On 2002-06-24 14:42, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
I picked up a book that was written in 1975 called "Forbidden Flowers" by Nancy Friday.

It seemed those Boomer women were all into their "Earth" man and mescaline and having sex in the mud.

Can someone tell me the difference between late wave Boomers (late 50s) and first wave (1940s) they seem very similar.

I mean what really is the difference between being 17 in 1969 vs. 1975?

Hmmm...I don't recall rolling around in any mud or smoking any mescaline or peyote! More likely to be in a waterbed with some warm beer 'n' street weed. :smile: Instead of The Doors or Jimi Hendrix, Al Green or KC and the Sunshine Band was more likely to be playing. I hate to break it to you, but by the time 1958 cohorts like me were 17 in 1975, the hippie fun times were already pretty much over. It was sort of like coming to a party after everyone's gone home and finding nothing left but the trash and a few drunken stragglers. True, we didn't have AIDS to worry about (ignorance is bliss), and STDs were still called VD, but there was herpes and of course the ever-present risk of pregnancy and gonorrhea. You didn't talk about the dreaded L word and God forbid you even mention the M word! Unlike with idealistic earlier Boomers, sex wasn't a spiritual or emotionally uplifting thing to bring you closer to God or humanity either. In the mid-late 70s, sex was regarded mainly as a sport, and the more playing partners you could get, the more "with-it" you were. But beyond that, just about anything was respectable or at least acceptable in those days. There seemed to be no taboos. We are much more repressed today.

I think sex for first wave Boomers was much more beautiful, idealistic, and even innocent. 60s flower children thought they could change the world, and sex was another expression of their idealistic dreams. I've always envied them for that. We had to be harder and more mercenary. For us, the physical exploration dimension of sexuality remained, but not the spiritual and emotional dimension. And if those things mattered to you as an individual, you didn't talk about it. You didn't share it.
For both sexes, it was all about scoring.

I guess late Boomers may differ from Xers in that they might have a residual idealism that they hesitate to express in all matters, including sexual. They "jones" for something more meaningful and less mundane, but unlike early Boomers, don't expect it to materialize, at least not for them. Xers desire meaning too, but too often have never realized there's anything but the mundane.

It's sad.


_________________
All of life is an illusion. The only reality is how you interpret the illusion.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-24 17:34 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-24 18:07 ]</font>

A Plea for a bit of Progressive privacy/prejudice by Mr. Philip Hensher in the 25 June 2002 number of the Independent (UK).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-06-24 20:03 ]</font>

I am guessing that, in other parts of the country, women get used to thinking of David Robinson-type larger-than-life-gods as the model of a man who is fit, while the men they see in the office look more like Dilbert. Just a theory. :wink:

DILBERT?!?!?!!!?
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Oh man. I knew I should spend more time in the gym, but frikin' Dilbert????

:lol:

Thanks for the chuckles Nei, much needed :smile:

_________________
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Earthshine on 2002-06-24 21:35 ]</font>

On 2002-06-24 20:02, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
A Plea for a bit of Progressive privacy/prejudice by Mr. Philip Hensher in the 25 June 2002 number of the Independent (UK).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-06-24 20:03 ]</font>

Seems reasonable.

On 2002-06-24 17:26, Heliotrope wrote:

Hmmm...I don't recall rolling around in any mud or smoking any mescaline or peyote! More likely to be in a waterbed with some warm beer 'n' street weed. :smile: Instead of The Doors or Jimi Hendrix, Al Green or KC and the Sunshine Band was more likely to be playing. I hate to break it to you, but by the time 1958 cohorts like me were 17 in 1975, the hippie fun times were already pretty much over. It was sort of like coming to a party after everyone's gone home and finding nothing left but the trash and a few drunken stragglers. True, we didn't have AIDS to worry about (ignorance is bliss), and STDs were still called VD, but there was herpes and of course the ever-present risk of pregnancy and gonorrhea. You didn't talk about the dreaded L word and God forbid you even mention the M word! Unlike with idealistic earlier Boomers, sex wasn't a spiritual or emotionally uplifting thing to bring you closer to God or humanity either. In the mid-late 70s, sex was regarded mainly as a sport, and the more playing partners you could get, the more "with-it" you were. But beyond that, just about anything was respectable or at least acceptable in those days. There seemed to be no taboos. We are much more repressed today.

