The DISCO Era! Come On, You Know You Liked It!

[jillfoster]

Jill:

If many of us are being honest, a WHOLE lot of us liked The Bee Gees back then.

While I liked Nights On Broadway, a whole lot of people in my neighborhood were feeling Jive Talking, You Should Be Dancing, Night Fever & Stayin' Alive. I'm telling you, I played in a club that was in the heart of East New York, bordered by Bed-Stuy & Brownsville & I can truthfully say that damn near EVERYONE was either listening to or dancing to J.T., Y.S.B.D., N.F. & S.A.

The backlash against The Bee Gees was somewhat belated & Y.S.B.D came out during 1976, more than a year before that movie came out. I can tell you that the folks in my neighborhood & school spent 1976 hustling to Y.S.B.D. Likely because of when the movie was actually filmed, most of the songs in that soundtrack were already old by the time the movie was released.

As for The Bee Gees, I liked some of their music since the days of I Started A Joke, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart & I've Gotta Get A Message To You. I also loved the other songs that I mentioned above. I think what made me absolutely sick & tired of them was that insipid More Than A Woman & Tragedy. I must admit that the movie did absolutely nothing to help.

What truly pissed me off about the movie was that even though the origins of Disco were well-known, they chose to anglocize it, stripping away several layers, very important layers of its origins & the whole experience. Admittedly, at the age of 16 or 17 [[1977), I had no idea about much of the lifestyle. I had no idea about the meaning of songs such as Fire Island or YMCA. To me, the YMCA was somewhere where we kids used to go after school to play ball. Most of us had no idea that those songs had a special meaning to anyone.

I learned pretty quickly though when I started out as a DJ & decided to go to see my cousin Winye' play. I went with my sister & his brother [[who already knew the deal) but when we stepped through those doors at The Continental Baths, it blew my mind. I thought that I was pretty much up on things, but in no way was my nearly 18 year-old mind prepared for anything that I saw that night.

I think that I'll leave it at that

Juice, You don't like Tragedy? I think it's one of their most interesting offerings. But lets keep this in perspective, I don't feel ANY of the Bee Gees disco songs are their best work, that opinion is reserved for "Words", "I Started A Joke", and "Run To Me". I do have to agree about "More than A woman".... and the song itself is fine, because Tavares' version KICKS ASS.

[soulster]

Juice, You don't like Tragedy? I think it's one of their most interesting offerings. But lets keep this in perspective, I don't feel ANY of the Bee Gees disco songs are their best work, that opinion is reserved for "Words", "I Started A Joke", and "Run To Me". I do have to agree about "More than A woman".... and the song itself is fine, because Tavares' version KICKS ASS.

The bee gees have repeatedly said that the music they did in the late 70s is not disco. It's R&B.