The Disco Appreciation Thread!!!

I have little liking for the genre, if anything at all.

I like first Bee Gees album (the international one) not so much their disco-albums.

This thread needs some Runddans: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gHE1NCx36ew
Best thing Todd Rundgren has done in years.

Peter wrote: Logan wrote: ^^ Keishiro, so many people here focus on KC (King Crimson) that they forget about KC and the Sunshine Band. I sympathise with that elderly comment, but I like to think, even if I don't really, that age is just a state of mind to complement a saggy behind. ;) Certainly the older I get, the more nostalgic I feel. Peter, while outside of my usual musical purview, I enjoyed Tinseltown in the Rain, and it definitely has a disco groove. I like lots of funky music, by the way, and I'd say pretty much anything counts that has some discoesque relation. Herbie Hancock is one of my favourite artists, though particularly for his earlier Mwandishi trilogy, not that I'd count that as disco (Mwandishi, Crossings and Sextant), but he was solid up to and including 1975. His Death Wish OST is something of an underrated (as in not many ratings) gem in PA per my tastes. I am very gratified that you took the time to listen, Logan. I first heard that track on late night FM back in 84, and it hooked me immediately (love the bass, impassioned vocals, the strings, and immaculate production & arrangement), so I bought their first, A Walk Across the Rooftops, most of which is more subdued than that track. The title track is quite progressive. When I read about the Blue Nile, I see they were highly regarded. Great singer Annie Lennox (a lot of her Diva album is good for dancing - Precious, Little Bird) did a lovely, stirring cover of their Downton Lights (from their second album, Hats) on her fine cover album Medusa, and it's as good as the already powerful original. I recommend both (not so much as disco flavoured, just as great, moving music). Thanks also for the feedback on Herbie Hancock-- his funk stuff (Thrust, Headhunters, Manchild, Secrets, the one funk side on the double VSOP Live) led me to backtrack into his earlier work, and more straight jazz in general. I will check out the Deathwish album. I did not know it. Thanks! Good thread that I originally came to be flippant about, BTW--the title worked! And I AM listening to all that is posted here. None of if "sucks."

It's a very good song, thanks, and I like Annie Lennox a lot (side note and really off-topic, but I love the Diva soundtrack by Valdimir Cosma and that Diva album was mentioned that to me recently at the forum -- nothing to do with the Diva album you're talking about, ahem.... I digress).

I love Hancock's Thrust, and Manchild and Headhunters are very good too. I only really got into Hancock when he was being proposed for the site. A similar thing happened to me with Miles Davis. Although I've long liked jazz, especially John Coltrane, Hancock and Davis opened aural doors for me that had a profound effect on my listening. I started with the "Fusion" albums, then went back and got into the the earlier jazz. Then it was Sun-Ra, Charles Mingus, and all sort of good for my ears stuff. Getting into Canterbury Scene music also got me into listening to jazz more. I love how one musical discovery leads to more musical discoveries, and the "ears" adjust as neural pathways are developed, and one becomes attuned to new-to-you styles, or styles that once lacked appeal. Music is a wonderful journey, and I never know where it is going to take me. But I digress... again.

I will look for Medusa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Ea5a19jTc

While disco was the crippled idiot b*****d son of Killer Funk (listen to Chic that managed both on the same album without any trouble), and the fact that I hated it back then, I can say in retrospect that I appreciate it better nowadays, especially in the light of the dance music that came afterwards....
While I really dislike some of those Moroder disco veins (Donna's I Feel Love), I do appreciate some of those European fun synth disco tracks (for ex: the late 70's French JM Jarre's cover of Popcorn was fantastic, born on the wings of  Oxygene IV), but it was mostly because it was fun, a bit like Devo or B-52 were fun a couple of years later.

Indeed, I hated the 80's funk (Grandmaster Flash and Chaka Kahn were survivors of the 70's, but they did worse than Genesis and Yes in turning away from their 70's aesthetics), house/techno, "dance", and whatever BS mass dance movements coming from South Korea (I just hope North K invades them if only to kill that nonsense)

BTW, I never thought of APP's I Robot as anywhere close to disco.

Russian disco please

If you're going for traditional 70s disco, how can you not just love the heck outa this one?

Even the punk scene got in on the action!

Peter wrote: Sean Trane wrote: BTW, I never thought of APP's I Robot as anywhere close to disco. I agree that the title cut is not disco, but I think there's no denying that this single is:I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You

Sounds a bit more like it, but even then, I never heard it in disco. Mostly probably, because the message and title didn't suit the nightclub athmosphere

I mean, it's definitely funky (excellent bass line), but it's anything but binary in terms of drumming

siLLy puPPy wrote: If you're going for traditional 70s disco, how can you not just love the heck outa this one?

This is really disco: the binary beat stuff that even the lousiest white dude could dance to.

I mean we also heard that kind of stuff (below) in discotheques, but it's not like it was actually disco either
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyIZ3pYKOQM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Z-DQGqM90

I mean, just the song titles are right on the disco marketting science





Edited by Sean Trane - January 06 2018 at 09:08