What did you listen to during disco's peak years ('74-'78)

[aabottom]

Try this version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1cbsLKXasQ

I couldn't past it as I turned it off! I was totally uninterested in the video.

 

[ssmith3046]

Everything but disco.

 

[decaturron]

My first concert in that era was Tom Petty and the heartbreakers on the damn the torpedos tour. The opening act was Tommy tutone and Jenny-867-5309. What a great concert for a 16 year old. And who could forget KISS and their Disco hit, I was made for lovin you.

 

[Arkay]

I remember there being plenty of other music around in parallel with disco. You'd hear disco on some of the radio stations, but there were also stations with jazz, country, classical, and yes, non-disco rock stuff. I was in Southern California during much of those years, and went to concerts like Cal Jam II, with a lot of major rock bands performing, including Heart and Rush. Saw groups like Santana at the Hollywood bowl, and performers like George Benson in Pomona. That Ted Nugent LP pictured above was a big thing in school dorms and it also got a lot of play on the radio. There was a LOT of good music around, including ELO, The Who, Led Zep, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, etc... being played. Disco was there... we went dancing to it in --where else?-- discotheques!

I didn't mind the disco music so much; while a lot of it did not appeal much to me, as with any genre, there were songs I liked and songs I didn't. Since it was mostly for dancing, it didn't matter too much; the beat made it dance-able, and dancing was a good way to meet and get close to girls! (Where is that smiley with the lifting eyebrows? --put it here! )

I don't think of the disco years as a wasteland for other types of music. While there was a lot of disco around, with some pop stations majoring in it, there was also a lot of other GOOD stuff going on in parallel. In fact, at least for me, those years were among the musically richest and most diverse of my life. I even borrowed recordings of Japanese Koto and Shakuhachi music and other stuff that today would be called "world music" and Native American chanting, Gregorian chants, etc... from the College's reference library, and taped them off to listen to in my dorm. I also continued to listen to jazz, which I had been seriously into in high school, although as I got busy with other things in college, I stopped performing jazz. If it weren't for the Internet and record stores, I'd say today would be a much more boring wasteland, musically! (But I'm not saying that it is ; only that it WOULD be if all we had to rely on was the regular radio!)

I couldn't get past 1:48! :thumbsdn:

I couldn't past it as I turned it off! I was totally uninterested in the video.

Both of you guys missed the best part, and I don't mean that sarcastically. Right near the end, there is about 30 seconds when the "bouncy" sense of the tune fades, and it's anchored by the deep-voiced guy saying "ride" as the bass line. The music settles down in a way that is almost cool there; if you did a song where that segment was the bounciest part, instead of the least bouncy, it could actually be a very good, almost blues-y song. Too bad no one did/has done it that way. scratch2:... done right, as a non-disco song, it might be a hit, today! )

I was pretty young back then. Kiss, Aerosmith, Supertramp, Bad Company, The Beatles were all on my radar then. I heard all of the disco hits on the radio though, but didn't develop any real appreciation until much later.

So you admit to having developed a "real appreciation" for disco? It takes a brave man to do that, in today's world! :thmbsp:



I'll raise one parting question: Will disco ever experience a revival of interest? Will it ever be considered (retro-)cool again? If so, NOW would be the right time to start amassing that collection of disco LPs, while (1) you can still find them easily enough, and (2) their prices haven't started to escalate. You could grab a bunch of them, set up a website to praise and talk about them, with hyping on Facebook, etc.... and perhaps help kick-start the revival. Of course, you could end up sitting on the world's largest pile of the world's least-wanted stuff, if no one else ever catches on to it and jumps on your bandwagon (pun intended )...

 

[libertycaps]

Disco and 70's FM Rock. Hey, i was 9 years old in 1978. Gimme a break.
Still listen to both, but loads more "Classic Rock" now.

 

[AnalogDigit]

I listened to everything in that period including disco even though I could not dance a lick and could not get a date!

 

[Mr. Lin]

I wasn't alive.

 

[dnpainting]

I listened to whatever my dad was listening to. Elton John, Beatles, Eagles, Jazz, America. I was in 5th grade ('77-'78)when I discovered KISS and later AC/DC.

 

[onepixel]

I couldn't past it as I turned it off! I was totally uninterested in the video.

That's cool.

I must be a freak, I watched it couple of times.

 

[VinylHanger]

I was 6 in '74 and 10 in '78. In '74 it was a lot of Gordon Lightfoot, Helen Reddy, Jim Croce, etc. My folks weren't exactly Rockers. In '78 it was a transistor radio and AM radio, along with Dance Fever.

Now some of my favorite stuff is Disco. Nothing like rockin' the house to a little Boogie.

 

[onepixel]

...All the cool girls loved to go to Disco Island and I was always willing to take them. So basically I was listening to whatever they wanted to listen to. You would have done the same thing!

I did... our family had a 9 passenger station wagon.

To placate the macho and intellectual sides, I listened to a lot of what's already been listed too.

