Did the 1979 "Disco Sucks" movement affect Michael?

HIStory

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I just read about this:

Back in the summer of 1979, the Detroit rock radio DJ Steve Dahl was so aggrieved that his beloved Stones and Zeppelin were being dropped from playlists in favour of Village People, Donna Summer and Chic, that he launched his "Disco sucks!" campaign. Dahl encouraged listeners to phone in their disco requests, which he would then destroy on air with explosive sound effects. "Midwesterners didn't want that intimidating [disco] style shoved down their throats," said Dahl.
What began as on-air mischief soon snowballed into an anti-disco movement. Joined by a failed rock guitarist called Steve Veek, Dahl took "Disco sucks!" public when Veek secured the use of Comiskey Park, the home of the Chicago White Sox that was owned by his father. In July 1979, Dahl announced that anyone in possession of a disco record would receive cheap entry to the next White Sox home game.
Instead of the usual 16,000 fans, an unprecedented 59,000 turned up. Joined by baseball fans, they proceeded to storm the pitch, where they smashed and burned their Bee Gees vinyl. "They wore Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath T-shirts," writes Knopper, then a 13-year-old disco-hater "smashed bottles on the ground, smoked God knows what and chanted their almighty rallying cry: 'Disco sucks'!"
If that's not enough to turn you into a disco fan, then I don't know what is. The unspoken subtext was obvious: disco music was for homosexuals and black people. Not only that, but, as Knopper notes, in the disco era "to make it with a lady a guy had to learn how to dance. And wear a fancy suit!"
It wasn't real concerns such as the threat of war or the loss of jobs that inspired this hate-fest, but something far more malevolent ingrained in rock fans' collective psyche. What should have been harmless insurrection became a demolition rally for hard-rocking, middle American, predominantly white dudes with dubious taste. "It's incredible that rock fans would actually riot for the right to hear REO Speedwagon and Foreigner," Knopper writes.
In the short term, this disco backlash worked. Records sales bolstered by disco's glory days of 1974 to the Saturday Night Fever-fuelled high of 1978 fell by 11% in 1979, and the major US record labels began to look elsewhere for cash cows: to hard rock, new wave and power-pop fluff.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jun/18/disco-sucks

It was also mentioned in that latest Billboard article about Thriller:

If that prognosis wasn't enough to give CBS Records executives sleepless nights, one aspect of radio's fragmentation was particularly scary: Since the start of the decade, black music had been increasingly banished from most white-targeted radio stations. This was partially due the virulent, reactionary anti-disco backlash that resulted in the implosion of that genre at the end of 1979. As the 80's dawned, programmers increasingly stayed clear of rhythm-driven black music out of fear of being branded "disco," even when the black music in question bore little resemblance to disco.

http://www.billboard.com/features/m...son-s-thriller-at-30-how-one-1008031662.story



Michael's OTW was released exactly the summer of 1979 and it still was a successful album, but reading about this I wonder how much more successful it would have been if disco has not become so uncool by the time?

Is this anti-disco sentiment of the time maybe the reason why OTW was so overlooked at next year's Grammys? Is it maybe the reason that such gems as Can You Feel It and especially Heartbreak Hotel (which is IMO a genius composition) did not become more successful in the US?
 
The song, "Heart of Glass" was a disco song (beginnings of New Wave, too) in January 1979 and was pretty popular and made Deborah Harry and the group Blondie household names!


 
Interesting topic. You could be right Respect. Personally I always felt the anti disco movement had more to do with racism, a word I seldom use. Sure there were groups like the Bee Gees singing disco, but I noticed that most of the records were coming from African American artists. They were getting a lot of air play; we were dancing to their songs at the disco--all races. Disco to me changed the social/entertainment dynamic in that "Friday Nights" became more than simple going to the club to dance. With disco, "Friday nights" became a craze--there were dance competitions, and your attire down to your shoes, had to be appropriate. No jeans and sneakers. To me, no other music going on at that time caused this type of social change in the clubs.

Such a climate would cause some negative feelings from mainstream rock who had always felt that they should be the lead music in the country. When Michael did Off The Wall, disco was out the door, and I think he knew it which is why Off The Wall is not a "heavy" disco album. Some may find that album to be a disco album, but to me in that album he tried to experiment with different sounds, because he knew a straight disco sound was not the way to go anymore. I remember in his book, Michael commented that the J5 were becoming an oldie group and he was still a teen. This shows that he was always thinking ahead to get new sounds and try to stay ahead of the fads. I hope my ramble makes sense.
 
