Payola Shocker: J-Lo Hits, Others Were 'Bought' by Sony.

[rockstar_not]

We are not worthy.

payola - no big shock there.

Regarding EWF, check out GuitarJeff's entry in this month's KVR song contest in the Music Cafe. He's got EWF down, except for the bass lines.

It's over HERE

-Scott

[Meffy]

I truly dig the lettering on the album cover. Geometric, yeah.

*is a font freak*

[Failed Muso]

If you want to know what the Bee Gees thought of the whole "disco" thing and how it was a double edged sword for them, read the article in the latest issue of Sound On Sound magazine about the recording of Stayin' Alive.

And for what it's worth, if you truly know disco, you know that the Bee Gees ARE NOT disco.

[Cabinfever]

this payola thing is really good news. i have renewed faith in humanity ! seems that decent people don't really like that crap as much as we were told

[Hink]

wow I just thought this was common knowledge...you guys know that grammys are predetermined and lobbied for right? God A.M. radio was all about pay offs, we all knew that...

[Meffy]

I don't want to "truly know disco." :-P The Bee Gees pass the duck test -- walk, fly, and quack. Good enough for me.

The New Yorker said it best:
Cartoon: Carl Rose; Words: E.B. White;* 1928-12-08.
___________________________
* Yes, I think it's THAT E.B. White -- author of "Charlotte's Web."

[z15]

beegees were disco and limp bizkit is rock.

end of story.

[crimsontider]

And for what it's worth, if you truly know disco, you know that the Bee Gees ARE NOT disco.

Well since you obviously believe that you truly know disco, then do us all a favor (debatable):) and inform us. It must be different from the generally accepted definition because the Bee Gee's most popular music fits that definition IMO.

What is you defintion of Disco? And what makes the Bee Gee's numerous top 40 songs not disco?

[Hink]

And for what it's worth, if you truly know disco, you know that the Bee Gees ARE NOT disco.

Well since you obviously believe that you truly know disco, then do us all a favor (debatable):) and inform us. It must be different from the generally accepted definition because the Bee Gee's most popular music fits that definition IMO.

What is you defintion of Disco? And what makes the Bee Gee's numerous top 40 songs not disco?

let's see the biggest disco movie of all time used their song as a theme...now how would you figure they were disco?... If they are not disco, well a lot of us were wrong back then ...I wanna see the answer too...

[herodotus]

wow I just thought this was common knowledge...you guys know that grammys are predetermined and lobbied for right? God A.M. radio was all about pay offs, we all knew that...

True we do know it, and have for some time.

What is news is that some people may actually get in trouble for it. Maybe even lose their jobs.



(until the next position in another sleazy company opens up, that is)

[wwwill]

Disclaimer: Some very dear friends of mine adore disco. *shrug* Tastes -- no accounting for 'em. For them as likes it, fine. But I don't.

There's the disco that made it to the airwaves: Anita Ward, "Ring my bell", which is of course awful. The Bee Gees come close.

And then there is a lot of disco that's basically Philadelphia soul with a more solid beat. Gamble & Huff stuff, and a lot of that is pretty cool. First Choice, Lolleatta Holloway, and my favourite unknown group: Double Exposure. Check out their "Ten Percent" album.

Ok, so you have to like overproduced music, but there is a lot to enjoy. The song writing is as good as any soul from that era, and some of the arrangements are amazing.

This is very OT.

This is very true. Don't judge the '70s dance music=disco scene by the bandwagon crap you heard on the radio. Dolly Pardon(sp) had a disco record: 9 to 5. The Bee Gees' earlier works were really folk songs. Tell me how many Bee Gees albums there were and how many of those albums were disco albums.

TennesseeVic has touched on the essence of what made the Chicago house underground great. Groups such as First Choice(Let no man put asunder, Double cross, Love thang, Doctor love, Player, WAY to many to name), Loletta Holloway (Hit and run, Love sensation, Dreamin') and Double Exposure (Ten percent, My love is free) are staples of the classics. Underground dance music from the mid to late '70s and early '80s is the foundation of house. As a youth I was HOOKED on the sound. In a typical classic mix you may hear lots of disco, but you may also hear rock or jazz: B-52s(Mesopotamia), Talking Heads(Once in a lifetime), The Police(Voices inside my head), The Crusaders(Street life), Manhattan Transfer(Twilight Zone). You have to listen to:

SalSoul/GoldMind Records
WestEnd Records
Philly International Records
Patrick Adams
Leroy Burgess
"Red" Greg Carmichael
Gino Soccio
B.T. Express
Change
Sylvester
Suzy Q
Machine
Sergio Mendez

You guys are going to make me go look through my records.

