dance music that provides a little escape from the plainness of everyday life. While the fad-elements of disco will continue to be mocked in contemporary culture, modern music itself would not exist in the same way it does without the rise and abrupt fall of disco.

And for that, maybe American culture owes disco a lot.

 

 

 

[1] Barker, Hugh, and Yuval Taylor. Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music. 1st ed., W.W. Norton, 2007. 236.