Disco Music - 60 Minutes Special Report (1978)

Betty Wright RIP!❤

It was all about vitality and exuberance. It was elegant, and glamorous. Yes, I’m glad I lived through it, and after all this time, I still own the same disco records from 45 years ago...hundreds of them, mostly 12” singles, all in excellent shape. I often wonder who I’ll leave them to.

In Los Angeles they still dance to Disco

It was a year before KISS released a Disco Heavy Metal Album and before The Death of Disco in 1979.

It’s not suprising that Dan Rather didn’t like disco. It was great music but he didn’t like it. A hit piece designed to destroy a great genre

I was born after Disco peaked but still have feelings of nostalgia when I hear the songs my parents would play frequently from that era. The modern EDM genres feel an evolution of Disco. Less analog, faster tempo, more layering and effects.

another form of black art... you would'nt know it cause then they didn't want to sho it...but blacks are disco. as well as house rock reggae soul blues jazz rap hip hop neo soul r&b new jack swing gospel you name it.

The Disco years were exciting for me. Too young to go to the clubs, but I was able to listen to the live radio broadcast from the DJ booth of a huge Disco here in Texas. It made a massive impression on me, ended up being a nightclub DJ for decades. Always a place in my heart for Disco.

Wow 😲! That’s why House Music 🎶 sounds so good 😊!!!! So many memories!!!!

Wow that's a dan rather story

I’m probably the only Grace Jones fan that only loves her three disco albums: Portfolio, Fame and Muse, produced by Tim Moulton. I’ve carried those cds through my last three cars!

Then Steve Dahl drove the dagger through it, and albums like Van Halen's debut and The Clash threw the dirt on the grave!

This is so far off , the Beatles and Elvis ?
So there is no Disco pre 1978?

The hustle. Disco duck. Line hustle. Yes, "Saturday Night Fever" and the Bee Gees. Studio 54. There were moves like the "car wash" and the "sprinkler". Disco was a big-time form of entertainment that only lasted for a short time in the 1970s.

That is enough to make Rick Dees proud of appreciating disco----before disco itself was destroyed in 1979.

In 1977, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the disco dance scene and I haven’t been the same since. Those early days were the start of something new as I was unaware of this hidden talent. Since that time I’ve been heavily involved in other forms of dance such as ballet and modern jazz. In recent years I’ve performed on demonstrations teams of the following: Thriller and MJ style, hip hop, and Scottish Country Dance. I still dance socially at age 74.

If you like Disco mixes, check my channel. Disco with a twist.

I hear lots of cocaine...

Sad. Disco, all about the money! At least going by this dated news report! That said, some of the disco era songs were cool!

I was 18 years old in 1978 Disco 👍

DISCO SUCKS !!!

This was aired on April 23, 1978 - The "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack was by far on top with "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever" by the Bee Gees. Another disco film, "Thank God It's Friday," which features Donna Summer with her hit song "Last Dance," was released the following month.

I Was There 😎 54 ! WBLS 107.5 MANHATTAN New York RIP STEVE , FRANKIE CROCKER 🙏

I was 12 years old when it was at it's peak and my friends older cousins, etc... who went out were SO conscientious of their suits, shoes, hair!!!!

The Best type of "Disco" music was really Funk. Philly Funk, and Parliament, etc. put out some Great stuff back then. The Bee Gees were Good, TOO, of course. They started OUT, however, as just a typical UK Invasion Band. Their early hit song sounded like a Peter and Gordon track.
What I would call "Pure" Disco Music (if such even exists) was stuff like "Spring is in the Air" and "Native New Yorker." I consider that to be Shlock.
The Gay Culture had Discotheques early on. One East Village Superclub was called "The Saint." AIDS in NYC was initially called "Saint's Disease" because Men were hooking up there. Black and Latino Culture was also Vital in the Birth of this Genre. All the More Ironic that in "Saturday Night Fever" Tony and his pals were a bunch of Macho, Racist Homophobes.
I went to see SNF with my Late Mom. She thought it was so Funny! "One quit the Priesthood and the Other's going Dancing!" She was a Stereotype of my own Ethnic Tribe. She didn't want me to go to a local Disco "Uncle Sam's" because I might drink too much, or get into Bar Fights over Women, or look clumsy dancing (me of the Charlie Chaplin walk.) Not, to mention that I was Seventeen at the time, and wasn't "Legal." My parents DID pay for Disco dancing lessons for me, but what use is That when you can't go out and practice your moves?? Then, I got busy with Premed, and my State, Michigan, was one of the FIRST to raise the drinking age to 21 (after first raising it to 18.)
BOY, was/am I PISSED about that! We are one of the Few Nations in the Whole World that has a Drinking Age that high. Very Undemocratic. I don't condone parking your car on the freeways at rush hour or jamming the 9/11 lines (causing victims to Die) as a protest. Those are ideas I've heard from other people, and I don't officially condone them. If we had really raised a Stink over that, however, perhaps most other states, at least, would still have Young People with Rights.
"Looking for Mr. Goodbar" of course, was about the Singles Bar Scene. That was ALSO closed to Young People in my State, beginning in January, 1979.