 

[spideyjack]

I was fourteen in 1974 and top forty radio wasn't so bad. In addition to Disco (which I never minded) I heard Parliament, Stevie Wonder and The Isley Brothers daily.

We often forget how many country crossover hits there were during that time Charlie Rich, Freddy Fender, John Anderson, Tom T. Hall and Waylon & Willie and the boys. I absolutely dug that stuff and still do.

I did spend about six months in 1975 trying to like Prog rock but hearing The Sex Pistols, Ramones, Elvis, Nick Lowe and Television gave me a rock n' roll music that seemed to be mine and not my older brothers.

oh yeah favorite disco song? anything by Chic! Freak Out!!

 

[d-ray657]

It sounds like that period '74-'78 included, for many of us, high schools/college years. I doubt that many are going to say that the music included in the soundtrack for the teen/young adult years was terrible. No matter how much our tastes change in later years, the music we heard during those years will always have some effect on us.

I remember that period being one in which FM became the primary source for music on the radio. I also remember many rock stations being quite anti-disco. Anyone remember when the disco demolition night occurred at Cleveland Stadium? I think it fell within the era we are discussing here. (turns out it was in July '79.) Even though the soundtrack is going to be a little different for all of us, there will still be major areas in which people from any generation are going to be able to relate.

Regards,

D-Ray

 

[ducati_EL34]

It sounds like that period '74-'78 included, for many of us, high schools/college years. I doubt that many are going to say that the music included in the soundtrack for the teen/young adult years was terrible. No matter how much our tastes change in later years, the music we heard during those years will always have some effect on us.

I will say, "It is terrible". Sure I liked it then, I did not know any better. Now I am wiser and much of that stuff such as Skynard, waylon et al, is terrible.

Listening to music was/is entertainment for me, not some life altering experience. Really, how is "Gimme Three Steps" going to affect my life? :thumbsdn:

 

[4dryhme]

Guess the disco years weren't the wasteland I sometimes thought they were. We're slowly going back and filling in some of the stuff that is lacking a representation in our collection. We picked up a couple of 'Return to Forever' albums a while back and they are completely awesome! There's that famous 'Weather Report' album 'Heavy Weather' with Birdland we picked up a while back -- boy, was I surprised to find out that Manhattan Transfer didn't do this song originally! I'm kicking myself for flipping by that s/t America album recently.

I do still remember the first time I heard the Bee Gees. Friend of mine had picked up a record of theirs or pointed it out on the radio, can't remember which, and I thought WHO the hell are these castrati? It was awful -- meanwhile he's saying how great he thought they were. Ugh! But you know what? I use 'Saturday Night Fever' as my test record. I gotta get something else to use.

Our school had a large contingent of Italians. A lot of them dressed the dress and practiced the Travolta strut. They, of course, all had girlfriends and everyone envied them. Sorta. One time I came into the cafeteria and one of the stoners had converted from the jeans and Levi jacket to disco pants, platform shoes, blousy shirt and a prominent vein throbbing in his neck. That vein told us not to say anything. I couldn't figure out what had happened until later that day; I saw him walking down the hall arm and arm with a girl.

 

[d-ray657]

I will say, "It is terrible". Sure I liked it then, I did not know any better. Now I am wiser and much of that stuff such as Skynard, waylon et al, is terrible.

Listening to music was/is entertainment for me, not some life altering experience. Really, How is "Gimme Three Steps" going to affect my life? :thumbsdn:

I guess my point is that music digs a little deeper into the subconscious than other parts of our history, and hearing music from a different era of our life will stir memories of that era. I know a lot of the music I have seen mentioned here reminds me of some of the most fun I ever had. I dunno, maybe some of the stuff I listened to at that time ages better than Lynard Skynard.

Regards,

D-Ray

 

[mfrench]

I was strongly anti-disco; a fan of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia for the most part, or any music that epitomized the opposite end of the musical spectrum from disco.. By 74, I was already a seething Head, and disco sucked. I really never cared for radio play either, except Dr. Demento. I still love music of his variety, and have a bunch of it.
I graduated HS in '78, and met my now wife in october '78, and she was a disco spinner. They say opposites attract. She introduced disco into our record collection. I polished off and spun some Thelma Houston for her quite recently.

zappa, beefheart, n. young, p. floyd, roots reggae, world, renaissance-baroque, jazz, southern fried rock - anything but butt wiggling disco!

 

[4dryhme]

I just wanted to add -- for years, guess who I thought wrote 'Heart of Gold"? :yes:

 

[Rome]

Too many artists to list, but the genre ranged from R&B, Funk, Soul, Rock, Top 40, & Pop.
Great time to have emersed yourself in tunes.

Rome

 

[jimfet]

There were alot of great horns with some of those disco bands. Like play that funky music white boy. Or jam on some EW&F. My boy Rick James, the Commodores when Richie wasn't singing ballads. I was riding that Roller coaster of love...say a what? Etc.......