With reason.

I think sex for first wave Boomers was much more beautiful, idealistic, and even innocent. 60s flower children thought they could change the world, and sex was another expression of their idealistic dreams. I've always envied them for that.

A good case can be made that AIDS was a nearly direct result of the easy sexual climate of the Awakening. One plausible theory of disease holds that parasites/pathogens tend to be as 'nasty as they can be'.

If a pathogen is too virulent, it kills the host before it can spread, and the tendency toward extreme virulence dies out. OTOH, it pays off for a pathogen to be as ferociously nasty as is compatible with successful reproduction and spreading.

Thus, if sexual behavior suddenly loosens, and more avenues of infection are available (and every mating is such an opportunity), a sexually-transmitted pathogen that is nastier suddenly has a competitive advantage, and begins to outcompete the slower, more benign varieties.

If sexual behavior becomes stricter, more monogamous, then the opportunity to spread reduces and the slower strains tend to outcompete that nastier ones, which kill their hosts before they can spread.

If this theory is accurate, any increase in sexual freedom of the sort seen in the sixties/seventies tends to have the side-effect of making STDs both more common and more powerful, since the more virulent strains suddenly are more competitive.

{It applies to non-sexually transmitted diseases as well. The easier it is to spread, the nastier the disease tends to become individually, other things being equal.)

On 2002-06-24 21:34, Earthshine wrote:

I am guessing that, in other parts of the country, women get used to thinking of David Robinson-type larger-than-life-gods as the model of a man who is fit, while the men they see in the office look more like Dilbert. Just a theory. :wink:

DILBERT?!?!?!!!?
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Oh man. I knew I should spend more time in the gym, but frikin' Dilbert????

:lol:

Thanks for the chuckles Nei, much needed :smile:

_________________
"I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Earthshine on 2002-06-24 21:35 ]</font>

We guys need more of those Dilbert-type guys; makes us look MUCH hotter by comparison

I wasn't alive in 1975. But in the film Jaws which was filmed either in '75 or '74 one can witness the way youth are represented in the opening moments, sitting around a campifire on a beach playing harmonica and smoking grass. It doesn't really seem all too different from what came before.

The peak of narcissism and sexual awakening seems not to have been in the late 60s (and "Flower Children" were a very small minority, and they obviously didn't STAY Flower Children or age into midlifers by 1977. Many of them were doing the same scoring the late 50s cohorts were doing) but in 1977.
A film that captures the Awakening to me isn't Hard Days Night from 1965, but Taxi Driver from 1976.

As for the fun being over, how come so many Xers were living on ashrams or communes well into the early 80s?

For the sake of your argument a class of 1973er once said that "the class of 70 rocked, the class of 71 was ok, and after the class of 72 it was ALL downhill!"

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahum Prentiss on 2002-06-24 22:04 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahum Prentiss on 2002-06-24 22:07 ]</font>

On 2002-06-24 17:26, Heliotrope wrote:
I hate to break it to you, but by the time 1958 cohorts like me were 17 in 1975, the hippie fun times were already pretty much over. It was sort of like coming to a party after everyone's gone home and finding nothing left but the trash and a few drunken stragglers....STDs were still called VD, but there was herpes and of course the ever-present risk of pregnancy and gonorrhea.

Herpes...in 1975? I'd never even heard of it -- the genital variety, that is-- until late 1978, during my sophomore year of college. I still remember the numerous but brief reports on the six o'clock news, about this "new and improved" kind of VD that had no cure and lasted for life, that people were supposedly picking up during all those disco one-night-stands. I remember thinking "finally, these promiscuous Boomer bastards are getting their just desserts!", but still the disease seemed more urban legend than real even by the early '80s. It wasn't until 1989 or so that I actually met a real live person that admitted to having it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2002-06-25 10:36 ]</font>

Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

On 2002-06-25 13:07, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

What's your point?

On 2002-06-25 13:07, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

Raised in a bubble, Justin? Perhaps.

In 1978 I was 18 years old, and when your father's a lawyer, fake ID is simply not an option :smile:. By the time I was old enough to enter a disco (the drinking age in California was 21, even then), it was 1981 and disco was....well... no longer disco, since the entire craze had pretty much died down. I did go to a lot of college dances in the 1978-84 period, but since there was no alcohol allowed, there were far fewer people picking each other up.

