>1. How could one rally, the "Disco is dead" one, really kill
>an entire genre that had been that dominant? I can tell that
>it was overexposed, and was possibly going to die out
>eventually in some way...but how could that one rally,
>especially before the social media era, cause such a major
>backlash against the genre to where club owners became ashamed
>to say they owned a Disco club? And was it just propaganda for
>them to show that two months after the rally, none of the top
>ten hits were Disco, while before it, it was like 10/10 of the
>hits were Disco?

yeah it was a bit of an exageration. That rally didn't really dead it....it was more demonstrative of the overall climate at the time where the movement was played out in the mainstream. The country as a whole was moving to a more politically conservative climate...whereas before you had a mainstream popular culture that treated Disco like something cool and hip....to a culture that began to become polarized...us vs. them type of thing.

other DJs did start to copy cat around the country...but it was falling off in the mainstream anyway..

a lot of the artists who were assocaited with Disco..who were making hit records...they were starting to look at the downside of their careers...their run was over and they began to fall off.... it wasn't overnight after the riot...it was already starting....but the riot was demonstrative of the overall disco burn out...and the less cooperative society that we were seeing evolve in the 80's.


>
>2. Michael Jackson "Off the wall" came out in August of 1979,
>which was like a month after this rally. Was it successful
>because the music was like the best of the best Disco possible
>for the time, to the extent that it wasn't even classified as
>Disco? And with many of us feeling it was a better album than
>"Thriller"...do you feel that this album's timing, coming
>right when Disco was at it's decline, may be a reason to why
>it wasn't accepted as much as Thriller?

well.... I would be one of those who considers to be more of a sub-genre of R&B/Funk type of music.... Yes with a very distinctive style...culture...very unique...but just as at the begining the records that would go on to be considered Disco staples even though they were really just dance oriented up tempo R&B records.....in the end....R&B would survive so to speak....Off the Wall had a disco vibe for sure....but it was really and R&B record...and artist like MIke who were identified strictly as Disco Artists...or whose music wasn't strictly pigeon holed as Disco...those artists didn't fall off...they just kept doing what they were doing.... so-called disco may have "died" in terms of a indentifiable mainstram sub-genre..but RandB and Funk went on.... (Disco went on too really....but people just stopped calling it that)

the thing about Off the Wall.... that door that Mike went through with Thriller hadn't been opened yet when Off the Wall came out.... The solo R&B cross over superstar ...pop culture idol hadn't happened yet....R&B music sold a lot of records...got a lot of accolades....the opportunity wasn't there yet to push through all the way.... Off the Wall opened the door.......Street Songs opened it some more...... by Thriller....Mike had enough room to go through the door and take off...

I don't think that the disco back lash really held Off the wall back.... it just that the opportunity to go to where Mike would eventually go..wasn't there yet.



>
>3. I've heard people say "Disco killed Funk" but how was this
>the case? Is this in reference to the earlier Funk that was
>more acoustic, maybe from the James Brown era more so than
>George Clinton and Parliament? It feels as if one half of the
>main Funk hits I know of (Flashlight, etc) came around the
>middle and end of Disco, while the other half and even the
>majority of Funk classics I'm familiar with came in the early
>80's, right after Disco ended..such as More bounce to the
>ounce, Atomic Dog, and Cutie Pie.
>

yeah....that's alwasy been a big myth that Disco killed Funk. You know in a lot of the music debates and written works..it always tells a more exciting story to act like music evoloution or history involved This genre killed that genre...or this genre was a rejecting of that genre..... That stuff is usually bullshit literary exagerations...or extras that people put on things to tell a better story...but that story is usually false....

yeah.....like you mention.... the so-called Disco era saw some very serious artistic advances in Funk music....a lot of impactful innovations...and really what would end up seeing the early seeds of what would become hip hop...

like you said...yeah...James Brown's run was ending...Sly was M.I.A..... but P-Funk.....P-Funk greatest run was during the time of disco....They flew above the disco movement so to speak by perfecting their formula.... They had records that were super hot on the disco floors...but they weren't involved in the marketing of the disco movement..... they were busying taking the baton and running with the Funk movement...which really grew during the disco era..and with the synthesizers and drum machines coming into play more...you saw bands like Lakeside, Cameo, The Gapp Band, Roger and Zapp, Junie and P Funk, eventually Prince...so many others combine the acoustic style traditional funk styles with the new synths and drum machine styles.....the technology really expanded funk...

as far as disco and funk....a lot of the freestyle music...and DJ culture type of stuff that settled in the East after Disco really played out..... you saw earlly Hip hop coming out of this...but you also had an Electro Funk style music that came out of this ... The Jonzun Crew....Full Force later....and tons of other groups and artists.... That music was becoming hot at the same time Funk had a very heavy synth based feel.....even the New Wave styles that were happening in Pop music seeped in...particularly in Prince's early stuff....

it could easily be said that the Funk movement THRIVED during the so-called Disco era..and post Disco became the foundation for what would eventually evolve into hip hop...