Is Disco Gay?

They say that disco died in 1979... but did the "Disco Sucks" crowd actually succeed in killing disco? Learn about the life, love, death, and rebirth of disco in this month's episode of This Month in Queer History!

Show Notes/Sources:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IK32XFguaE5s1eG2kX98x9r-ba5HdZBUgID0Ig9i-dg/edit?usp=sharing

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Transcript

In January of 1973, the musical act Sylvester and the Hot Band would release their first album to little fanfare. However, that lack of commercial success would not stop their lead singer Sylvester James Jr., known better as Sylvester, from going on to become a disco icon of the late 1970s. While most people's image of the disco era might look a lot like Saturday Night Fever, the reality of disco was a far cry from anything John Travolta did in his polyester pantsuit. 

The late 60s had been a time of great social upheaval in the United States, and the idea of personal freedom and sexual liberation was on many people's minds and in many people's hips. The underground clubbing scene boomed, and unsurprisingly, in these spaces where queer, black, Latino, and gender diverse people could express themselves freely, new musical modes of expression were also being developed. Disc jockeys sought out sounds that energized dancers and seamlessly played into each other, removing the break in dancing that would come when one record was pulled off the turntable and another was placed onto it. R&B songs, especially with hi-hats and heavy basslines, were mixed by DJs to the delight of dancers. And it was unquestionably a delight. 

The disco offered its community of marginalized peoples a form of escape. As Richard Dyer puts it in his piece "In defense of disco," for many the disco was a flight away from the banality of everyday life, including its racism, sexism, and homophobia. Patrons of the clubs could cut loose and express themselves freely surrounded in the sound of music by artists like Sylvester. A Black, gay Angeleno who enchanted audiences with his flying falsetto and androgynous fashion, Sylvester released his first disco album in 1977 and broke onto the charts in 1978 with his hit song, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Originally written by James Wirrick as a mid-tempo gospel song with traditional instrumentals but re-recorded by Sylvester and his band as an up-tempo disco anthem with synth backing, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” swept the disco clubs. Sylvester was the first disco singer that represented that “realness” of the underground scene to break into the mainstream, becoming friends with Harvey Milk and earning him the nickname “The Queen of Disco.” 

Despite the success of acts like Sylvester, Donna Summer, and Chic, it would be unfair to paint disco as a utopia - every scene has its struggles, and disco was no different. Not to mention, the more popular it became, the more it moved away from its roots within marginalized communities. The trickle of disco in the mainstream music landscape had started, and it was into this growing awareness that the film Saturday Night Fever was released in December of 1977.

The reaction to the film amongst lovers of disco was split. While some loved the film and the increased awareness that it brought to disco, others were put off by the centering of a straight white male protagonist in a scene that had historically been predominantly black, queer, and gender diverse. Others still criticize the way that disco itself was portrayed, with regimented dances that hardly represented the free spirit that so many were drawn to disco for. No matter the criticisms from those within the scene, the movie, and its soundtrack by the Bee Gees, exploded in popular culture and brought millions of new fans to disco.

This boom in the popularity of disco would not go unnoticed by the record companies who began pushing non-Disco acts to put out a disco album or at least a couple songs so that they would get play on the radio and in the clubs. 

And the role of the clubs in the proliferation of disco truly can not be overstated. There were of course the discotheque but clubs that previously had been standard issue dance halls also became disco clubs as disco fever spread across the nation. And that disco fever reached people of all backgrounds, racial, political, and even economic.

Private clubs like Studio 54, which served wealthy clientele like Roy Cohn, Donald Trump, Andy Warhol, and Cher, and was infamous for its hundreds strong line outside the door waiting to get in every night of the week, became synonymous in the mainstream with disco culture, incepting planting at once an image of both moral decay and cloying elitism. 

And so this dual image of disco as both the queer, Black, and female dominated underground musical art form and the white, elitist, capitalistic cash grab consuming the radios and the clubs gave birth to a brutal backlash, primarily amongst conservatives and white fans of rock and roll. This backlash would culminate in Disco Demolition Night, an event held at Comiskey Park in Chicago where radio DJ Steve Dahl invited people to bring disco records that would be taken onto the field and blown up in a very safe expression of pyrotechnics, of course. In practice, fans brought any records that had a black person on the cover, regardless of whether they were disco or not, and what was advertised as a fun family-friendly event turned into a riot on the field. 

The news coverage of the event was not kind to its musical victims, calling it the death of disco. In reality, it was simply a flashy spectacle that was indicative of a much larger turn away from disco happening in the mainstream culture as record labels stopped promoting disco albums and clubs began to turn away from the use of disco records and their associated disc jockeys. 

But did disco really die that night? As so often happens with other musical forms that peak and then crash, disco didn't so much die as it did transform. From the ashes of disco came the next dance music trend - in fact, from the very same city that "killed" disco. House music was born in the 80's in Chicago, and soon the reincarnation of disco would make it to dance floors across the United States and eventually the world.