Besides, you may recall from other posts that I have always been the one-woman man looking (in vain, as it turned out) for a fairy-tale romance. Why on earth, even if there were no incurable VDs to worry about, would I have wished to take part in such lecherous an activity as sex-for-sport, rampant in the circa-1979 discos as I understand? Such runs contrary to my deepest, most personal values. As a Klingon might say, there is no honor in it.

On 2002-06-25 15:52, Heliotrope wrote:

On 2002-06-25 13:07, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

What's your point?

The point was, what party was so dirty and spoiled by the time you got to it?
By all accounts even the hippies were all strung out on coke or heroin by 1971. Was the party still roaring then?
I am just trying to figure out how you can claim that you weren't adults of this time period.
I mean take myself. I never went top any raves or dropped Ecstasy, but a swelling number of my peers did, and while it doesn't match my experience, when I am talking about age groups on this board I'll have to say, yes, many of the people in my age group were into taking Ecstasy and going to raves.

I mean I could impost that I was all clean cut and civic (which compared to many of my peers I am) but that wouldn't be the whole story would it?

This point is extended to Kevin because he singled out disco goers as being a different generation than him, but I am wondering how he can say that if many were probably the same age.

I mean many AIDS casualties were not just "Older BOOMER scum" but people like Keith Haring (b 1958).



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahum Prentiss on 2002-06-25 18:35 ]</font>

On 2002-06-25 18:33, Nahum Prentiss wrote:

On 2002-06-25 15:52, Heliotrope wrote:

On 2002-06-25 13:07, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

What's your point?

The point was, what party was so dirty and spoiled by the time you got to it?
By all accounts even the hippies were all strung out on coke or heroin by 1971. Was the party still roaring then?
I am just trying to figure out how you can claim that you weren't adults of this time period.
I mean take myself. I never went top any raves or dropped Ecstasy, but a swelling number of my peers did, and while it doesn't match my experience, when I am talking about age groups on this board I'll have to say, yes, many of the people in my age group were into taking Ecstasy and going to raves.

I mean I could impost that I was all clean cut and civic (which compared to many of my peers I am) but that wouldn't be the whole story would it?

This point is extended to Kevin because he singled out disco goers as being a different generation than him, but I am wondering how he can say that if many were probably the same age.

I mean many AIDS casualties were not just "Older BOOMER scum" but people like Keith Haring (b 1958).



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahum Prentiss on 2002-06-25 18:35 ]</font>

Okay, okay. Now I think I understand what you're asking. 1977-1979 *were* the prime disco years, it's true. And yes, age 18-21 *is* an adult, technically. But most hardcore disco goers and coke users were over 25. Think about it--you had to have money to afford cocaine and disco admissions (not to mention the fancy clothes), and few people under 25 who were not being subsidized by wealthy parents or their own celebrity (think Tatum O'Neal or Brooke Shields here, both Xers btw), could afford the disco lifestyle. It's true that some late Boomers who could afford it were into the whole disco-and-cocaine thing (and even some first wave Xers for that matter), I am not denyng that, but I wouldn't say it was the majority of us, certainly not myself. Most of the people I knew who were really into that scene were older than me--in their mid-20s or older. All the people I knew in the NY area at the time were poor and struggling...and therefore more likely to be attracted to the new wave and punk scene going on at the time (though I confess that I was a closet disco lover :smile: ) I appreciate disco a lot more today than I ever used to, maybe because today I can appreciate it for its music, which is a lot better than people wanted to admit, rather than assocaiting it with some "lifestyle."

But I digress.
I guess in another way the disco-and-coke thing for tail end Boomers is sort of analogous to the rave-and-ecstasy thing for tail end Xers like yourself. Just because it's associated with your generation doesn't mean you're into that yourself or even that most late Xers are. Also, like the disco lifestyle, it requires money, though perhaps not as much.

The trouble with labels, generational or otherwise, is that while they simplify things and to some extent make people easier to understand, they also make assumptions and generalizations that while may be true in a general sense, are not necessarily true for individuals.