The song, "Heart of Glass" was a disco song (beginnings of New Wave, too) in January 1979 and was pretty popular and made Deborah Harry and the group Blondie household names!



The Disco Demoliton Night which marked the beginning of the Disco Sucks! "movement" was in July 1979. OTW was released in August.
 
Interesting topic. You could be right Respect. Personally I always felt the anti disco movement had more to do with racism, a word I seldom use. Sure there were groups like the Bee Gees singing disco, but I noticed that most of the records were coming from African American artists. They were getting a lot of air play; we were dancing to their songs at the disco--all races. Disco to me changed the social/entertainment dynamic in that "Friday Nights" became more than simple going to the club to dance. With disco, "Friday nights" became a craze--there were dance competitions, and your attire down to your shoes, had to be appropriate. No jeans and sneakers. To me, no other music going on at that time caused this type of social change in the clubs.

Such a climate would cause some negative feelings from mainstream rock who had always felt that they should be the lead music in the country. When Michael did Off The Wall, disco was out the door, and I think he knew it which is why Off The Wall is not a "heavy" disco album. Some may find that album to be a disco album, but to me in that album he tried to experiment with different sounds, because he knew a straight disco sound was not the way to go anymore. I remember in his book, Michael commented that the J5 were becoming an oldie group and he was still a teen. This shows that he was always thinking ahead to get new sounds and try to stay ahead of the fads. I hope my ramble makes sense.

I was a baby at the time and I'm not American, so I'm just starting to get familiar with the mood and atmosphere at the time. My interest in it was raised by that Billboard article, which I found pretty interesting in terms of giving a cultural context for Thriller and why it was such a significant album culturally, socially.

Yeah, many say that there was an underlying racism, sexism and homphobia behind the "Disco Sucks!" movement since disco music was usually associated with black people and women and gay people also tended to prefer it to rock. Also there were a lot more female performers in disco. While rock was rather a "white males' music". But last night I have also read some rock forums where there was talk about the subject and based on that I think it's simplicistic and probably unfair to think that all those guys went out there with a racist agenda. Their POV is that disco was everywhere at the time, you just couldn't escape it and for those who did not like it it became too much. Also to date and pick up women guys had to go out to clubs and dance, and for these white kids who weren't into dancing or couldn't dance the whole thing became threatening as they started to feel socially left out.

You are right though that OTW did not irritate them that much as other disco records. In fact, on those rock forums OTW is often brought up as an example for a good disco record (one even called it brilliant). Quality music is quality music, no matter what genre - and anyone who is not fanatically biased against a style can see that. You are also right that OTW doesn't sound like a Bee Gees record or anything that was popular disco music at the time. It was more R&B, soul and even jazz than those.

On the other hand, according to the facts cited by the Billboard article the "Disco Sucks" movement did set back black music in general, not just disco music, and many radios and also MTV at the beginning refused to play black music in fear of being labelled "disco". Apparently for those people any rhythm-centered dancable music was "disco" even if it was not. So even if not everyone who supported it had a racist agenda, eventually it did result in artificially establishing "white hegemony" for a while in pop culture. That is until Thriller came along.

Here is a video of that "Disco Demolition Night"

 
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I've said it before i'll say it again, rock music fans are the snobbiest most pretentious of all music fans. Obviously not everyone etc and i don't like making generalizations, but for most of them this is the case, certainly in my experience. Most of their music is so poor anyway, it's just insecurity talking through actions. The whole concept of it feeds self obsession over imagery and lifestyle, i try and stay away from all that attitude, it's just pathetic.

I don't think it's to do with racism at all, i think it's more the fact they just think they're better than everyone else and they live the correct way to live.
 
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Respect you know I admire you greatly and think you have a brilliant mind, but for me the basic problem was racism and I do not consider it simplistic after doing some serious graduate clases on ethnic/cultural studies even in music. It was the first time that, this specific segment of the population that we are talking about was making such an impact culturally in the music world. I have heard the excuses about guys having to go to clubs to find dates and they could not dance/disco spoiled music, etc. That is all excuses thought up by a certain segment of the population, vocalized, and copied by others. What was to prevent the guys who could not dance from going to the club and ask a girl to dance once, then take her to a corner to get to know her, or go outside where it is quiet, or buy her a drink rather than dance, or exchange numbers, which is what I saw in the clubs and still continues among guys who cannot dance. Further, the majority of people have never met their mates at clubs, so that argument about the guys who could not dance is laughable.

