— David Hepworth
Homophobia and racism. The backlash towards disco didn't boil down to much more than that. Peaking at the notorious Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979 at Chicago's Comiskey Park, it has since been well-established that the genre didn't immediately die away, even if it signaled the moment in which it began its decline. Chic, Donna Summer and others kept going while the Bee Gees moved on but the glory days were done. Dance music moved back into the clubs where it would stay for much of the next five years when it would reemerge to a more accepting climate.
So, disco was fading but what would take its place? Something that the rockers never addressed in their opposition to it was that their type of music was a big part of the problem. Punk had been (and still is) celebrated for tearing down the cliches of stadium rock nonsense and prog pomposity but it only helped create newer and more stultifying trends in guitar-based music. Beyond a handful of talented figures leading the way, new wave was full of the same chords, the same drum patterns and that same type of singing in which spit would spew — and those records all sound like they were cut in the same studio with the same production crew. Power pop just went on being that nice and safe (and predictable; you will never be able to convince me that such boring material ought to be labelled 'Beatle-esque') sub-genre that continues to captivate everyone who isn't me. And the people who didn't move away from punk suddenly became the real dinosaurs.
David Hepworth is a rock 'n' roll fan born in 1950. He loves his Beatles and Stones, will happily inform anyone within earshot that the music of his youth is best and, as such, is from a generation in which he could easily have had nothing but contempt for disco. Yet, here he is, a thirty-year-old critic, bored out of his mind by rock while seemingly embracing that dance stuff that had supposedly been snuffed out a year earlier at a baseball game.
The Earth, Wind & Fire track, "Let Me Talk", isn't the first thing I'd choose to put on. It feels busy and while I will frequently knock the saminess of punk and new wave vocals, there's something about the way Philip Bailey sings as if he's shouting through a megaphone that grates. This may have worked back when it was Curtis Mayfield or Sly Stone but Earth, Wind & Fire weren't exactly protest singers nor is it easy to imagine them playing a set at Woodstock a decade earlier. The arrangements are cluttered too, though the sudden shift at 1:37 is inspired. I don't know, it's fine but they were capable of better. Hepworth can't get enough of the musicianship ("there isn't a manjack in the band who isn't hopelessly in love with the sound his instrument makes"), which is its best quality, but I have to wonder if it marks a point where funk playing was getting out of the reach of its roots on the streets. Is it any wonder hip hop was just beginning to establish itself.
On the other hand, above average funk-disco is still preferable to virtually everything else here. Even Donna Summer's "The Wanderer" ("it stands out like a beacon purely because it's got a little bottle and buckets of style") isn't up to much though, I would acknowledge that it isn't due to it being stale. That's more than can be said for Suzi Quatro, The Damned and Gillan, among others. Dance music was returning to the underground and that's also where you'd find the bulk of the guitar rock that was of much interest.
1980 was a fantastic year for music. ABBA, Blondie, The Jam and The Police were all in full imperial mode. New Pop began exploding in the UK with Adam Ant, Dexys Midnight Runners and Madness (only to be followed a year later by many, many more) while young American acts like Prince were also on the rise. And, yet, like punk had just three years earlier, all this goodness wasn't able to sweep the detritus out of the way. Lousy music from tired genres always remains, it's just up to the talented acts and fresh new sounds to overcome it all.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Modern Romance: "Modern Romance"
Formerly known as Leyton Buzzards, Modern Romance were in the process to mercifully ditching new wave in favour of stylish pop with exotic rhythms. I'm sure dullards complained that they had 'sold out' but there was always a touch of the palm tree-grass skirt-mai tai about them even in their earlier incarnation. Yet, it's fascinating to hear them in the process of moving away from one genre and on to another. Geoff Dean needs to tone down the Suggs/Ian Dury thing going on and the group really ought to try something a little bolder to forge a separate identity from ver Buzzards but they were ironing these kinks out. A year on and they'd be imploring the nation to "Salsa" and soon they'd have a whole new set of sins to answer for. Such is the way of progress in pop.
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