So...why did did disco music really disappear?

This my new favorite recording. The pitch-slaying is amazing! LOL!!! It's also intentional as Jo and her husband were allegedly trying to get out of a bad record deal.

Ed

 

Have you heard Jimmy Smith's Jimmy Smith in a Brown Wrapper? It's from 1971 and totally blew my socks off.

Check out the opener, Recession or Depression.

 

Here's some Lebanese disco. If the genre completely disappeared in the USA, it was still huge in the 80's in Europe and middle east.

 

Here's some very dark and weird french disco.

 

Disco is alive and well masquerading as dance-pop.

 

Disco from Quebec

 

Significant others taking our albums out to the trash while we're at work?

 

And finally a completely far out and trippy megamix of Tantra's Hills of Katmandu by the master of american Disco : Patrick Cowley

I thought that somebody had to show some love for Disco in this thread

 

The Oil Cartel embargo depleted the available inventories of petroleum for winged-collar polyester shirts and safari jackets.

 

Yeah I guess you're right. I reckon disco - unable to stand on it's own - kind of splintered off and evolved into several different genres including rap and pop. Disco in it's "purest" form was far too "gimmicky" to survive the 80's and beyond, IMO. It was great for the late 70's, but it wasn't going to flourish (in it's pure form) beyond that. Ask the Bee-Gees.

 

Funk didn't stop in the early 70s. You may not have liked the later stuff, or quit listening, but it didn't stop.

 

Rap did not grow out of disco! Get that out of your head!

 

Maybe he's thinking too much of Rapper's Delight and Chic (Good Times), but Chic was not necessarily pure disco, lots of funk. Too many labels I guess.

 

But if you listen carefully, there's lots of magic moments between the bassist and drummer and drum transitions

Prime example:
2:40 - 3:00 segment

I just LOVE THE DRUMMING, and the BASS throughout the song is mesmerizing!



Thelma Houston's Don't Leave Me This Way is another one.
Yes its got that thumping, but I love the Anti-Rock drum roll (I'm a rock drummer by the way) transitions- sounds like the rolls are purposely make to sound remedial and robotic like a drum machine. Just love it!

Also some of the best bass playing I've ever heard is in Disco, like Funk.

I noticed that even John Bonham integrated that thumping and 16th high hats on some of Zepp's songs around that time.

 

Blondie played around with reggae and rap, but very little of what they did could be considered particularly "disco".

Some of the best playing period was in disco. The musicianship on records like "Boogie Nights" was light years ahead of most of what was going on at the time in rock (unless you were Joni Mitchell or Steely Dan or something).

 

I know it didn't stop and I still like lots of the new funk but I always gravitate back to my early 70's funk music. I love that analog sound of those albums recorded from about 69 to 75,

 

Chic definitely had the funk going on. Some good solid bass playing.

 

.... with interlocking drum and guitar parts.

 

Rap existed long before "Rapper's Delight" was ever created. Run D-M-C was doing rap way back in 1976.

 

It's looking like there are fewer and fewer reasons for anyone to not like disco!

 

No Parliament, Bar-Kays, Brick, Funkadelic? All analog!

 

And Chic, at its core, was really a rock band. Tony Thompson was one of the best rock drummers ever.

 

I'd say that rap music originated from funk, more or less. But I agree with Baba oh Really that disco didn't die at all. In its purest form it was too gimmicky to survive, but its influences can still be traced in many other genres, esp. house, trance en today's pop and dance music. Heck, it even had a recent resurgence with all the interest that Daft Punk generated for Giorgio Moroder et al.

I also agree that 'original' 70's disco, along with funk and R&B from that era, offered some of the best musicianship ever, including arranging skills and production values. Those were relly high standard compared to most rock music from the same era - a fact that tends to be overlooked by many.

 

I wouldn't lump Chic into the 'rock' category, but I agree with you last statement. The musicians of Chic formed one of the tightest units ever, blending disco, funk, jazz and OK, even a bit of rock, into a sound that defied categorization. Stellar musicianship indeed.