Now that I am older I go to the bar where there is music. The same things happen: either a guy comes up to buy you a drink/ask for your number/scream at you because the music is loud/walk you to the sidewalk to talk quietly and the new ones--ask for your facebook page/ask you if you text. All these things happen to me, so what prevented guys from doing this before, minus the facebook/text part?

Of course I understand some will not like disco; some can't sing that way; but when they is a campaign against music people can't sing or do not like something is wrong with the picture. Many people cannot sing country or do not like it, and I do not see any big campaign to stop it. Of course some might say that country and western did not take over the music scene, but anyway it is a form of music that many people find annoying.

Multimate I agree that many rock lovers feel this is the mainstream music. I also find this elitist attitude among some who love classical music, even though I love classical music too. Many people listen to only classical and find other forms of music inferior and I have heard them say so.
 
I've said it before i'll say it again, rock music fans are the snobbiest most pretentious of all music fans. Obviously not everyone etc and i don't like making generalizations, but for most of them this is the case, certainly in my experience. Most of their music is so poor anyway, it's just insecurity talking through actions. The whole concept of it feeds self obsession over imagery and lifestyle, i try and stay away from all that attitude, it's just pathetic.

I don't think it's to do with racism at all, i think it's more the fact they just think they're better than everyone else and they live the correct way to live.

There are folks who will approach any genre of music with an elitist attitide. Not exclusive to any genre by any means. However, you're perpetuating that same attitude by saying "Most of their music is so poor anyway."
 
There are folks who will approach any genre of music with an elitist attitide. Not exclusive to any genre by any means. However, you're perpetuating that same attitude by saying "Most of their music is so poor anyway."

I know what you're saying, but in my experience i really have found it to be by far the worst amongst rock fans.



And Petrarose, i do classical, i play in 5 orchestras (not full time), and it can be a problem, but i've found it to not be as bad as Rock, i think in classical it used to be worse in the past than it is today. I also play and love jazz, but it's really bad in Jazz the whole elitism thing. My order from my own experience of elitism is Rock, Jazz, Classical, and then everything else. Yes it might come across a bit in my own writing, but i actually understand music to a level to at least be able to create constructive arguments. I would never attack another genre unprovoked, but eventually after enough swipes you end up resorting to little jabs yourself, for which is a little silly i know. I actually don't mind rock music, it's ok imo i like some of it, it's the attitude of a lot of rock fans i've come across in the past thats caused this really, that distinction is important to make.
 
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I've said it before i'll say it again, rock music fans are the snobbiest most pretentious of all music fans. Obviously not everyone etc and i don't like making generalizations, but for most of them this is the case, certainly in my experience. Most of their music is so poor anyway, it's just insecurity talking through actions. The whole concept of it feeds self obsession over imagery and lifestyle, i try and stay away from all that attitude, it's just pathetic.

I don't think it's to do with racism at all, i think it's more the fact they just think they're better than everyone else and they live the correct way to live.

I somewhat agree with you that it wasn't about racism, but about rock fans being a bit "stuck up", and I don't mean to say all of them, but some.
Usually it is not even the bands or musicians, but fans that are stuck up. Usually there is a mutual respect between musicians, its the fans that are creating arguments over nothing:)

If there is a poll where people can vote for their favourite, for example MJ, The Beatles or Elvis, and if you read comments from rock fans, you'll see their funny sense of superiority when they talk about Elvis or The Beatles against MJ, after all The Beatles and Elvis were singing rock, and MJ just pop :smilerolleyes:


@Respect, I read it somewhere (could've been wiki?) that the reason why disco was killed because some rock fans in the radio thought it was taking money out of rock musicians:doh:
If that was the reason, they should have thought why people listened rather disco than rock, after all maybe it was because rock sucked that time:D

I hate that sort of carrying on, I want to decide myself what I want to listen, not some idiot on the radio telling that some music it not for my ears. It is/was nothing but one form of bullying and Steve Dahl (DJ who started it) has nothing to be proud off, quite opposite.
 
I didn´t know there was a disco sucks movement.