I have a question for you though Justin. It seems to me from what you wrote that you think you understand what the late-70s experience for late Boomers was like, but how could this be possible when you were either an unfertilized egg, cooking in the oven, or messing in your diapers at the time? What late Boomers do you know (of normal young-adult income) who were really into the disco, coke, and party scene of the 70s? Most of us were barely adults, just trying to get by the best we could and envying the proto-yuppies and ex-hippies who seemed to have all the real fun and had already taken all the good jobs. All we were doing was picking up a few of the droppings and trying to get by the best we could.
Then again, maybe you are not claiming to know what it was really like, but just trying to understand.


_________________
All of life is an illusion. The only reality is how you interpret the illusion.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-25 19:39 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-25 20:11 ]</font>

On 2002-06-25 18:33, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
...This point is extended to Kevin because he singled out disco goers as being a different generation than him, but I am wondering how he can say that if many were probably the same age.

Actually i never singled out disco goers as being a different gen than myself. Susan is right that most of the hard core discoers were about 10 years older than us, but still Boomers nevertheless. I happen to despise what the older members of my generation did, fucking up everything for my cohort and the Xers who followed.

On 2002-06-25 19:33, Heliotrope wrote:

On 2002-06-25 18:33, Nahum Prentiss wrote:

On 2002-06-25 15:52, Heliotrope wrote:

On 2002-06-25 13:07, Nahum Prentiss wrote:
Kevin, Helio,
Were you raised in a bubble? By all math possible in the summers of 1977, 78, or 79, you were in your very late teens and early 20s.
That seems prime disco age to me.

What's your point?

The point was, what party was so dirty and spoiled by the time you got to it?
By all accounts even the hippies were all strung out on coke or heroin by 1971. Was the party still roaring then?
I am just trying to figure out how you can claim that you weren't adults of this time period.
I mean take myself. I never went top any raves or dropped Ecstasy, but a swelling number of my peers did, and while it doesn't match my experience, when I am talking about age groups on this board I'll have to say, yes, many of the people in my age group were into taking Ecstasy and going to raves.

I mean I could impost that I was all clean cut and civic (which compared to many of my peers I am) but that wouldn't be the whole story would it?

This point is extended to Kevin because he singled out disco goers as being a different generation than him, but I am wondering how he can say that if many were probably the same age.

I mean many AIDS casualties were not just "Older BOOMER scum" but people like Keith Haring (b 1958).



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahum Prentiss on 2002-06-25 18:35 ]</font>

Okay, okay. Now I think I understand what you're asking. 1977-1979 *were* the prime disco years, it's true. And yes, age 18-21 *is* an adult, technically. But most hardcore disco goers and coke users were over 25. Think about it--you had to have money to afford cocaine and disco admissions (not to mention the fancy clothes), and few people under 25 who were not being subsidized by wealthy parents or their own celebrity (think Tatum O'Neal or Brooke Shields here, both Xers btw), could afford the disco lifestyle. It's true that some late Boomers who could afford it were into the whole disco-and-cocaine thing (and even some first wave Xers for that matter), I am not denyng that, but I wouldn't say it was the majority of us, certainly not myself. Most of the people I knew who were really into that scene were older than me--in their mid-20s or older. All the people I knew in the NY area at the time were poor and struggling...and therefore more likely to be attracted to the new wave and punk scene going on at the time (though I confess that I was a closet disco lover :smile: ) I appreciate disco a lot more today than I ever used to, maybe because today I can appreciate it for its music, which is a lot better than people wanted to admit, rather than assocaiting it with some "lifestyle."

But I digress.
I guess in another way the disco-and-coke thing for tail end Boomers is sort of analogous to the rave-and-ecstasy thing for tail end Xers like yourself. Just because it's associated with your generation doesn't mean you're into that yourself or even that most late Xers are. Also, like the disco lifestyle, it requires money, though perhaps not as much.

The trouble with labels, generational or otherwise, is that while they simplify things and to some extent make people easier to understand, they also make assumptions and generalizations that while may be true in a general sense, are not necessarily true for individuals.