Better yet, listen to some "classic" mixes on the DeepHousePages http://www.deephousepage.com/mixes.php
[/url]

NOW back to our regularly scheduled program.

Anyone shocked that payola still accurs should reread anything they have signed their name to in the past ten years. The mindless, bubblegum, shallow-topic music that is pushed on MOST commercial radio could never survive if comsumers were allowed to proactively listen to music. Now I don't blame the average teen as A) They are formulating their identity and don't really know who they are much less what they REALLY like. B) Too young to go to a club that caters to a certain music style to see underground acts. Even early to mid 20 year olds are still exicted about being legal; able to see and be seen at all the right clubs. It's the 30 and up crowd that I look at like aliens when they talk about the new song on the radio that is soooo good. Are you kidding me? Thank you rampant comsumerism.

[Failed Muso]

And for what it's worth, if you truly know disco, you know that the Bee Gees ARE NOT disco.

Well since you obviously believe that you truly know disco, then do us all a favor (debatable):) and inform us. It must be different from the generally accepted definition because the Bee Gee's most popular music fits that definition IMO.

What is you defintion of Disco? And what makes the Bee Gee's numerous top 40 songs not disco?

Disco was a big underground thing before SNF. It was big in the black and gay club scene in the US. It was like any music based sub culture. Starting off underground and then emerging to a commercial market, in this case, spurred on by a hit movie that brought the squeaky clean "white" interpretation to the masses. The Bee Gee's were just the acceptable face of the scene to it's newly found afficionados. The SNF soundtrack spawned 3 number ones for them, but went on to tarnish them forever. Maurice Gibb once said that he'd like to take the SNF album, dress it up in a white suit and medallion and set the whole thing on fire. That's how much they hated what it did, but still agreed that it put food on the table for many years.

They wrote at least 3 of the tracks before SNF was even made. "How Deep Is Your Love", "More Than A Woman" and "Stayin' Alive" were intended for the follow up to their "Main Course" & "Children Of The World" albums. They were into Philly funk & R&B and didn't even know about the disco scene when they were writing that stuff.

Nowadays, because of the association, it seems almost inconceivable that the Bee Gee's weren't riding the coat tails of another musical fad as so many bands and musicians tend to do. That the songs were so huge and influential and memorable is testament to their incredible song writing skills.

If you really want to experience true disco, then you need to listen to stuff by Sylvester, Moroder, Tom Moulton, Betty Wright, George & Gwen McRae, Silver Convention, Hues Corporation, Barry White and his Love Unlimited Orchestra, early Gloria Gaynor & stuff produced by Levay & Kunze, to name a few.

Disco as we perceive it now is based upon a white biased, cult movie ideology. As with any underground music movement, the end result was watered down, commercial crap embraced by artists and labels with flagging sales or careers in a vain attempt to be "hip & cool". Think of any music movement and it's always the same. Sex Pistols were the management assembled boy band of Punk and hardly a true representation of the genre which had been going on for a at least 5 years before McLaren put them together.

Your "generally accepted definition" is just that. General and accepted because it's easy. The Bee Gee's were just the band that lucked out (in a manner of speaking) and got the SNF gig. Their exquisite song writing and production skills, plus the fact that they were squeaky clean and white, made Disco, which was a black and gay thing, acceptable to the masses.

I never said that "I" truly knew Disco, but I lived thru the era and loved it until it was watered down and "whited" up.

That's all

[Hink]

And for what it's worth, if you truly know disco, you know that the Bee Gees ARE NOT disco.

Well since you obviously believe that you truly know disco, then do us all a favor (debatable):) and inform us. It must be different from the generally accepted definition because the Bee Gee's most popular music fits that definition IMO.

What is you defintion of Disco? And what makes the Bee Gee's numerous top 40 songs not disco?

Disco was a big underground thing before SNF. It was big in the black and gay club scene in the US. It was like any music based sub culture. Starting off underground and then emerging to a commercial market, in this case, spurred on by a hit movie that brought the squeaky clean "white" interpretation to the masses. The Bee Gee's were just the acceptable face of the scene to it's newly found afficionados. The SNF soundtrack spawned 3 number ones for them, but went on to tarnish them forever. Maurice Gibb once said that he'd like to take the SNF album, dress it up in a white suit and medallion and set the whole thing on fire. That's how much they hated what it did, but still agreed that it put food on the table for many years.

They wrote at least 3 of the tracks before SNF was even made. "How Deep Is Your Love", "More Than A Woman" and "Stayin' Alive" were intended for the follow up to their "Main Course" & "Children Of The World" albums. They were into Philly funk & R&B and didn't even know about the disco scene when they were writing that stuff.