SO-what replace the Disco and Singles Bar?? Health Clubs were a place to See and Be Seen in the Eighties and Nineties. Nowadays, I guess, there's 1000 ways to hook up on the Internet.

The Majority of Disco Lyrics referenced Dancing, which was really a Euphemism for "The Deed." Fun, but not Too Deep. Disco peaked in the era of Cocaine, Quaaludes, (the "Ecstasy" of their Day) Orgies, Wife-swapping, "OH-Calcutta" and the Golden Age of Porn. In NYC, Detroit and other places, there were almost as many XXX theaters as Legit, back in the Late Seventies. In Late 1978-early 79, the airwaves were Filled with Disco Hits. Even Mainstream Rockers and some Country Stars got into the Act. There was REAL Crap like "Star Love in the Night." Then, everyone got Sick of it, some went the Punk route, and Record sales Tanked in 1979. The Doobie Brothers "What a Fool Believes" swept the Awards that year.
I recently saw "KC and the Sunshine Band." They were GREAT. And KC told some Very Funny jokes about that Era, vs. what we are today. There were some Middle Aged ladies with dress hems up to there Conos.
Fun Times.

Butterfly records only lasted 4 years

Wow, all is accurate still when talking about the DJ

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Disco Sucks

Now I like me some good disco but this news segment shows exactly why Disco Demolition Night wasn’t far away. The soulless manufacturing of generic disco is captured perfectly here. I’m sure that old record executive really knows what the kids want to hear! For fucks sake they’re recycling the Chattanooga Choo Choo and its drivel like that that was flooding the market. For every good song there was twenty songs like that being pushed by the suits and not innovating the genre. “We don’t pay DJs.” Yeah, sure you don’t. Maybe not with cash but when that eight ball of coke shows up from Butterfly Records (hahaha a ripoff of Chrysalis Records I’m sure) that DJ is gonna spin that record…he’s too high to care anyway! Want proof that it wasn’t all great…well just listen to the soundtrack of this report…not one timeless classic but a lot of corporate, overly manufactured crap.

I will say though that even a crappy disco record was an expensive endeavor. Keyboards weren’t around to simulate strings like we have today so you had to pay for a philharmonic or a ton of studio musicians to get that sound. This may also be a reason why one bad single can sink a label because studio time and session musicians aren’t cheap. And then there was the insane promotion budgets and yes that’s where labels hid their cocaine budgets. And the worst part is those old record execs just want more clones of what’s selling and they want them pumped out faster and faster. They don’t understand what make something a hit and are out of touch, they just know what the market is dictating and aren’t capable of picking up what a future sound is especially because if you’re not making what’s selling they’re not going to sign you in the first place. Thus why the underground is the best place to hear the future of music and disco of course started off that way as well.

I lived through this magical period and performed in many California nightclubs and can say that Peter Brown was a true musical genius. Unfortunately, there were a lot of stupid and gimmicky "disco" songs that ruined the artistry.

I was so busy flying a King Air helping import tons of disco records into the US

Then Disco Demolition happened.....

I love disco music back in the day in 70s that's all they play I like the bee gees Donna summer the best of the Chic and more and the movie i saw Saturday night fever with John Travolta the village people YMCA the cool and gang the sister Sige we are family the pointer sisters and more I grew up in the 70s so for me I love disco

Wow, to go back in time would be amazing. Anyone who lived through the disco era there is never going to be anything like that again it was a good time to be alive.. there is nothing like that now. Well, there are some artist, they would be considered disco back in the day.. Lizzo, David Guetta, Kylie Minogue Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa . Nowadays it’s called techno, which was really disco.

This is before cocaine was found at Studio 54 and the anti-disco backlash that culminated in the infamous Disco Demolition Night fiasco at Comiskey Park began.

I can't find the words for what I feel sometimes, when I see material from the 70s and 80s. Those decades, man; wild beyond belief. Everything was so RICH, COLOURFUL and VIBRANT. The lights, the sounds, the colours, the textures, the clothing, the styles, the music; I mean, ABSOLUTELY, EVERYTHING! Young people simply, cannot understand the torture of living throughout the 2000s because of this. The past 20 to 25 odd, years or so, has felt like wandering through a dead, barren, wasteland compared to all we had throughout the 70s and 80s, and yet, people can't seem to make it bleak and barren enough, STILL! I truly, cannot understand the current, time period, at all. I really, can't. And rightly or wrongly; I pretty much, hate the kids today, because of all they have ripped away from me and my generation.

There wasn’t one good or successful disco song in this. Come on - at least Le Freak! What’s with all the old 40’s barber shop music repurposed into Disco. Yuk. Didn’t even mention a DJ’s name. Dan looked rather out of his element, only not this thing had to offer. 2/10 ⭐️

Nicky Siano about 11m in.

We had a ball during the disco years!