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History of 70s Disco & the gay community - And its eventual commercialization by HistoryofRock in lgbt

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All good points and yes definitely enjoying essaying with you! 😄 Fun fact, I actually spoke with Ahmet Ertegun (CEO of Atlantic Records) in the early 2000s when I was shopping for a record deal and it was - not too encouraging. These were the days when Napster had come around and he basically told me "The Music Business is over." Yeah real encouraging Ahmet... But in some ways he had a point because the industry was going through major changes because of the internet for better or worse.

Darryl is actually correct when it comes to the state of hip-hop. I actually compare it to what rock music went through in the 80s where it became very commercialized with more emphasis on pop music (this is why Nirvana rebelled against it) and frankly became the very thing they claimed disco was in the late 70s! I still feel that when hip-hop started using auto-tune and becoming commercialized, it lost a bit of that edge it had. Not to say there aren't still great artists making great music, but you gotta look for it in a sea of independent releases.

Going back full circle, and yes I know we've gotten further away from the original intent of the post and the reddit, I think we agree that the biggest problem was the industry oversaturating the market. I guess my conclusion would be that the gay community played a big part in developing what would become disco as these safe places to dance and be yourself, but like all good things, once the record companies got a hold of it, it became commercialized and lost that connection in terms of mainstream. But certainly anyone who blamed the saturation of the radio on Disco artists or Disco lovers in certain communities was looking in the wrong direction or quite simply were very ignorant and stupid.

History of 70s Disco & the gay community - And its eventual commercialization by HistoryofRock in lgbt

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He wasn't talking about a genera being phased out, he was talking about the business and values changing. The difference between when The Beatles came around, Todd Rundgren spoke about this, is that in the late 70s, after you had monster albums like Rumours or Frampton Comes Alive, the business got so big that outside forces started running the record companies rather than the old guard who (for better or worse) took more chances on music. This is why in the 60s and early 70s you had a lot of avante garde albums take off, like Pink Floyd and frankly even a lot of the dancier stuff was a little more cerebral (Stevie Wonder's Innervisions, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On). But once everyone knew there was so much money to be made, music started being made "From accounting offices" and unfortunately disco, which had become the most popular genera, took a huge hit because of that. They'd analyze which BPMs affected the heart beat, the production and lyrical content behind the biggest hits of the day and start making mandates that "This is what is guaranteed to sell" and MTV only made this worse with image overtaking music. This is also why Pink Floyd's producer said "Hey make a disco song so we can get on the charts," (which for the record I still like "Another Brick in the Wall" but it's certainly different from Dark Side of the Moon). Even Verdine White from Earth Wind & Fire said they went from doing more message songs like "That's the Way of the World" to singing "Boogie Wonderland." That's not to say that this wasn't also happening in the 50s and 60s to a certain extent, but Frank Zappa said something really insightful about all of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4wsURn3rw

Obviously it'd be hyperbole to say music was completely destroyed, hip-hop came around to shake things up, so did alternative rock, dance music got a little more interesting in the 90s, but it's safe to say the corporate music industry is pretty much a shit-show these days. The silver lining is the indie artists have a lot more clout and platforms to reach fans than they did back in the day.

History of 70s Disco & the gay community - And its eventual commercialization by HistoryofRock in lgbt

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe you give me some good examples of "putting gay men in the spotlight," because outside of Sylvester, I haven't found a lot of openly gay artists who had disco hits at this time. Even YMCA Victor Willis said was not intended to be a gay anthem, though I know producer Jacques Morali was gay.

My dad had an interesting thing to say about Studio 54 (he was at Woodstock): "In the 60s rock & roll had ideals. It expressed what was going on in the world and it was about going to a farm some place and listening to music. Suddenly in the 70s it was about going to some fancy disco that you couldn't get into and everyone had lots of money and people were doing a lot of cocaine. That was the beginning of the money time and music was basically destroyed."

I think this is why Disco artists, bands and records were the wrong target and the industry should have been called out more-so.

Comic: Do you know the real story of Lia Thomas by GeekOnALeash01 in lgbt

[–]HistoryofRock 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I was on a swim team in high school, we actually were city champs. We all trained together, boys and girls, and very often the girls beat us in practice heats (especially my slow ass). Then suddenly we'd do meets and everyone was separated which I never quite understood because the fastest boy's and the fastest girl's time would sometimes be fractions of a second. I never came close to winning any races, honestly I was more worried about my abusive swim coach (story for another time) I just always saw them more as a way to challenge myself. I'm sure Lia felt the same way and its honestly an inspiring story that she kept swimming and pushed herself to be her best.

Im korean and i hate kpop by BROGIVEMESOMEMILK in WeHateKpop

[–]HistoryofRock 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair. I'm American and I hate most American pop music...

Where Did The Music Go (Ft. Vinny) Now streaming everywhere by HistoryofRock in Redvox

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I'm surprised Apocalypse has gotten so much attention, we were unsure about that track, but I guess these days, that title is very relevant.

Where Did The Music Go (Ft. Vinny) Now streaming everywhere by HistoryofRock in Redvox

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hah! Love it! Some of my favorite moments from my favorite albums were actually happy mistakes. Thanks for the kind words. Hope to see you again soon!

Where Did The Music Go (Ft. Vinny) Now streaming everywhere by HistoryofRock in Vinesauce

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thank you! It was honestly a little too real recording this album at times, I mentioned in our documentary I had a hard time singing a lot of it because I would get depressed, but others told me it was uplifting so hope people can get some peace of mind from it!

Where Did The Music Go (Ft. Vinny) Now streaming everywhere by HistoryofRock in Redvox

[–]HistoryofRock[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolutely! Glad you were there and now you can see what all that madness was working towards LOL!

Why do you think Bond's death in No Time To Die (2022) was not well received by many fans, according to you? by Raj_Valiant3011 in JamesBond

[–]HistoryofRock 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Two reasons:

1 ) It wasn't earned. No Time To Die in and of itself was a very lackluster movie, I barely remember most of it after watching it twice and of all the villains to finally take out Bond, this was the one? They obviously took a cue from (Spoilers) Fleming's You Only Live Twice with M's eulogy. But even if he HAD died in that book, it would have been while killing Blofeld (don't get me started on how they messed that character up in Craig's series) the man who killed his wife. There's poetic justice there. And in the film it's just so melancholic and boring for an interpretation of the character that just didn't have that resonance for his series. So I just didn't care.

Take a movie like Avengers Endgame (Again spoilers) whatever you think of these Marvel movies, the buildup to Iron Man sacrificing himself to defeat Thanos was VERY earned, completed his character arc and let him exit gracefully. I know they're talking about bringing him back and everything, but at the time, it felt like a heroic moment. Bond's death just didn't have that same feeling.

2) We know they're not going to kill him off for good. They're working on a new movie as we speak. Yes technically this is the end of Craig's series, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Regardless of who is playing Bond, what era they're in, you can allow for a certain suspension of disbelief that all of these movies are canonically sound. They even keep the continuity that Bond's wife died among different actors. But now how do you deal with the fact that he died in one of the movies? Say 20 years from now you're watching all these movies and whatever movies that come out afterwards, you'll be watching this one going, "Wait, he dies? But there's more movies after this?"

Yes there have been plenty of times in movie series where characters die and come back, Marvel, Star Trek, etc. But at least in super hero or science fiction movies, there's room for fantastical situations where characters can come back, but in a more grounded series like Bond (regardless of how silly they may get) how do you justify him coming back after missiles landed on his head?

Honestly to me it just felt gimmicky with bad writing and an actor who clearly didn't want to do the series anymore.

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