Where Disco Dared - Liner Notes and Playlist

If you didn't live through disco then you don't know what it was like. Personally, I enjoyed and still enjoy a lot of disco immensely and I don't consider it a guilty pleasure either. It's a real out in the open, guilt free, 120 bpm pleasure. Still, back then I did draw the line here and there. For example, I nearly vomited the first time I heard Meco's Wizard Of Oz medley in a disco. I asked my friend, "Is nothing sacred?" As the crowd fairly screeched with glee I left the dance floor to sit and listen in a state of near catatonic disbelief. On the other hand, Amii Stewart's Knock On Wood would send me into frenzy, and still does! Perhaps that is some of the ironic charm of disco - nothing was sacred - just ask Beethoven…and many other classical composers. Some of it was incredibly fun and entertaining and even well done but some of it will never be justified in my mind. I wouldn't have touched some of these gems at the time but with an additional time acquired sense of retro camp the value of some of it has become more than apparent - if often only for its hilarity. As a musical style it may not have suffered the fate it did had it not been so massively popular and so commercially viable. Some people got into it merely for the gravy train it became. Most people who jumped on the disco bandwagon were having fun. But at whose expense? A lot of artists crossed over into disco from other genres. For what? Probably the attention. Some may have done it to have fun and make fun of (Frank Zappa did it twice, Disco Boy in 1976 - which wasn't disco but a slam at it - and Dancin' Fool in '79 when he snidely acquiesced). And who can forget Rick Dees' Disco Duck? Many artists tried to start new careers by making disco versions of their old hits several of which are represented in this collection. Others may have been trying to revive a fading, uncertain or forgotten career (Peaches and Herb (with a new Peaches) - Shake Your Groove Thing). Some may have crossed over to continue to have hits in the popular mode of the day (Rod Stewart - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?). Or to spark a career that may not have gone anywhere had it not been for disco (Blondie - Heart Of Glass). Or just to show they could and succeeded splendidly (Ethel Merman - There's No Business Like Show Business). Or to show they could and missed the mark in style (Ann Margret - Love Rush). Even Mad Magazine created a flexi-disc of disco spoofs including one called Barely Alive and a disco version of their 60's 'hit' It's A Gas. And lest we forget Dolly Parton's hot pink 12" disco single Baby I'm Burnin'? Why Mae West never did a disco album is beyond my comprehension.

Like the Twist in the early 60's, which boasted records by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Rod McKuen, everybody was getting in on the act. Except the intensity of the disco trend lasted longer than that of the 60's dance craze and at the pop level was sadly milked well beyond what it could sustain. Even though it imploded at the pop level, it never went away. It went underground where it continues to evolve to this day. It has now lost some of the kiss of death quality it had in the 80's and into the 90's even though through those years the genre generated occasional big pop hits (Shannon - Let The Music Play; Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer; Robin S. - Show Me Love; CeCe Peniston - Finally) and also by way of big dance hits by big pop stars like Madonna, Cher, Whitney Houston and more. And at this point, disco is to today what the 30's and 40's were to the 70's.

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