Disco is the most misunderstood popular music genre of my lifetime. It began as a largely underground movement in NYC dance clubs catering to mostly Black and Hispanic, mostly gay, youth looking for a sense of community and a killer beat to which they could dance all night.
It spent its early days in the wake of Stonewall fermenting a scene at now-revered venues like David Mancuso’s Loft and Nicky Siano’s Gallery.
Then, sometime in the middle of the 1970s, it exploded onto mainstream, white, straight USA and enjoyed a period of monster success. The oversaturation and radio dominance spurred an intense backlash so that by the end of the decade, the word “disco” was more apt to provoke fist fights than electric slides.
Some rockers could handle disco – others, not so much
One of the reasons that so many suburbanites came to revile the form was that it seemed to be infecting many of their favorite rockers. (The other reason, at least based on my memory, is that it was associated too much with gay culture.) Labels pressured their rock & roll acts to catch up with the times and record a smash disco song or two. The results were … to put it nicely … mixed.
Chasing trends is not a new phenomenon. Nor is it always a bad idea.
It’s just usually a bad idea.
Back when rock & roll was the NKOTB, legendary song and dance man Fred Astaire premiered a song in the movie Silk Stockings (1957). Cole Porter, maybe the greatest American popular song composer of the day wrote it especially for Astaire. It was called “The Ritz Roll and Rock.” The song was half-parody and half-“let’s cash in on this new fad.” And it was all bad.
Fred Astaire probably should never have flirted with rock & roll. Bobby Darin, on the other hand, slid effortlessly between big band and rock numbers. Thus it is with rockers some 20 years later trying their luck with disco. Some did it rather well. Others … well, we can sure applaud the effort.
Here are five cool disco-flavored songs by rock and roll artists, counterpointed by five cringeworthy stabs at the same crossover.
COOL – “Miss You” The Rolling Stones (1978)
The Stones were struggling with their footing in the changing musical landscape of the late ‘70s. Black and Blue’s “Hot Stuff” (1976) was a hesitant first step into the disco arena. “Miss You,” two years later, was much better. There are those who label its album, Some Girls, a disco album. It doesn’t seem that way to me. But the lead single certainly had one foot in the Paradise Garage.
The funny thing, in hindsight, is that though older Stones fans may have turned their backs, most of us loved “Miss You.” It was like a Trojan Horse from the clubs into teenage rock fans' ears. You know – if the Trojan Horse were plexiglass and the Trojans could see all those Greeks inside but just shrugged and said: “cool horse – let’s bring it into the city.”
Sorry for the strained metaphor. Point is – it was disco, we all knew it was disco, but we refused to really acknowledge the fact because we liked the song.
CRINGE – “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” Rod Stewart (1978)
Foreshadowing alert. Later in this very same article I will be saying that a particular song is actually a good song, but maybe not a good (name of artist) song. But with this, it’s both a terrible song and an absolutely wretched Rod Stewart song.
It’s not bad enough that he ripped off the synth line from Bobby Womack, or that the chorus is just a major ick. All these years later, I get equally incensed over the spelling of “Da.” As if the “Ya” wasn’t enough. Da!
Of course, it was number 1 for a month.
COOL – “Call Me” Blondie (1980)
It wasn’t as if Blondie was immune to disco before 1980. Out of all the NYC punkish, new wavy bands that built a following at clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City – as opposed to Studio 54 or Danceteria – Blondie dabbled the most freely in all forms of ‘70s dance music.
So they had disco influences on both Eat to the Beat (1979) and Autoamerican (1980). But “Call Me,” from the 1980 movie American Gigolo had the beat of disco king Giorgio Moroder and Debbie Harry’s impassioned vocals. It is the nexus of disco and new wave, and it still rocks.
CRINGE – “Dragging My Heels” the Hollies (1976)
No. Just no. But I can sympathize. In the 1960s, the Hollies had produced about 20 top-twenty hits on the UK charts. A few of them scored in the USA as well. But with the exception of the lightning-in-a-bottle “The Air That I Breathe” in 1974, their fortunes had dimmed in the ‘70s. Maybe it they had tried for another “Air That I Breathe….”