You can say this is an anti-disco song...you can read why in the lyrics
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RHoP8FWgdOE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


This rather small floor, here we are you and me, the crowds and smoke.
Oh, almost noon, in the head, it is around a murmur out light.
It's called disco, we move a little on two meters distance
Oh, é a weird game, you can hardly find each other, stop, what I want.

Hug you, Oh
(may I ask you and hug me)
Mmm, I want to hold you.
(why must it be like this)
Ooh, why é it this way.
(when I just want to hug you, answer me)

Here you stand like a fool, and bounce up and down, you see nothing.
Oh, the music's din, I try to get what I want, again.

Hug you, yes I want
(may I ask you and hug me)
Mmm, I want to hold you.
(why must it be so here)
Ooh, why é it this way.
(when I just want to hug you, answer me)

I want to hug you
(may I ask you and hug me)
ooh, I want to hold you.
(why must it be like this
Ooh, (when I just want to hug you)
I want to hug you I want to hug you
(answer me)

I just had to post Frank Zappa, I used to dance to this
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/unDWTZwaZS8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 


Diana Ross' "Upside Down" (1980).
Crossover appeal
Disco's popularity led many non-disco artists to record disco songs at the height of its popularity. Many of their songs were not "pure" disco, but were instead rock or pop songs with (sometimes inescapable) disco influence or overtones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco
 
Respect you know I admire you greatly and think you have a brilliant mind, but for me the basic problem was racism and I do not consider it simplistic after doing some serious graduate clases on ethnic/cultural studies even in music. It was the first time that, this specific segment of the population that we are talking about was making such an impact culturally in the music world. I have heard the excuses about guys having to go to clubs to find dates and they could not dance/disco spoiled music, etc. That is all excuses thought up by a certain segment of the population, vocalized, and copied by others. What was to prevent the guys who could not dance from going to the club and ask a girl to dance once, then take her to a corner to get to know her, or go outside where it is quiet, or buy her a drink rather than dance, or exchange numbers, which is what I saw in the clubs and still continues among guys who cannot dance. Further, the majority of people have never met their mates at clubs, so that argument about the guys who could not dance is laughable.

Now that I am older I go to the bar where there is music. The same things happen: either a guy comes up to buy you a drink/ask for your number/scream at you because the music is loud/walk you to the sidewalk to talk quietly and the new ones--ask for your facebook page/ask you if you text. All these things happen to me, so what prevented guys from doing this before, minus the facebook/text part?

Of course I understand some will not like disco; some can't sing that way; but when they is a campaign against music people can't sing or do not like something is wrong with the picture. Many people cannot sing country or do not like it, and I do not see any big campaign to stop it. Of course some might say that country and western did not take over the music scene, but anyway it is a form of music that many people find annoying.

Multimate I agree that many rock lovers feel this is the mainstream music. I also find this elitist attitude among some who love classical music, even though I love classical music too. Many people listen to only classical and find other forms of music inferior and I have heard them say so.

I think there are many faces of racism. And sometimes even those who "practice it" do not realize that what they say or do is a racist attitude. In that sense, yes, I agree that much of the "Disco Sucks!" movement was racist. I do not necessarily think though that each and every kid that went there was consciously racist. What I mean by subconscious racist attitudes is that, for example in this case, rock fans (ie. mainly white males) thought that their music, culture and taste HAD to be the dominant music, culture and taste. And everything else sucked, everything else is inferior.

It's interesting that MJultimatemusiclegen brought up the elitism of rock fans. I agree with him. While there is snobism in every genre, but my experience too is that I see the most snobism in rock fans in popular music. Heck, those music magazines, Rolling Stone, NME etc. are the prime examples of that! And I do feel that RS, for example is a racist magazine in the subconscious way I talked about above. That the music that is generally closer to white people's tastes is usually held in much higher regard. They may not do it deliberately (or maybe they do, who knows?) But the assumption that "white taste" should be dominant and be held in higher regard is inherently there.

(It's hard to talk about such things without the risk of generalizing though. I'm white and I always preferred soul, R&B to rock. Obviously there are black people who like rock. Just think of Jimi Hendrix. Michael himself did a couple of rock songs and he was a fan of Led Zeppelin as I heard. And actually music should not have racial or any kind of boundaries (and I think this was exactly Michael's point when he went rock). On the other hand, it's a fact that white people tend to prefer rock and black people soul, R&B, hip-hop. So that's the sense I talked about "white taste". Not that each and every single white person likes rock.)
 