Nowadays, because of the association, it seems almost inconceivable that the Bee Gee's weren't riding the coat tails of another musical fad as so many bands and musicians tend to do. That the songs were so huge and influential and memorable is testament to their incredible song writing skills.

If you really want to experience true disco, then you need to listen to stuff by Sylvester, Moroder, Tom Moulton, Betty Wright, George & Gwen McRae, Silver Convention, Hues Corporation, Barry White and his Love Unlimited Orchestra, early Gloria Gaynor & stuff produced by Levay & Kunze, to name a few.

Disco as we perceive it now is based upon a white biased, cult movie ideology. As with any underground music movement, the end result was watered down, commercial crap embraced by artists and labels with flagging sales or careers in a vain attempt to be "hip & cool". Think of any music movement and it's always the same. Sex Pistols were the management assembled boy band of Punk and hardly a true representation of the genre which had been going on for a at least 5 years before McLaren put them together.

Your "generally accepted definition" is just that. General and accepted because it's easy. The Bee Gee's were just the band that lucked out (in a manner of speaking) and got the SNF gig. Their exquisite song writing and production skills, plus the fact that they were squeaky clean and white, made Disco, which was a black and gay thing, acceptable to the masses.

I never said that "I" truly knew Disco, but I lived thru the era and loved it until it was watered down and "whited" up.

That's all

it's more then enugh FWIW I was one of those guys that wore a "disco sucks" shirts anyhow... But hey, I wasn't a disco guy, I grew up in the 70's playing guitar...I did learn to do the Hussle......however not being a fan of disco I will say that last paragraph is uncalled for, racist and absurd....should I not like Living Color, or Tony Mcalpine...or perhaps dislike Thin Lizzy? Sorry but there is no room in my world for bigots....

[Bruce Bartlett]

let's see the biggest disco movie of all time used their song as a theme...now how would you figure they were disco?

The Bee Gees were chosen for the SNF soundtrack not because they were disco, but because they were signed to RSO, and SNF was an RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) production. There are a handful of legit disco tracks on the SNF soundtrack (Disco Inferno and K-Jee) but a lot of the material on it was chosen because they didn't have to license it from other labels. The fact that SNF became massively successful does not change the fact that the Bee Gees were not a disco act. It is unfortunate that most people incorrectly associate this movie with disco -- unfortunate for the Bee Gees, and unfortunate for disco.

The Bee Gees were, first and foremost, masters of the pop ballad. "How Deep Is Your Love" is still brilliant, despite how certain production elements have dated quite badly. But all of their supposed disco songs are really just pop numbers dressed up as disco, like "More Than A Woman". Think of all the handbag anthems from the 90s which had an obligatory rap bit in them -- are these considered hip-hop? No, they added it because it helped sell the records. The Bee Gees deserve to be recognized for the countless pop hits which they have written, both for themselves, and for many other artists. Their so-called disco years were a born out of a desperate move to revive their career after their initial boy-band novelty had worn off. And even then, if you take any of their proper albums from that period (like Spirits Having Flown), it's 90% pop with just one or two danceable numbers.

There are no commercial 12" mixes of the Bee Gees tunes (a promo from SNF does exist, but the songs are barely extended, hardly the kind of material that a DJ would work into a set). Their material is devoid of the soul element found in the Philly-based disco, or the imagination and over-the-top outlandishness of the European producers.

Real disco was in the clubs -- not on top 40 radio, and not on the movie screen.

However, one thing I will concede is that the Bee Gees unwittingly made a major contribution to dance music: the drum loop.

[Failed Muso]

...however not being a fan of disco I will say that last paragraph is uncalled for, racist and absurd....should I not like Living Color, or Tony Mcalpine...or perhaps dislike Thin Lizzy? Sorry but there is no room in my world for bigots....

Woah there Hink, that was not a racist remark, nor was it absurd. Disco was a musical movement dominated in almost every way by black artists. Ask anyone around at the time. Very much like rap and hip hop, if you will. That's not racist, that's fact. And as with those genre's, Disco was taken on by a huge amount of white artists that used it to be more "hip" and "of the time". That's not racist, that's fact. The interpretation of Disco by many white artists watered down the rawness of the black variations. This was mainly done to make Disco more acceptable to the mass record buying public.

So, far from being racist, I was trying to emphasise how Disco, like so many other genre's was ripped out from the underground and made "nice" for the masses.

You can like whoever you like musically. I am white and my favourite artist is Prince. I love music, no matter who it is made by.

Do not accuse me of being racist when that is the very last thing I am.