Instead, they tried to catch the disco wave. The light disco wave. “Dragging My Heels” isn’t really disco enough to register with the serious DJs. It’s not even terrible. It’s just so … soft.
For terrible, go to the lead single from Russian Roulette, the album that produced “Dragging My Heels.” That song, which I could have put on this list, was called “Wiggle That Wotsit,” and amazingly, it is just as bad as the name implies.
The reason I don’t have it here is that I always listen to any song I write about just to refresh my memory, and I vowed long ago never to subject myself to “Wiggle That Wotsit” again.
COOL – “Slipped My Disco” the Tubes (1976)
The cool thing about this song is that it was designed as a parody and it is a decent one at that. But it’s also a really good disco song. This is my favorite high camp disco tune, just edging out Frank Zappa’s “Dancing Fool.”
CRINGE – “(No More) Love at Your Convenience” Alice Cooper (1977)
The fact that the same band (or man – Alice Cooper was both) that had produced “No More Mr. Nice Guy” a few years earlier could spew out something as insipid as “(No More) Love at Your Convenience” is one of the most unpleasant anomalies of the 1970s.
By this point, Cooper had left his original band and was technically a solo act. But he had a bunch of standout players supporting him on this album and still managed to … I won’t say it again. Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, who just a couple years earlier had provided the blistering guitars on Lou Reed’s live version of “Sweet Jane” should never have been associated with this song.
COOL – “Making Flippy Floppy” (1983)
In the same way that Blondie was never all that far removed from disco’s dance rhythms. David Byrne was always floating somewhere between rock and funk and, often, disco. I’m not sure I’d really call this a disco song, but if it isn’t, I don’t know a more appropriate genre for it.
Nicky Siano at the Gallery was a fan of the Talking Heads, and this track fit the club vibe quite nicely.
CRINGE – “Street Player” Chicago (1979)
Terry Kath died in 1978. I don’t mean to suggest that the band Chicago disintegrated after that. But, it kind of did. Hot Streets in 1978 was a step back … plus, it was called Hot Streets.
Chicago 13, the following year, continued the slide. “Street Player” may not be such a bad song, but it seemed to bring out the worst impulses in vocalist Peter Cetera and Kath’s replacement on guitar Donnie Dacus. And those Chicago horns that worked so well on jazzier and bluesy songs just sounded generic playing disco.
COOL – “I Was Made For Loving You” Kiss (1979)
I saved this one for last because I think most of my old friends would put this on the Cringe side of the ledger. I might have too, back in the day.
Hearing it today, I conclude that this is a good song …. Just maybe not a good Kiss song. It may not have been what old-school fans wanted to hear them do. But the fact is, when they took on the task, they came up with something pretty damn good. Vini Poncia, who had co-written Leo Sayer’s annoying disco crossover hit “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” co-wrote this one and provides the requisite synthesizer.
CRINGE – “Goodnight Tonight” Wings (1979)
I get the Wings hatred. Beatles fans obviously rejected Paul McCartney’s new band. But I gotta say that for a good chunk of the 1970s, I personally liked Wings. They did a lot of good songs.
They also did “My Love” (1973), for which they should have been sent to bed without their supper (and forced to listen to “My Love” on repeat). But I could allow for “My Love” because of “Jet” and “Junior’s Farm” and “Venus and Mars/Rock Show.”
“Goodnight Tonight” killed all that. I stopped listening to Wings. As it turned out, Wings stopped being a thing not long after. Fortunately, McCartney did not.
Disco, as a massive mainstream genre, died a lingering death in the ‘80s but it never really went away. It just rebranded itself in a bunch of new dance genres and continued rocking the dance floor. If Larry Levan had Arcade Fire’s “The Lightning II” at his disposal in 1979, it would have been in regular rotation at Paradise Garage.
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