Posted On: Saturday - July 11th 2026 6:34PM MST
In Topics: Commies General Stupidity Music History China Bread and Circuses
It was forty-seven years today*
Pop music had been turnin' kinda' gay,
They stacked the vinyl in a big old pile,
and blew the Disco records half a mile.
So let me introduce to you,
a night they drank a lot of beers
It was double-header Disco Demolition night-iigght
Compared to the cRap/Hip-hop sound, which is not really music at all, the Disco music of the mid-late 1970s was heavenly. However, it'd come at a time when the very best Rock music was being played and heard. This interruption in the great music was not taken well by many people. Some of the musicians and bands had crashed and/or died, and many remained to come back a few years later, but there was a very good reason to invite the wild folks of the 1970s to Chicago White Sox's Comiskey Park for the famous Disco Demolition Night.
Yeah, this event, organized by Chicago Disc Jockey Steve Dahl, got pretty out of hand, but that was 1970s America. Look at the people. That event at Comiskey Park 47 years back was a hell of a thing, but It was probably not worth the trouble, as Disco was on the way out anyway. It only lasted about 3 years, 4 tops, depending when you consider the start of it.** Unlike, I don't know, say, Wokeness, it WAS just a fad.
Over 6 thousand miles away on the other side of the World, just 3 years earlier, China had only 3 years back exited an era of evil and turmoil that put the Disco age to shame.
The video is 50 times longer, as the mayhem in China lasted 50,000 times longer than that at Comiskey Park, with a million times more people harmed. Disco just sucked. Communism more than sucks. I'm sure the average Chinamen would have given anything to be locked in a discoteque for years rather experience 10 years of Communist Cultural Revolutionary madness.
I've been meaning to put that one up for a while - it'd doesn't particularly fit into this post, but it is unfortunately kind of timely.
Anyway, for more on that long-ago night in White Chicago, here's a longer documentary. Haha, watch that one guy slide down the foul pole! You can't get away with any of this sort of thing anymore... I mean.... unless you're a teen.
The Bee Gees, along with Donna Summer and the Village People (I think they've changed their name to the Assisted Living People) were mentioned by Steve Dahl on that hot Chicago night almost half a century ago. It turns out, before they got too associated with Disco, the Bee Gees - "Brothers Gibb (Australians Robin, Barry, and Maurice) - made some GREAT music. The following, featured on Peak Stupidity years ago, was one of my favorites from the time they were transitioning... that is from good pop to Disco. Jive Talking was a precursor and had a better melody and sound than most Disco songs. Enjoy - have a nice Sunday, Peakers.
(The graphic here shows the infamous Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack, but the Bee Gees released this song in 1975 off their album Main Course.)
* ... actually tomorrow, but in Iceland, yeah, see?
** As for the end of that musical era, it was pretty clear to me one night. I heard Tom Petty's Refugee and Pat Beaneater's Heartbreaker one night on the radio - this was sometime in 1979. It didn't have to be the best like Led Zeppelin or Skynyrd, but "Wow! They're playing Rock on the radio again!"
Comments:
Moderator
Sunday - July 12th 2026 3:00PM MST
PS: Thanks for the comment, you two.
M, I imagine the change in format from rock to disco threw a number of DJs out of work. You would have been considered a big "sell out" if you went along with it.
All of this would be unfathomable if even understandable at all to anyone under 50. "What's a DJ?" "That'd be a Disc Jockey?" "What's a Disc Jockey?" "A guy that worked at a radio station spinning records? "What are records, and why would you spin them? Oh, and at a what?" "Radio station."
M, I imagine the change in format from rock to disco threw a number of DJs out of work. You would have been considered a big "sell out" if you went along with it.
All of this would be unfathomable if even understandable at all to anyone under 50. "What's a DJ?" "That'd be a Disc Jockey?" "What's a Disc Jockey?" "A guy that worked at a radio station spinning records? "What are records, and why would you spin them? Oh, and at a what?" "Radio station."
M
Sunday - July 12th 2026 6:56AM MST
PS
Gah, no edit function.
The ideal point to make fun of something is after it's peaked (you don't want to make more fans) but before it's died (what's disco?)
Gah, no edit function.
The ideal point to make fun of something is after it's peaked (you don't want to make more fans) but before it's died (what's disco?)
The Alarmist
Sunday - July 12th 2026 6:54AM MST
PS
In my last year at university, I spun records at a disco … I think of warmly of disco from time to time, because my sister-in-law’s parents apparently met at the disco on a night I was DJ (my brother’s current wife is 17 years younger than he, if you catch my drift). Who knows, without me, the magic might not have happened.
Anyway, when I think of disco, I think of this gem by Zappa, which was immediately followed on Sheik Yerboutti by the second linked track.
dancing fool
https://youtu.be/Kie4Iv3mdIc
Jewish princess
https://youtu.be/BJd6zcLnuBs
Enjoy your Sunday, peakers.
🕉
In my last year at university, I spun records at a disco … I think of warmly of disco from time to time, because my sister-in-law’s parents apparently met at the disco on a night I was DJ (my brother’s current wife is 17 years younger than he, if you catch my drift). Who knows, without me, the magic might not have happened.
Anyway, when I think of disco, I think of this gem by Zappa, which was immediately followed on Sheik Yerboutti by the second linked track.
dancing fool
https://youtu.be/Kie4Iv3mdIc
Jewish princess
https://youtu.be/BJd6zcLnuBs
Enjoy your Sunday, peakers.
🕉
M
Sunday - July 12th 2026 6:54AM MST
PS
"It was probably not worth the trouble, as Disco was on the way out anyway. It only lasted about 3 years, 4 tops, depending when you consider the start of it."
I can't help but think that the reason it was organized was *because* disco was on the way out. And so it was easy to make fun of.
Yeah, Dahl had a case of the *ss against disco, since it cost him a job. Which he recovered from pretty quickly, and as a consequence he ended up with some pretty lasting fame.
I won't say "everlasting", since that at the very least requires that he still be famous after he dies, and he's still living.
"It was probably not worth the trouble, as Disco was on the way out anyway. It only lasted about 3 years, 4 tops, depending when you consider the start of it."
I can't help but think that the reason it was organized was *because* disco was on the way out. And so it was easy to make fun of.
Yeah, Dahl had a case of the *ss against disco, since it cost him a job. Which he recovered from pretty quickly, and as a consequence he ended up with some pretty lasting fame.
I won't say "everlasting", since that at the very least requires that he still be famous after he dies, and he's still living.
A certain family member was a DJ long ago. Besides making money at it, he worked at the campus radio station as a volunteer. He got fired... for playing The Carpenters... not just once, but a LOT ... after they told him not to.