I have a question for you though Justin. It seems to me from what you wrote that you think you understand what the late-70s experience for late Boomers was like, but how could this be possible when you were either an unfertilized egg, cooking in the oven, or messing in your diapers at the time? What late Boomers do you know (of normal young-adult income) who were really into the disco, coke, and party scene of the 70s? Most of us were barely adults, just trying to get by the best we could and envying the proto-yuppies and ex-hippies who seemed to have all the real fun and had already taken all the good jobs. All we were doing was picking up a few of the droppings and trying to get by the best we could.
Then again, maybe you are not claiming to know what it was really like, but just trying to understand.


_________________
All of life is an illusion. The only reality is how you interpret the illusion.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-25 19:39 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-25 20:11 ]</font>

This board is funny as to what are the archtypal thinsg to say and when they are being employed. So smart.

On 2002-06-25 10:31, Kevin Parker '59 wrote:

On 2002-06-24 17:26, Heliotrope wrote:
I hate to break it to you, but by the time 1958 cohorts like me were 17 in 1975, the hippie fun times were already pretty much over. It was sort of like coming to a party after everyone's gone home and finding nothing left but the trash and a few drunken stragglers....STDs were still called VD, but there was herpes and of course the ever-present risk of pregnancy and gonorrhea.

Herpes...in 1975? I'd never even heard of it -- the genital variety, that is-- until late 1978, during my sophomore year of college. I still remember the numerous but brief reports on the six o'clock news, about this "new and improved" kind of VD that had no cure and lasted for life, that people were supposedly picking up during all those disco one-night-stands. I remember thinking "finally, these promiscuous Boomer bastards are getting their just desserts!", but still the disease seemed more urban legend than real even by the early '80s. It wasn't until 1989 or so that I actually met a real live person that admitted to having it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2002-06-25 10:36 ]</font>

I remember that, from a different POV. I was still in late grade school in 1979, and I recall that herpes was THE big STD at the time, though even the term 'STD' was not yet heard much. It looked as if it were primed to become a major public health concern until AIDS suddenly threw into the background.

Of course, there was something about the seventies that seemed to have diseases on people's minds. Anybody else recall an element of public nervousness over Legionaire's Disease?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-06-25 22:26 ]</font>

This board is funny as to what are the archtypal thinsg to say and when they are being employed. So smart.

Huh?

[quote]
On 2002-06-26 04:38, Heliotrope wrote:

This board is funny as to what are the archtypal thinsg to say and when they are being employed. So smart.

Explain what you mean.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Heliotrope on 2002-06-26 04:46 ]</font>

On 2002-06-25 22:25, HopefulCynic68 wrote:
Of course, there was something about the seventies that seemed to have diseases on people's minds. Anybody else recall an element of public nervousness over Legionaire's Disease?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-06-25 22:26 ]</font>

And don't forget the Swine flu! :lol:

On 2002-06-25 19:33, Heliotrope wrote:

The trouble with labels, generational or otherwise, is that while they simplify things and to some extent make people easier to understand, they also make assumptions and generalizations that while may be true in a general sense, are not necessarily true for individuals.

I have a question for you though Justin. It seems to me from what you wrote that you think you understand what the late-70s experience for late Boomers was like, but how could this be possible when you were either an unfertilized egg, cooking in the oven, or messing in your diapers at the time? What late Boomers do you know (of normal young-adult income) who were really into the disco, coke, and party scene of the 70s? Most of us were barely adults, just trying to get by the best we could and envying the proto-yuppies and ex-hippies who seemed to have all the real fun and had already taken all the good jobs. All we were doing was picking up a few of the droppings and trying to get by the best we could.
Then again, maybe you are not claiming to know what it was really like, but just trying to understand.

In Michigan, the drinking age was 18 until 1978 when it was raised back to 21. Hence any late boomer/early Xer wasn't really a part of the bar/club scene. We couldn't get in. By the time I could in late 1983, the party was over. In fact, Disco died in 1979/80 when I was a senior in HS but that is the early Xer view. The Class of 1978, last yr boomer class, may have been allowed to get a brief glimpse of the club scene when it was suddendly closed shut on them due to the law change.

In regards to generalizations about generations, I think that the generalizations are great when we are looking at a group of people but not so great when we look at the individuals. All individuals won't necessarily exhibit the same features of their generation that is why I abhor these labels Generation Jones or Gen Y is that we are trying to label a group of people as a different generation because they don't exhibit what someone feels is the main focus of a generation. I think that we should look at how the individual fits in with his age cohorts and how he is similar but to narrow it down to "well X is not Gen X because he is not cynical enough" is a silly assesment of a person. He may be more Xer in other ways than a dude who is totally cynical. He may be into Xtreme sports or jumps jobs a lot due to a perceived notion of getting nowhere. We just don't know unless we examine each individual in a generation and that is not likely. We can only look at a sampling from our own experience or others.

