It has to be noted that my awakening to the joys of clubbing was coincidental with a music genre where you got down to the dancing business seriously rather than just as an excuse to perv on girls whilst at the same time,having trimmed off a fair bit of flab and learned how to dress, I went from being a chubby, shy bloke dressed like a bag to a more visually arresting proposition which does wonders for one's confidence and you need some of it if you are about to go on a dance-floor full of people, sober and start dancing...

Reed and Liq, you continue to treat disco as though it was one genre. It's like saying you can't listen to any rock music because you have bad memories of REO Speedwagon and Bob Seger. Surely just because "Hollywood Nights" reminds you of polyester trousers, middle-aged AOR fans and crap beards (sorry carcass) you cannot dismiss, say, AC/DC or Bruce Springsteen, or indeed punk rock.

The notions by which you are generalising disco represents only a small part of a broad musical culture. And it seems to me that these sub-genres of disco you say you hate are the same which the Disco Sucks movement latched on to.

If it's just bad associations which trouble you, why not try and listen to genres of disco you are not familiar with?

On the separate point of racism and homophobia in the Disco Sucks movement, I suppose the homophobia was not necessarily of a gay-bashing kind, but rather grounded in the disco culture's threat to the prevalent models of masculinity.

The record burners were mostly reactionary rock fans; the Lynyrd Skynyrd type crowd, not the punk movement. When they campaigned against disco, part of their unarticulated objection related to the the extravagant costumes worn by the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire. So flamboyant, so very gay. And they had a dude singing in a girly voice. Disco corrupted the traditional models of manhood.

A few years later this threat to masculinity found expression again when many dismissed Prince as a homosexual on the back of his style, at a point when Prince became a mainstream phenomenon with the release if Purple Rain. Of course, such people took no cognisance of the fact that Prince has bedded more beautiful women than many of his "critics" had ever laid eyes on. But Prince corrupted the standard notions of masculinity, and therefore had to be gay. And in the '70s and '80 (and before, of course), you could no be gay. That's why Liberace successfully sued for libel when it was alleged hat he was gay.

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The record burners were mostly reactionary rock fans; the Lynyrd Skynyrd type crowd, not the punk movement. When they campaigned against disco, part of their unarticulated objection related to the the extravagant costumes worn by the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire. So flamboyant, so very gay. And they had a dude singing in a girly voice. Disco corrupted the traditional models of manhood.

Funny how those same people would soon be cheering along the likes of David Lee Roth and Dee Snider as they camped it up something rotten.

Heh, you'd also think that there'd be a fair number of Kiss fans in on this at the time.

(and Kiss' best song is a disco tune, which confuses things even more)

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Funny how those same people would soon be cheering along the likes of David Lee Roth and Dee Snider as they camped it up something rotten.

Homophobes enjoying camp performers isn't funny or unusual at all, is it?

When they're burning records of other artists because of their deviant sexuality it has a certain dark humour to it.

But Roth and Snyder did their shtick with a nod and a wink these rock fans could understand and relate to. It was amusing, not gay, that Snyder looked like a superannuated hooker with hairy legs. The same fans denied, at the pain of death, that Freddy Mercury was gay. And the Kiss make-up was not camp to them but extensions of the members' personae. There was nothing that threatened their concepts of masculinity.

All quite different to perceived effete affectations of the disco people with their unironically flamboyant garb and girly voices.

Is it just me, or is The Quietus broken at the moment?

Maybe the Comiskey Park crowd burned it.

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Reed and Liq, you continue to treat disco as though it was one genre. It's like saying you can't listen to any rock music because you have bad memories of REO Speedwagon and Bob Seger.

Disco IS one genre. According to wiki: "The disco sound has a soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady four-on-the-floor beat, an eighth note (quaver) or sixteenth note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and prominent, syncopated electric bass line. Strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and unlike in rock, lead guitar is rarely used."

Rock is a much, much, much broader rubric which includes, I think, a lot of disco.

I don't dislike REO Speedwagon because they remind me of the 1970s. I hate REO Speedwagon because they remind me of REO Speedwagon and REO Speedwagon is one of the worst bands ever.

KISS is also among the worst bands ever, they're disco song being as bad if not worse than their cock-rock hits and regardless of what their fans think, their make-up and what not were as queer as a month of Mondays. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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The disco sound has a soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady four-on-the-floor beat

"Knock On Wood" has no 4/4 beat, to start with.

Sorry Reed, but disco is not one genre, regardless of what wikipedia says in its attempts to summarise and generalise. I've given examples of why it isn't. But seeing that these are not taken seriously, I'll go through it again.

Take songs like "Love To Love You" by Donna Summer and "Walking Into Sunshine" by Central Line. Both fall broadly within the disco genre, but one is Euro-Disco and the other is what I'd call Disco-Funk. There's a world of a difference between those songs. Then there is that disco-pop stuff like "Y.M.C.A." (though I'd be reluctant to call it disco) which is quite different from either Donna or Central Line. Blondie's disco stuff, "Heat Of Glass" or "Atomic" is a separate genre; it's disco, of a sort, but not in the way Cheryl Lynn's "Got To Be Real" is disco. Like Rock, Disco is a collective term for many sub-genres. That simply cannot be disputed.

Rock typically has guitars in it, unless we're using exceptions like Keane or Emerson Lake & motherfucking Palmer. Doesn't mean all rock is the same.

We've got a really nice piece on iLiKETRAiNS, their creature comforts meets Jan Svankmajer-style video about the Antarctic death of Oates and their essay about Samuel Parris (1653-1720) which might be one for all the history chaps like Stumpy on the board.

Also, my mate Stim has written an interesting piece about this straight to DVD film director called Uwe Boll who took on six of his critics in a boxing ring and battered all of them.
www.thequietus.com

Oh no! You've started doing that thing some websites do where they bold up key phrases.

I guess there's some theory on this, probably put forward by people who run superfluous "how to write for the web" courses who also think that websites should stick to one sentence per paragraph, that website visitors have short attention spans and need all the help they can get to keep reading.

Personally I find it a bit patronising and it makes my eyes go funny.

(Er, but the site is generally ace. Sorry to carp.)

SR told us that funk is different than disco.

"Heart of Glass" and "YMCA" have a similar beat pattern, I think. I'm just trying to imagine them in my head. Anyway, I don't like "Love To Love You," or "Heart of Glass" or "Got To Be Real" or "YMCA" (except in an ironic sense, but even that has worn off). Those other songs, I don't know, but every disco song mentioned on this thread that I know falls in my skip column.

You may identify many kinds of disco, but that doesn't mean there aren't some things common to all of it that makes it all "disco." There are also some things common to all of rock (although the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seems to think rock=everything that isn't jazz or classical).

Just because I don't follow your rule on rock doesn't mean I can't have a "rule" on disco. It's possible that I simply don't like whatever it is that makes disco disco, whereas with rock, I basically like the essential elements, just not how they're often applied.

Likewise I could say that I like the look of stone houses in general but not all stone houses because some are designed or built poorly or have elements that detract from the asthetic quality of stone. However, I could say that I dislike all houses with yellow aluminum siding regardless of any other architectural features because I simply hate the look of yellow aluminum siding.

Reed: FUCKING TAKE IT SOMWHERE ELSE MAN!

If I didn't know better I'd say you were doing this on purpose.

Horse: Well, I might take it up with the boy Turner. It's his idea. And yes, his background is in the internet.