Letters to the Editor
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Camille's Street Cred...
I am not a huge fan of Madonna's musical output. Her music has always seemed at least 6 months behind the curve. I have always envisioned her walking into a club, liking some tracks, meeting the producers, throwing money at them and saying "make me sound like that". On the other hand, her marketing and attitude have always been cutting edge. Camille Paglia's disco playlist puts anything Madonna has ever done to shame. The pop titans on that list, particularly at the beginning, make Madonna seem like the fortunate mall rat that she is. Ms. Paglia's precise pinpointing of how soul begat funk which begat disco and so forth is a great starting point for any serious scholarship of the history of modern club music.
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Paglia's disco list
Exactly why should we care about Paglia's lame preferences in trite music?
I guess we should be grateful that it's only a list of titles. God help us if we had to listen to her analytic gasbaggery on every one of these empty calorie audio snacks.
OK, I'll give her Sly and the Family Stone. Stopped clocks and self-important geriatric punks can, occasionally, be correct.
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God, you naysayers suck: disco rules, go back to your Emo-core
I'm going to take Paglia's list (pre-Chaka) verbatim onto a special download area all its own and use it for my trail running for the next year or so. Thanks for the excellent list of Disco. But I must ask: where is Chic? And I was expecting "Forget Me Nots" to make an appearance as well.
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Yeah, where's Chic?
Is CP anti-Chic??
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REMINISCING
I know it's Paglia's list, but I couldn't help but make a few suggests:
Shannon
Dee-Lite- Groove is in the Heart
Earth Wind & Fire- September, Reasons (not disco per se, but often played as a slow song at discos)
ABBA- Dancing Queen, as good as any pop/dance song ever produced.
Blondie- Heart of Glass
CP, you're GREAT! Missed you and hope you write much more for Salon again! Don't let the cynics get you down (but you know that)
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Trite?
Exactly why should we care about Paglia's lame preferences in trite music?
Trite, labradog? I'd hardly call The Undisputed Truth's funk freakout on "Ball of Confusion", or Moroder's hypnotic, technologically unprecedented "I Feel Love", or The Bee Gee's nihilistic social commentary "Stayin' Alive" trite. By any pop standard all of those tracks - and many others on Paglia's list - were anything but trite. In fact they were all quite sophisticated and unique at the time of their release, and like many tracks on Paglia's list they remain iconic to this day.
You can criticize disco in general for a lot of things - crappy lyrics and a slew of copycat records for starters - but the same largely holds true for any other popular form of pop music. I'm familiar with many of the tracks on Paglia's list though, and most of them were either entirely novel at the time of release ("Shaft") or exceedingly well executed examples of contemporary dance music (Madonna's "Vogue").
Like Debbie Harry, I've never been able to understand the animosity rock fans feel toward disco. I could see not caring for it, but the hate and derision I don't get, especially from fans of a genre that strains out sound-alike excrement like Creed or Hootie and the Blowfish.
Most good disco, like most good rock, exhibits high standards of musicianship and production. In fact disco records were routinely recorded using the very best players in the business, and with exceptionally talented producers (Quincy Jones, Moroder, Barry Gibb, Nile Rogers). From a technical standpoint they eclipse any genre save perhaps jazz and classical. Many disco records also feature stunning, memorable melodic content, from the sweeping strings of Love Unlimited Orchestra's iconic "Love's Theme", to ABBA's country-esque harmonies on "Dancing Queen", Yvonne Elliman's airy, Bee Gees-penned "If I Can't Have You", and especially the soaring choruses of Pet Shop Boys songs like "What Have I Done To Deserve This" and "Domino Dancing", made all the more dramatic by the comparatively unmelodic, rap-inspired verses from which they take flight.
These tracks may not rival Joni Mitchell when it comes to their lyrics (although Pet Shop Boys occasionally come pretty damn close), but then again neither does much rock. And most rock is rhythmically infantile in comparison to disco - not that it prevents me from enjoying plenty of rock music in spite of the fact. After all, it isn't always about the rhythm any more than it's always about the lyric.
Maybe the disco haters all just moved like dorks out on the dance floor, and got tired of being wallflowers.
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an important omission
As subjective as it may be, ms paglia's list does not include one of the seminal disco songs: the Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat." Fleming Williams, the lead singer and composer was an innovative musician with a voice capable of sounding like Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole,and others.The group, consisting of two backup singers and Fleming had a few radio hits in the mid 70's, for which Mr Williams received little or no remuneration.I had the pleasure of working with him shortly before his untimely suicide a few years ago and felt he sould get his due, albeit posthumously.later.
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Wow!
I never knew Pete Best played with Dead or Alive. Don't tell me he got booted from that band too.
(I think Camille meant Pete Burns, but I couldn't resist.)
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How to get these tracks?
What is a good strategy for getting these tracks (plus the others suggested in the posts)? Are there super anthologies? Is this hopeless? Definitely don't want to but ITunes, don't know how to do it, don't have a nanopod or whatever the heck they call it, just have a DVD player (so 20th century).
Anticipatory thanks to all responders, and a politically correct "Happy Holidays" by way of season's greetings.
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how could you forget...
Thelma Huston, Don't Leave Me This Way
Diana Ross, The Boss
David Bowie, Young Americans
Dead or Alive, Brand New Lover
New Order, True Faith, Bizarre Love Triangle
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EW&F
WHERE is Earth Wind & Fire on this list?? To leave them out of a concerning the evolution of funk, disco and soul from the 1960s-80s is not just inaccurate, it's a crime...