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I think that there have been plenty of pop bands like a-ha, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran, The Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode who have put out songs that are just as good, if not better than all the rock bands out there.
 
Now let's continue that Disco era with "Diana," which originally aired March 2, 1981.

Here's Diana singing "Upside Down" with Michael and Michael singing, "Rock With You" on Diana Ross's Special. Diana and Michael are even wearing the infamous Disco ball!




This one time only Special combined footage from a concert held in Los Angeles, CA USA from February 5, 1981, with studio footage shot a short time later.
 
I think that there have been plenty of pop bands like a-ha, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran, The Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode who have put out songs that are just as good, if not better than all the rock bands out there.


That depends on ones taste anyway. I've heard people that hate Depeche Mode and Coldplay but love Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Guns n Roses etc. And then there might be some classical music fans that think everything else is inferior. That's normal, I mean everyone thinks that something that he loves is better than anything other. I don't think any musical style or songs can be clasified as best of anything other as a fact. Because opinions always vary, taste dictates it all. So I find such talks, which music is better and which worse, pointless. I am not talking about straight facts here. I am talking about relative subject of "best".
 
MJ always fought against the ongoing trend for certain music made by a certain race getting all the attention. And music from a soul background. He always loved his classics, the oldies, and always paid homage to that. And he loved the music that African American people loved, always. And yet he was a universalist, he didn't have any one taste. He admired and appreciated all types of music. He just refused to be "second to none".
 
@zinniabooklover was in the front line destroying everything in her path that resembled disco.
I resent this gross misrepresentation. I did not do any such thing. Mostly, I didn't give a tiny toss about disco. I've posted about 2 dozen or so songs on the disco thread - which is WAY more than I expected, did not see that coming, lol - but disco, for me, was entirely unnecessary. And boring. And way too repetitive (although people say the exact same thing about rock music so, whatever!). But I sure as hell did not join in with dissing it. I'm not even sure I knew about the 'disco sucks' thing. Did I? I just wouldn't have been paying that much attention. I was surrounded by disco, it was EVERYWHERE, but it wasn't my world, it didn't interest me. I had important stuff to do. I was busy searching out bass lines, fantasising about wedging my head into a bass amp and leaving it there. I was listening to Glenn Campbell. I was going to my first punk gigs brazenly wearing my hippie flared jeans. :ROFLMAO:

Plus, I never did conversations about music, anyway.

I don't even know how much the 'disco sucks' thing made it over to the UK. Did it? Was it entirely / mostly a US thing? I know now it was some American DJ who started it to which the only possible response is ... don't be a d*ck! Funnily enough, I was into punk but always HATED the moronic attitude towards trad rock (see previous comment about my flared jeans, lol). So many of those bands were influenced by Sabbath bass lines, for example. So all the baby foot-stomping got on my nerves, I just ignored all of it. I go for the music I love. If there's a lot of noise going on, I just ignore it. Can't be doing with it.

24 hours ago I posted an extended version of 'Teardrops' on the Bobby Womack thread and then forgot to tag you. But I'm not going to mention that AT ALL bc ... well, just bc! You are an undeserving peasant! But it's there on the thread and the intro is killer. As is the rhythm section. As is the whole thing. But I didn't tell you about it. :ROFLMAO:

MJ always fought against the ongoing trend for certain music made by a certain race getting all the attention. And music from a soul background. He always loved his classics, the oldies, and always paid homage to that. And he loved the music that African American people loved, always. And yet he was a universalist, he didn't have any one taste. He admired and appreciated all types of music. He just refused to be "second to none".
This is one of the things I most love about Michael. This is why I (used to) have the fantasies about interviewing him or even just having a normal conversation. It would be about the music we both listened to growing up, the different kinds of music that we both liked. I just said I don't do conversations about music but this is Michael we're talking about so it's different. Anything he wanted to say about music, anything at all, I'd wanna hear it. That bit, in the making of BOW video, where he sings a bit of the Burt Bacharach song and then he says, 'the sixties ...'. Oh man! I just wanna get him started on that. Why did no-one ever get him to talk about that? Why?

