There's a reference to this in Band of Brothers (the book) where the soldiers note the industriousness of the Germans and compare it negatively with the Dutch & French. Many of them felt that the German were more like Americans in this respect - that they wouldn't sit around and wait for someone else (the government) to clean up a mess on their doorstep.
You write that "Because 1970s discos were often frequented by African-Americans, homosexuals, and working-class white women, the scene was perceived as a threat to the rock 'n' roll community, which had long been a Viking ship of straight white males."
Many people, including rock fans, objected to the nature of disco music knew little or cared about the scene. What they knew about disco came from the radio.
Top 40 disco seemed soul-less and mind-numbing. The media added fuel to this fire -- you should try and find the 60 Minutes segment on disco. IT is incredibly biased and based on a sample of one but it helped the "disco sucks" movement by "exposing" disco as a corporate creation. And yes, I know that is ironic.
The disco sucks movement was suburban and I believe did have some elements of racism. But African-Americans were so removed from white suburbia that this racism was secondary to the visceral reaction to the music itself and the fact that it was crowding the airwaves.
From my read of history, the most racist element of rock at the time was the urban punk/new wave movement. Lester Bangs picked up on this bad vibe and its certainly there in the oral history "Please Kill Me"...
First I heard that bit about "working class white women"...lol... But that's probably why alot of white males started frequenting discos and mainstream rock increasingly became the domain of nerds (at least in the middle class).
of Brothers (the book) where the
soldiers note the industriousness
of the Germans and compare it negatively
with the Dutch & French. Many of them
felt that the German were more like
Americans in this respect - that
they wouldn't sit around and wait
for someone else (the government) to
clean up a mess on their doorstep.
Many people, including rock fans, objected to the nature of disco music knew little or cared about the scene. What they knew about disco came from the radio.
Top 40 disco seemed soul-less and mind-numbing. The media added fuel to this fire -- you should try and find the 60 Minutes segment on disco. IT is incredibly biased and based on a sample of one but it helped the "disco sucks" movement by "exposing" disco as a corporate creation. And yes, I know that is ironic.
The disco sucks movement was suburban and I believe did have some elements of racism. But African-Americans were so removed from white suburbia that this racism was secondary to the visceral reaction to the music itself and the fact that it was crowding the airwaves.
From my read of history, the most racist element of rock at the time was the urban punk/new wave movement. Lester Bangs picked up on this bad vibe and its certainly there in the oral history "Please Kill Me"...
First I heard that bit about "working class white women"...lol... But that's probably why alot of white males started frequenting discos and mainstream rock increasingly became the domain of nerds (at least in the middle class).