This statement gives all the more proof that the backlash was about how popular Disco became as opposed to being about race. A concerted effort to make an event about race wouldn't have stopped at just demolishing Disco records alone.
Same here. We all made our little juvenile jr. high jokes, but we still liked them. Things were very different in my high school and town. Even the hard rock guys liked some funk and disco, and everyone liked Commodores, the Ohio Players and Earth, Wind & Fire. No, not that "September" crap, the real EWF music that came before it. Again, I grew up in a military community which meant that our town and school system were diverse.
As much as a couple of you are trying to deny it, there was a racial element to it. You see, after it was all done, I started to get a lot of racist feedback from people about why they hated disco, and later rap music. And, when the age of the internet came in, I read a LOT more. The historians have it right. There were many reasons people hated disco, and we all have added some of them. But, we are talking like the disco era is already over and it isn't. We still have about a year left before the disco fad is over. And, disco didn't die.
I kind of like Sad Eyes even if it's blander than a rice cake. Those harmonies on the chorus are great. Still, this isn't good enough for #1 material, and after several weeks of My Sharona dominating the top of the chart, this song seems to be the polar opposite of it.
There may have been for you, but I guarantee you not everyone in the world thought that way. I could go on and on, but out of respect for this thread and forum rules, I'll let it go.
"Sad Eyes" is a little bland but I love it anyway. There is something about the chorus that hooks me every time. Believe it or not, I thought it was by the Bee Gees the first few times I heard it.
This is a little bit of an aside, but just curious since this thread and this forum may (or may not) have played a role in a project... Just started listening to the new “bridge” episode on Slate/Chris Molanphy’s Hit Patade Podcast and his special guest is Tom Breihan who has a blog reviewing every #1 hit from 1958 to the present. Is Tom on this thread by any chance?
Since Ethel Merman's disco album came up, I couldn't resist. This even got her profiled in The Advocate, the national gay magazine. It is, um, odd:
"Sad Eyes" This song is too bland for me to get worked up about one way or the other. It has a touch of mellow Yacht Rock to it, but does it have any Yacht Rock "personnel" (LA session men like the members of Toto) on it?
That's still about a year off. And that genre actually started to penetrate the Top 10 in 1979, thanks largely to a huge crossover star who'd have his first #1 pop hit in 1980...
Not just the ubiquity, but because it was displacing "their" music. We're talking brats who didn't like to share their control of playtime with anyone, let alone those people with their music. Did that fuel all of the backlash to disco. No. Nobody said it did. Did it fuel some of it? Obviously. We see similar complaints from the usual suspects to this day. It would if those were the only representations of a different culture that were getting widespread airplay on the radio. R&B was still around thru all of this, and some disco records definitely blurred the lines or crossed over, but pop radio by and large wasn't saturated with R&B either before or after disco. When black artists did cross over (Motown) they did it with music often engineered specifically to do well on the pop charts. By contrast, disco was an absolute invasion of pop radio by a different, R&B & funk originated genre, and it dramatically displaced rock music in the process. We've seen that unfold on the charts in this very thread, particularly the past two years, which have been utterly dominated by disco. No attempt was made by disco to cater to white audiences - it was what it was. Even more tellingly, many of the largest disco acts were either black or multiracial. So not only was the genre unapologetically black, so were the major stars of the genre (or they sounded black - I had a friend who thought The Bee Gees were three black women!). By the way, there was a similar reaction to rock music back in the '50s when it rolled around, and for similar reasons. Rock however got very white very fast, thanks to the rise of acts like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rick Nelson and Buddy Holly. That tamped down some of the blowback (although certainly not all of it).
I would comment on this, but I can already see the topic escalating in a bad direction, so I'll refrain. I'll just say that you have a right to your opinion and I have a right to mine and leave it at that.
Speaking of a future film . . . "My Sharona" and Earth, Wind & Fire's "After The Love Has Gone" kept this number at #3 on this here chart . . . . . . it is currently being examined on the EVERY Billboard #1 country hit of 1979 discussion thread.
And speaking of "After The Love Has Gone" . . . the aforementioned Knack track kept this stalled at #2 . . .
Again, thanks. There are things you can get away with saying that I can't. I hate that I am not able to honestly state what I really need to without certain people getting uncomfortable and running to the arms of the gorts.
You'd have thought "After The Love Has Gone" was a #1 - it got huge radio play, and unlike a lot of cuts from this era seems to have survived the disco apocalypse unscathed. It was still getting play on oldies radio years later. This one also made it to #2 on the R&B chart and #3 on the AC chart, making it even more surprising it never topped the pop charts. A rare "triple threat". I didn't love it at the time as a kid - ballads weren't really my thing - but it seemed ubiquitous for a year or more, so hearing it always takes me back to the late '70s and (especially) early '80s. In fact I'm so swept up in a wave of nostalgia by the record it's hard to judge it objectively, although as an adult I find it just beautiful and so skillfully performed. A fairly early hit for '80s schlockmeister David Foster, author or co-author of a stream of annoying, generic hits for Chicago ("Stay the Night", "Hard To Say I'm Sorry"), Kenny Loggins ("Forever"), and Cetera itself ("Glory Of Love"). I've always thought he got worse and worse as he got older - "After The Love Is Gone" is "Strawberry Fields" compared to those odious terds.
The first of their collobboration with David Foster. And a very good one, at that. According to Philip Bailey's book, Maurice White, for whatever reason, was so enchanted with (or dependent on) Foster that he even allowed him to break his cardinal rule of no smoking in the studio. At this point, David Foster was an unnamed member of Earth, Wind & Fire.
We're not yet on the next #1 on the R&B chart, but which songs would have prevented "After the Love..." from topping that? I reckon "Good Times" would be one of 'em . . . ?
I'm not sure. Curious about that as well. I'm kinda surprised by how long some fairly mediocre songs remained parked at #1 on the R&B charts (like "Ring My Bell", which was a monster over there).
As with the country chart, I think one has to put their mind in the place of the typical fan of that genre immersed in that music or culture. Then, the songs may not always seem so mediocre.
Well, I loved "Ring My Bell" as a kid, and didn't learn what the double entendre meant for a year or two. I wonder if kids and teens were responsible for flipping it over the top on the R&B charts? It was certainly catchy as hell. I should do a playlist of these annoying, vaguely telephone-related songs. There's this and "Hotline" by The Silvers that I can think of off the top of my head. Must be at least half a dozen more...
Mediocre, like everything else in the universe, is evidently in the eye or ear of the beholder, from what I've gathered over the years reading comments about the music of this (or other) periods.
So I listened to Sad Eyes. Inoffensive but totally bland; no need to hear it again, especially since so many other songs sound like it. I remember The Lion Sleeps Tonight a bit, but the one I remember the most is If You Don't Want My Love, which is from 1968 but one would be forgiven (if it weren't for its rhythm) for thinking it was from a few years later.