I'm digressing, lol. I need to stop! :D
 
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You don’t have to be so defensive @zinniabooklover it is ok you hated disco, I forgive you of past sins. 😇

Now for real, I think the music boxes have largely disappeared or is that my imagination? I think youth currently doesn’t think about putting music in boxes, they all have just a really bad taste in general, it is universal! I mean no really, they just seem to accept that not everybody likes the same music. They’re basically smarter than people of the past lol
 
You don’t have to be so defensive
I wasn't. I was being Edith Evans. I was going to point that out, then realised you might not know who she is (was). So it all kinda fell a bit flat. Never mind. Although I do stand by everything I said.

"A handbag!" :ROFLMAO:
 
Is this anti-disco sentiment of the time maybe the reason why OTW was so overlooked at next year's Grammys? Is it maybe the reason that such gems as Can You Feel It and especially Heartbreak Hotel (which is IMO a genius composition) did not become more successful in the US?
I'm baffled that I just realized triumph wasn't even nominated for anything with those hits....wtf...now that I think about it....I've never seen the jacksons ever nominated or won any awards....ever
 
I'm baffled that I just realized triumph wasn't even nominated for anything with those hits....wtf...now that I think about it....I've never seen the jacksons ever nominated or won any awards....ever
Looks like Triumph did get an R&B Grammys nomination.
 
I'm baffled that I just realized triumph wasn't even nominated for anything with those hits....wtf...now that I think about it....I've never seen the jacksons ever nominated or won any awards....ever

What hits though, Can you feel it flopped enormously in the US (in Europe it was huge) and both Heartbreak Hotel and Lovely One failed to reach the top 10 and were only moderate hits. They were very big in the black community both peaking at nr 2.
 
What hits though, Can you feel it flopped enormously in the US (in Europe it was huge) and both Heartbreak Hotel and Lovely One failed to reach the top 10. They were very big in the black community both peaking at nr 2.
We don't talk about this kinda stuff enough (sigh) now.......HOW???? I don't understand how they didn't go to the top. They are literally the best songs they had prior to leaving motown
 
We don't talk about this kinda stuff enough (sigh) now.......HOW???? I don't understand how they didn't go to the top. They are literally the best songs they had prior to leaving motown
Well lovely one was fairly successful reaching nr 12 but HH only got to nr 22 and CYFI nr 77 which however you look at it is disappointing.
Can you feel it did go to nr 1 in South Africa, Belgium, Holland and top 10 in the UK so it's American failure was made good.
Heartbreak hotel I don't think was release din the rest of the world and lovely one did modestly in other regions.
 
Looks like Triumph did get an R&B Grammys nomination.
The Jacksons as a group was considered R&B (in the USA), so they were primarily played on R&B radio stations. The major record labels did not spend as much money promoting R&B either. Acts like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, & The Commodores were on Motown, which wasn't a major. They had mainstream success. R&B had to crossover to the mainstream (code for white audience) Top 40. Very few R&B acts got Top 40 airplay. Some might have gotten a song or 2, but it was really rare for a R&B act to crossover themselves. It didn't have that much to do with the disco backlash, although it didn't help. For every Commodores, Kool & The Gang, or Earth Wind & Fire that got Top 40 airplay, there were 20 others that didn't. Even with the Commodores, it was mostly the Lionel Richie led ballads that became big pop hits, not so much their more funky songs other than Brick House. Walter Orange is the lead singer on Brick House, Lionel just played the sax on it.

If you look at the pictures of the audience for the Triumph tour, it's usually majority Black, that wasn't the case with the Victory tour which was post-Thriller. R&B as a genre never did crossover like hip hop has in modern times or maybe big band jazz in the 1930s. Even with white artists, blues based rock acts like Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, & Led Zeppelin are written about and praised more than R&B ones like Teena Marie, Hall & Oates, Tom Jones, or Average White Band. The rock artists also generally sold more albums than the so called "blue eyed soul" artists. Teena Marie had a lot of R&B hits, but is basically a "one hit wonder" on the pop chart.

Entertainment in the USA is and has always been segregated. That is the reason early MTV played very few non-white artists. Prince has said in an interview that he didn't want to be seen as only a R&B artist or Black artist, because he knew he wouldn't get much attention by his label (or the general public) that way. I think this is why he didn't go on Soul Train, but did perform on American Bandstand.
 
I've seen OTW described as disco's last big send off. Not sure if it was included in the whole disco sucks movement but it seems to be a pretty well respected album and was as far as I know successful at the time (?). I haven't read the rest of this thread so sorry if this has already been discussed.

I think OTW is pretty high tier when it comes to that type of music and stands out in that regard.
 
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