Originally Posted by
BobbyC
I was in high school when disco hit its peak. Prior to that I was always into black music, groups like PFunk, Rufus, David Ruffin, Labelle, Emotions etc. but most of my friends were not. They were into groups I hated like Cheap Trick, Bob Seegar [[sp), Rush--I know because due to wanting to fit in I'd go to these shows and watched the clock the whole time, bored stiff. Only a handful of my white friends were into black music--it was, at the time, sort of an underground thing. Knowing and liking The Ohio Players was "cool." Anyway when disco first hit, people were kind of into it. it started out being underground and very hip. Then it got ridiculous.Suddenly EVERYTHING was about disco, dancing, ridiculous clothes and hair. Suburbanites completely highjacked it and it showed.When songs like Disco Duck and Funky Town started to get played incessantly everywhere you went people rebelled against it. Even beloved rock artists like Elton John and The Rolling Stones started putting out disco. That was the end. The fact that so many of the artists were black had nothing to with it. I never once heard any of my white friends say they hated black artists because they didn't. The same people who LOVED Ohio Players and Earth Wind and Fire hated disco. Disco killed many of these acts off and they knew it and didn't like it.That is a side to the story that people pretend didn't happen.It gets really tiresome reading racist comments like "disco was only bad when black people did it." It's a lie and it never was true. Motown would never have happened if not for all those racist white record buyers in the 60's, long before disco. The actual truth is that disco went off the rails, got redundant and formulaic and people rebelled against it. When formally fantastic groups like Rufus Chaka Khan started writing songs about DANCING, like I'm Dancing For Your Love, lots of people lost interest including me.