john revolta moar laik

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

it is beegees time on popular , and i have a FILM QUESTION viz:

assuming for sake of argument a distinction CAN be made between "true and excellent proper disco" and "beegee-style disco which cashed in on proper disco and spoiled it", would saturday night fever have been A: better or B: worse for being entirely scored with the former?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't really associate the Bee Gees with disco at all, it's more sort of...comedy disco? I really really really hate them.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Which side of the critical line are Chic on? This is a slightly useless qn since I don't even believe in this critical line.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

that entirely predictable fact is even more than usually irrelevant, given the question

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i would say that the reappraisal of chic is what established the line -- tho not where it's been drawn at various times

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to say it would be exactly the same. ISTR the disco scenes are fairly self-contained and as much if not more of the running time is "Its Grim Up Brooklyn Especially If Y're Working Class n' Catholic, MoFos". But I've only seen it once and that was on telly years ago.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

...but thinking about it some more, as those disco scenes represent Travolta's weekly escape from all the grimness I guess the more glitzily that's represented on screen, including through the music, the more convincing the contrast becomes. So maybe BeeGees were the right choice.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the saving grace of disco is that it's never had a SRS MUSIC side, then I remembered Arthur Russell.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is what DDD means at all by "true and excellent proper"

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

The film is not universally late-comers' disco, anyway. I dislike the Bee Gees' voices, but like their songs; The Trammps are on the soundtrack, and they are one of the core early disco acts - there are none more 'real' disco than them.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i totally ♥ the idea of Real Disco! :)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i love when the "heart" sign manifests as a proudly 3r3ct r0d!

Oh gawd :(

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Better edit to remove that link in yr post, mark. Think of the children!

[koganbot]

Early fake disco that preceded the Bee Gees: Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes! "Real" disco would be Gloria Gaynor, I guess, and The Hustle and Knock On Wood. Not sure where Ethel Merman and A Fifth Of Beethoven fit in, or Eurodisco, or Rod Stewart. Chic barely a factor until late in the day.

None of this answers your question, but as Martin points out, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was truly a mixture. "Stayin' Alive" is terrific.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i was letting "entirely" do a lot of semi-invisible work

[koganbot]

I have never seen the movie! My guess is that it would've made no difference to the movie aesthetically if it had been scored entirely with disco that was more soul- and latin-derived and less Beatley-pop than the Bee Gees, assuming that the Bee Gees were replaced by music equally thrilling (of which there were many possibilities, proper and true disco including plenty that was mischievous and catchy even without Bee Gees harmonies). My guess is that the contrast between the day-to-day drudgery/inhibition and the disco release is what made the movie work and incidentally what made the movie an effective argument for disco to people who didn't yet identify with the music. I say "incidentally" because you didn't ask whether the movie would have been as popular without the Bee Gees, but rather whether it would have been as good. But as for the movie's crossover appeal, I'm guessing the movie did a good job of removing discogoers from the category of Weird Them and putting them into a category of People We Can Understand And Even Identify With, using recognizable archetypes going back at least to Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront. (If I'm right about what the movie is like.) But nonetheless I doubt that the soundtrack would have been as popular without the Bee Gees, since the Beatley-pop vocals helped cross the music over to nondiscoer buyers. And "Stayin' Alive" being a massive hit surely helped to put people in the seats, so the movie wouldn't have been as popular or as crucial a social event without the Bee Gees. (And it works both ways: the Bee Gees wouldn't have been as popular without the movie.)

Another guess, and I'm hardly the person who knows about this, is that the Bee Gees themselves didn't garner much resentment from the people already into disco but that the explosion of newbies after Saturday Night Fever did.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

you should go and see it with waldo and the lex

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Chic were very serious.