Hey, this has turned into the Generational Boundaries thread!
Let's get that one going again.

On 2002-06-26 17:18, wrstrutts wrote:

In fact, Disco died in 1979/80 when I was a senior in HS but that is the early Xer view.

It's my view too, as a last-wave Boomer. The entire disco movement peaked in the Spring of 1979 with "YMCA", "I Will Survive" and "We Are Family", and it was positively unreal the way disco suddenly fizzled practically overnight. Summer '79 saw the return of classic rock in The Knack's "My Sharona" and classic R&B with Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough". Both songs reached #1 Top 40 almost as soon as they were released, both had a nominal "disco-ish" beat but were otherwise undiscolike in both their performance and orchestration.

And from then on it was all downhill fast, as pop music reverted back to its pre-1978 paradigm. The remaining disco songs in the pipeline were released during the 1979-80 school year -- think "Sexy Eyes" by Dr. Hook and Lipps, Inc.'s "Funkytown"-- but by summer vacation disco was pretty much a done deal. There were still college dances of course, and even many of the discos themselves were still open. But the disco craze, with its attendant fashion-sex-coke subculture, was R.I.P. by the summer of 1980. By then, the pro-rock "Disco SUCKS!!!" backlash was in full swing.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2002-06-26 20:59 ]</font>

Kevin and Will, I think you've got the end boundary nailed down for the "disco era." That's pretty much how I remember that time, too.

How about disco's beginning? I'd put it as far back as the summer of 1975, when the Bee Gees released "Jive Talking." I sensed there was something new about that song; it was more about the rhythm than the lyrics. It was the song that sent the Bee Gees on the way to writing the most memorable tunes from Saturday Night Fever.

On 2002-06-27 07:13, Kiff '61 wrote:
Kevin and Will, I think you've got the end boundary nailed down for the "disco era." That's pretty much how I remember that time, too.

How about disco's beginning? I'd put it as far back as the summer of 1975, when the Bee Gees released "Jive Talking." I sensed there was something new about that song; it was more about the rhythm than the lyrics. It was the song that sent the Bee Gees on the way to writing the most memorable tunes from Saturday Night Fever.

Believe it or not, "Jive Talkin'" was the Brothers Gibb's comeback song-- they'd been off the charts for three years, since Summer 1972's "Run To Me", and could have very well disappeared entirely if not for the success of "Jive Talkin'"

But I digress from the point I intended to make. While I'd agree, Kiff, that "JT" and its follow-ups hits "Nights on Broadway" and "Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)" definitely set the stage for "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever" and "How Deep Is Your Love" respectively, I'd actually put the genesis of disco back still further. Examples: Van McCoy's Spring 1975 hit "The Hustle" is widely regarded as the first bonafide disco song to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the namesake dance it inspired was still being widely perfomed at disco's peak, 4 years later). Going back even further, the first disco-style 12-inch vinyl record was Gloria Gaynor's upbeat, danceable 1974 remake of "Never Can Say Goodbye".

Earlier still: in 1973, Gilbert O'Sullivan (of "Alone Again (Naturally)" fame) had a quirky summer hit called "Get Down" which featured a driving, steady, very disco-like beat that was quite unusual for pop radio at the time. The end of that same year saw those quintessential discomeisters, none other than K.C. & The Sunshine Band, with their first club hit "Blow Your Whistle". Meanwhile, Barry White was practically inventing what later became a disco hallmark--soaring, ethereal, high-register string arrangements-- with his vocal hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" and instrumental "Love's Theme".

So, I'd say that disco began at least as far back as 1973, although it took a couple of years to be recognized as such, and another 2-3 years still before steamrolling into the juggernaut it finally became. It is, however, a bit harder to pin down just when its seamy underbelly of easy sex and drugs began, since I wasn't a part of it.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2002-06-27 16:40 ]</font>

Disco is still alive and well, except now it's called "dance music". It's the same crap.