The Michigan Daily-Tuesday, Oci
Page 16-Tuesday, October 16, 1979-The Michigan Daily,
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I
Disco: it sucks. but it still sells
By NEIL PATTEN
Disco. These days, it's played not just
on the radio, but as muzak in offices, in
restaurants and bars, even over phone
lines when put on hold. This form of
musical overkill may explain the recent
"Disco Sucks" campaign started by
crazy Chicago D.J. Steve Dahl earlier
this summer. Steve, formerly of
Detroit's radio station WWWW, now
featured on Chicago's WLUP, initiated
the whole stunt at a White Sox game as
a prontotional gag - a gag that
resulted in a near-riot during half-time,
with craged rockers destroying disco
albums by the thousands.
Of course, Steve stands to profit quite
nicely from all this lunacy; he is
currently plugging his new anti-disco
single "Do Ya Think I'm Disco."
Nevertheless, the popularity of Dahl's
slogan reveals a key controversy: Is
disco really dying out as a pop cultural
phenomenon?
After a quick review of relevant data,
it is fair to conclude that while disco has
had certain problems over the last
year, it is more popular than ever from
a asales point of view, much to the.
chagrin of rock fans. One major
problem with attempting to gauge the
overall popularity of this music form
deals with the definition of disco music
itself, since some of the biggest songs
are sold under a number of different
classifications. For example, records
by the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart
are always classified as rock, yet their
most successful releases of the. past
year, "Miss You" and the ever-popular
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," are both un-
deniably disco songs. Likewise, one of
the most innovative new disco songs
released this year, "Street Life" by
Randy Crawford with the Crusaders, is
the only vocal cut on the primarily jazz
album. Other disco songs are often on
albums classified as soul, rock, or even
new wave.
EVEN CONSIDERING this problem
of categorization, one only has to glance
O N
/ /
at Billboard's 'hot one-hundred' chart
of top singles to realize that, of all areas
in pop music, disco is the one area that
has been least affected by the current
industry sales crunch.
Unfortunately, while disco still does
good business, many feel that the music
itself has reached a state of over-
produced stagnation. These critics, in-
cluding those who revelled in disco's
early stages, are tiring of the bland,
mediocre offerings of late, such as Bar-
bra Streisand's pathetic "Main Event,"
Cher's blatantly formulated "Take Me
Home," and the Bee Gees' "Tragedy."
Although the past year has given us a
few good discs like Cheryl Ladd's
"Starlove in the Night" and Linda Clif-
ford's unusual disco version of "Bridge
Over Troubled Water," several
see JUST, p. 19
INSTANT
CASH!
WE'RE PAYING
$1-$2 PER DISC
FOR YOUR ALBUMS
IN GOOD SHAPE.
RECORDS
OPEN MON.-SAT. 10-6
209 S. STATE
769-7075
.J -J R
WIT,
a
Of the many art forms available to the students of this greatUniversity none
is more widespread than graffiti. Not only have we all seen it everywhere, but how
many of us have scratched our names into the chairs in the Nat. Sci. auditorium or
carefully lettered "This class is boring" on the tables of Mason Hall? Surprisingly,
this fascinating field of human endeaver has rarely received its due recognition,
and with that in mind I began this column many months ago in an attempt to
publicize some of the more deserving samples of wall wisdom. Now, a year after I
dropped my few remaining classes to take up full-time graffiti research, I can
present to you the highlights of 1978-1979.
Unfortunately, to find these highlights it was necessary to reread all of last
year's "Nuke the Whales" columns, and it was distressing to see how poorly writ-
ten some of them were. They were occasionally written under extreme time
pressure, but this is no excuse; we have all known the feeling of being two hours
from a term paper deadline with a blank sheet in the typewriter. Perhaps the Daily
should add the following warning to its masthead: "The Michigan Daily is written
almost entirely by people under the age of 22, like you. Not many of us can write
well. Some of us also have classes. Careat emplor." Such candor could only result
in a more close-knit relationship between the Daily and its readers.
Here, now, are some personal favorites of last year. From the MLB where
foreign tongues are not rare, an irate American demanded, "Let's see visas and
passports right now," while the troubles in Iran were explained by the line "Fuck
'em if they can't take a joke. Signed, the Shah." From the Dennison building came
such treats as "Suck Off My Atwood's Machine" and the Star Wars debate. Sam-
ple: "Parsecs are a unit of distance not time, idiot." "Yes,, but relativity says
From East Quad came the call to "Gas Jesus, '78" as well as several eulogies
for Sid Vicious and some bitter protests against the designated hitter rule. In
Markley one could find amidst the falling plaster of a dilapidated stairwell the
headline, "Dorm stairway collapses-thousands feared dead;" the plaster on
which this was written has since fallen down. The source of "There are two things
in the world which taste like fish, and one of them is fish" has been lost, but the line
itself is eternal. The endless puns on computer terminology in the NUBS bathroom
and the scrawling of "Joe Licks Taint" everywhere on campus also rank with the
best. The Graduate Library as always came through week after week with fun
things to know and tell, like "Descartes Thinks!," "Drop the ham on Israel," "I'd
rather have a frontal lobotomy than a course in geology," and the old favorite,
"Meet me here at 4:00, signed Godot."
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