A History of Disco

In which The Curmudgeons shake, shake, shake that booty and revisit one of popular music's most unfairly maligned genres. Disco was essentially funky orchestral music--grand, reverb-heavy, maximal, showy, dramatic. Yet it was also energetic and fun as hell. Here, we explore disco's birth as a movement of freedom and uninhibited expression in Black and Hispanic gay nightclubs and how, once a production house in Philadelphia put an official musical sheen on the proceedings, it erupted into the mainstream. We also lament disco's demise among burnout, derision and plain' ol macho racism, sexism and homophobia. 

 

Check out all the songs we lovingly discuss by accessing our special Spotify playlist:

 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DbgCCxyfmfcITV2nxyZon?si=7786b0860b12450f

 

Here's a handy navigation companion to this episode. 

 

(0:52 - 04:52) - Arturo Andrade sets the parameters for our discussion of disco

 

(06:50 - 27:33) - The Parallel Universe, featuring reviewes of new albums by Cindy Lee and Jamie xx

 

(28:18 - 01:09:06) - We tell the story of disco's beginnings and we offer the first of three playlists, this one covering the early disco years of 1974 and 1975

 

(01:10:58 - 02:11:45) - We speak of disco's dizzying ascent into the mainstream and offer the second of three playlists covering 1976 to 1978

 

(02:12:44 - 02:53:34) - We cover the downfall of disco and offer the last of our three playlists, which covers 1979 and 1980

 

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Co-written and co-produced by Arturo Andrade and Christopher O'Connor - The Curmudgeons