50 years of disco – when the world was a disco ball

Suddenly there was no stopping. 1975 was the year in which disco went through the ceiling. In the literal sense: Keller and taverns were quickly converted into discotheques. The prospect of using Barry White and Donna Summer many times over was too tempting. Successfully. The ZDF crime series “The Commissioner”-the seismographer of the West German Zeitgeist from 1969 to 1976-devoted the episode “a Playboy blessing the inner life of a Munich noble discotheque. What was the fascination of disco? Let’s let the songs speak!

The Nolans: »I’m In The Mood For Dancing«

Rebellion through music: you think of noisy guitars, punk and grunge. Violins and violins should hardly come to mind. And yet these instruments promoted a revolution that continues to date: Disco.

Because the early disco productions with their preference for string orchestras were independent music. And the place where they were played was underground. Here, in the discotheque, workers’ children were able to live out their longing for glamor (as John Travolta in his famous role in “Saturday Night Fever”), homosexuals did not need to hide and experienced black artistic recognition. Disco quickly became a mass phenomenon. Even Rod Stewart (“Da Ya think I’m sexy”) and the Rolling Stones (“Miss You”) got lost under the disco ball.

And some, like the Nolan Sisters, even owe disco to a world career. To date, they are the only Irish band that had a number 1 in Japan. Rightly so! “I’m in the Mood for Dancing” is pure euphoriastoff. With singer Bernice Nolan as a good mood bolt, which even makes a Gloria Gaynor appear as a mourning dumplings.

Bee Gees: »Stayin’ Alive«

“Freedom” is one of the favorite words of popular music. But the freedom stopped at the moment it was about skin color. It is no coincidence that one spoke of “Black Music” when you said soul and funk. Rock and country, on the other hand, were considered white domains. Disco, on the other hand, was color blind from the start. In Barry Whites Love Unlimited Orchestra and at Kc and the Sunshine Band (“That’s the Way I like it”), black and white coexistence. That KC (Harry Wayne Casey), in turn, produced the Megahit »Rock Your Baby« by Black George McCrae as a white man.

At the latest with the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever” (1977), the Trammps, Tavares and Kool & The Gang united with the Bee Gees, the topic of skin color had been dealt with. There is also the DiscoHit “If I Can’t Have You” by Yvonne Elliman. She is born in Hawaiian, her mother Japanese woman.

Jan Delay: »disko«

Already strange: there is a place that made millions of people happy. Many have found their partner for life here (or at least for one night). Yes, even those who went home alone were often intoxicated, electrified. Nevertheless, this place in the cinema is practically not. Hardly a film whose action takes place there. Beyond “Saturday Night Fever” and “Studio 54”, a desert opens up.

Fortunately, you come across an oasis here and there. For example “Dancin ‘Thru the Dark”, a crown jewel of the New British Cinema, which shows how a disco evening gets out of hand – until the dark escalation. Or that long scene from Spike Lee’s »25 hours«, in which Philip Seymour Hoffman, as a disturbed teacher, loses the inhibition and nerves in a disco (which goes out to the same way). In such rare film moments you can feel the essence of the disco: the feverish unrest, the shimmering, the willingness to cross borders.

Sounds too theoretical? Then we hear what Jan Delay has to say: »And you say you lack the content in the dancing. Sorry, but to your Abitur, I can’t dance. And that’s why we love the disco. Yes, that’s why we move to the disco, celebrate exaggerated in the disco. Lauter sound and colorful lights – disco. Let’s glitter from the inside – disco! “

Re-Flex: »The politics of dancing«

Politics was once the most uninteresting affair in the world. Something that social studies talked about, but that had nothing to do with one’s own life – because it happened more exciting. Politics was real life. And that did not take place in state teaching, but in private experimental institutions called discotheques. Here you experienced what a world looked like without the usual brain washing programs (nation, religion, ideology).

It was a world in which the turntable ruled. Because: “The politicians are now djs.” Their party program was simple: “The politics of dancing, the politics of feel good, the politics of moving – is this message understood?”

Of course we understood the message. Every weekend we found luck under the disco ball. And because happier people are also better – no envy, no hatred – the world in which we lived also became a little better.

Marlene Rosenberg: “Back together”

It was the time when the hit was still producing hits by adapting every international trend. Even disco music became a “made in Germany” product in the hit factory.

Nobody was better than Joachim Heider, composer and producer for Marianne Rosenberg. His “he belongs to me” sounds like a remix by Barry Whites “You’re the First, The Last, My Everything”, so great. “I am like you” and “songs of the night” hold the high level. How perfectionist was working on Heider’s HIT assembly line, demonstrated “Together”, the B-side of Marianne Rosenberg’s single “Marleen”. It is a disco from the textbook – which is why the song made it to the sampler “Disco Germany”.

The Love Unlimited Orchestra: »Sweet Moments«

When the hedonists of nightlife had danced tiredly, the sense of calmer sounds. After sounds that took up the mood of the dance floor, but drove down the Beatzahl. In the 1990s, this relaxing approach was called Chillout, Barry White in the 70s.

Because the King of Disco, as a singer, composer and producer, not only delivered courtship material for the dance flooring in the world, but also the soundtrack for afterwards. Together with his 40-member Love Unlimited Orchestra, which he sounds like satin bed linen around the audience. So his orchestra heralded “Sweet Moments”. So sex.

GILLA: »You is«

When it came to sex, hit texts like the “New Germany” were in GDR times-the message was between the lines. So “Sweety” (1962) by Peter Kraus is a song about drive jam (“There is a moonlight tonight, and then I would like to be rewarded for the long, long waiting time”). Also in Peter Alexander’s “Come and Operation” (1968), the pants have questionable exploitation (“Come and use and use my heart and what is all of your”).

You didn’t dare to become more clearly. Then came Gilla (bourgeois: Gisela Wuchinger). A woman in a smoky voice who fueled men’s fantasies. Producer Frank Farian, who was just making the course for a world career with Boney M., recognized the potential. He let Gilla sing the Labelles DiscoHit »Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Moi (Lady MARMALADE)“ German: “Do you want to go to sleep with me?” No pop singer had so bluntly formulated the desire for sexual intercourse. Because this directness arrived, Farian went one step further with “do”: “But when nobody starts, it doesn’t happen. So I say: baby, you have green light. Oh baby, do it, I look after it. Oh baby, do it, I know you do it well. “

Alexander O’Neal: »Fake«

The film “The Last Days of Disco” (1998) plays in the early 80s. This is not entirely correct; The last days of disco took place in 1987. Shortly afterwards, Acid House’s triumphal march began in Ibiza, which was supposed to lead in Techno soon. Back then, before Disco became a case for retro -Romanesque like Jamiroquai and Daft Punk, the weakening genre was tried to pump up new life. Disco beats never sounded more massive and full than in the mid-80s. And nobody struck harder than Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. The two beats produced that let the whole body vibrate. Whoever sang was secondary. Whether Janet Jackson (“Nasty”) or Human League (“Human”) – no voice was able to assert himself against Jam & Lewis’s blows.

Stop, one! The Alexander O’Neal. When he sang, the brutal beats found their counterpart. You felt that this man was also able to strike. Which was not surprising: O’Neal had been a pimp before.