fange
god
Listening to long jazz tracks
Posts: 4,554
|
Post by fange on Sept 24, 2020 13:34:37 GMT
Ah, the 70s - a time of conflict, controversy, safety pins and glitter balls... amongst other things.
So where do you stand with these 2 (broad) genres? Do you like one clearly more than the other, or about the same? Have you changed your mind about them since those days? What do you see as the best of each genre?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 13:36:04 GMT
Disco.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Sept 24, 2020 13:51:07 GMT
There are more 'punk' songs in my all-time favourites, but if you were to give me two bags, each with 100 songs from each genre, and ask me to choose one from one bag, I'd go disco. There's a much better chance of hearing something fun.
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,781
|
Post by rayge on Sept 24, 2020 13:58:19 GMT
I don't see either of them as genres, more as broad socio-cultural movements. I don't hate disco by any means - it came out of soul and R&B after all - but I was never a dancer, and to the best of my knowledge have never been to a discotheque. Punk, on the other hand, reinvigorated my dormant love for rock & roll and, in the case of the American branch, literary excellence, and opened the record industry in the UK up to post-punk/indie, which did the same for my love of adult pop music. So I voted punk
|
|
|
Post by sloopjohnc on Sept 24, 2020 14:48:14 GMT
As a typical suburban California white guy I hated both when they came out. Disco, not as much, because I really liked Michael Jackon's Off the Wall and couldn't deny it.
My friends and I tended towards FM hard rock and we ran the music our high school listened to at lunch as Seniors. We never played any funk or R&B from the time.
I secretly started getting into both in the summer before that year and had a friend, Dave, who was younger and who I went to elementary school with and I didn't tell my other friends about, and we'd go see punk shows in San Francisco. I started listening to R&B and funk again after I got out of high school. I heard a neighbor playing it and it sounded fantastic wafting through the canyon where I lived.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 14:51:09 GMT
Punk, even though it created more shite than good bands.
|
|
|
Post by Reactionary Rage on Sept 24, 2020 15:00:25 GMT
Oh disco by miles. Better records, better singers, better productions, and you can actually dance to them too!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 15:05:32 GMT
There are more 'punk' songs in my all-time favourites, but if you were to give me two bags, each with 100 songs from each genre, and ask me to choose one from one bag, I'd go disco. There's a much better chance of hearing something fun. This I guess. There is so much dross in both (although less than 'house' music). The Damned playing love song would be more thrilling than I feel love but I love them both.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 15:18:46 GMT
Oh disco by miles. Better records, better singers, better productions, and you can actually dance to them too! Ah, hello, jumping up and down, spitting on people isn't dancing? tut tut tut
|
|
|
Post by daveythefatboy on Sept 24, 2020 15:43:56 GMT
Without being facetious - I do wish there was a ‘neither’ option in the poll.
I like a decent amount of both, but I also think that both represented destructive paths that music took. Punk’s DIY ethic was a nice idea in the abstract, but it was a final nail in the coffin for the already-waning professional songwriter, studio musician, etc. If The Beatles had put the idea out there that a band could be fully self-contained, punk made it a kind of founding rule. But the result was often that mediocre playing, singing and writing became passable.
Disco was playing out another end of the same larger conflict. If psychedelia had caused a bunch of acts to retreat to the studio to pick up on Phil Spector’s approach to record construction, disco was where the goal stopped being psychedelic, and instead focused on the creation of a commercial product. The line from Norman Whitfield, Charles Stepney and Isaac Hayes to Barry White, Georgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers is a pretty straight one. But the larger gravitational pull of the marketplace was pulling everything into a more mechanical and less open set of musical possibilities.
That these dramas are playing out at the same time (and hip hop was so close on the heels of both) really makes the late 70s a fascinating moment in music. But also kind of a last stand for the idea that pop music was going to remain a cultural force forever. There would still be big, signal events after. But they all carried a feeling of decline about them (Live Aid felt like a callow replacement for Woodstock, etc). Musical exploration would still happen, but in a more atomized way. Each listener went on their own journey with their own tastes, while the larger culture just focused on celebrity.
Anyhow - I don’t want to yell at clouds and say that none of these things should have happened. They were all natural developments. But most of what I care about in popular music occurred before both of them.
|
|
|
Post by bungo the mungo on Sept 24, 2020 16:01:10 GMT
so disco is better than punk, in the preludin universe?
can i nominate G as the first poster to be lined-up against the wall and shot?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 16:13:05 GMT
That's a very interesting post Davey. My feelings on punk are complex, partly because, like Ray, I regard it as more of a cultural movement than a musical one ( although I wouldn't go as far as Chris Sullivan who argues it was a fashion movement and the music was irrelevant). I do think songwriting was given a much needed shot in the arm - songs became more immediate, the single came back in a big way, subject matter became more interesting and varied. However I would agree it had a deleterious effect on musicianship. This wasn't immediately apparent, indeed the post-punk era threw up a whole slew of interesting and innovative guitarists and bassists, but, as indie and alternative music solidified, the 'anyone can do it' DIY aesthetic and glorification of the amateur began to feel like a creative dead end rather than an opening up of possibilities. Interestingly, one of the less commented, but pertinent aspects of The Smith's were they were a throwback to good musicianship, but they weren't typical of their generation. I'll get on to disco later!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2020 16:17:01 GMT
so disco is better than punk, in the preludin universe? can i nominate G as the first poster to be lined-up against the wall and shot? you'll have to catch me first. I'm always MOVIN' BABY cos I feel the funk!
|
|
|
Post by harrispilton on Sept 24, 2020 16:18:20 GMT
There’s so many commercial Disco albums that I keep coming back to and the best thing is most of the are still £2.99 on vinyl in Oxfam ‘Off The Wall’ by MJ. Sister Sledges ‘We Are Family’, the first three Chic albums. The second & third KC & The Sunshine band albums . Heatwaves first two albums, ‘Keep on Jumping ’ Musique. ‘AllnAll’ Earth Wind & Fire, ‘Stone Gone’ Barry White ‘Once Upon a Time’ Donna Summer That’s just the popular stuff. There’s probably shedloads more I’ve forgotten. The older I get, the more I love it. Maybe all my alternative\punk albums (& there are thousands) are too associated with being a sullen youth, but I rarely dig them out anymore....bar the Buzzcocks for some reason.
|
|
toomanyhatz
god
I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
Posts: 3,239
|
Post by toomanyhatz on Sept 24, 2020 16:37:37 GMT
Both were great until the marketers took it over. Both were considered the Enemy in my adolescent years, as was AOR stuff like the Carpenters. I of course like it all now. Part to the discussion that will eventually come up - how much of the hatred of disco comes from homophobia, racism, or both? There's something sweet about how 'punk' was such a catchall that everyone from Elvis Costello to Siouxsie to Devo could latch on to. "Are you punk?" "Yeah, are you?" - great way to find the self-styled 'rebels' in your little community. Of course, almost immediately, the arguments over what or who was 'punk' started - humans are like that. Anyway, I voted 'both.'
|
|