This summer will commemorate the 30th anniversary a most glorious era on earth!

No, It was not the space shuttle or Haley’s Comet.

It wasn’t Margaret Thatcher’s election as Britain’s Prime Minister (although that was pretty awesome!).

No, my friends. It was the height of perhaps the most pivotal movement in the history of…pivotal movements.

It was the indisputable peak of music history’s most enduring (but also endearing) blemish.

Yes folks…….‘Twas the age of DISCO!!

Disco hit it’s pinnacle in 1979!

It was everywhere atop the charts, and many radio stations had even gone all disco (with the occasional Al Green tune just to break the monotony).

Saturday Night Fever had been in Theatres for about 2 years, and it’s soundtrack had gone 15x Platinum!
A year earlier, you could not enter a home in North America that didn’t have a copy of that record, but by 1979, many of those homes were buying 2nd and 3rd copies because the 1st was so scratched from being over-played, or because the kids were fighting over which songs to play when they practiced groundbreaking moves, like pointing from left to right while simultaneously doing a pelvic thrust, in front of the mirror.
The craze had reached nauseatingly unprecedented proportions.

Just like any other all-encompassing fad, it was bound to drive you batty eventually.

Like when your wife buys you a bright red satin shirt to go with the tight pair of Sergio Valente Jeans that she has taken the liberty to “bedazzle” and tells you it’s the perfect outfit for your buddy’s party. So you break them in while you shop for a Roller Boogie lunch box for your son at K-Mart where Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive is playing over the P.A. (and you are still oblivious as to how annoyingly insidious that song would one day become).
Your daughter comes along to see if she can get a shiny pair of hot pink stretchy pants to wear on her date with some guy who’s trying desperately to look like Andy Gibb with an open leather vest and who drives one of those Trans Ams with a T-roof and the eagle on the hood.

So there you are shakin’ your booty with your Boogie Woogie Dancin’ Shoes on when unbeknownst to you, some rock radio jock in Chicago gets fired because his station switches to an all-disco format. Remember, this was back in the day when radio DJs actually chose and played their own music.

This DJ, Steve Dahl, landed a job as the morning man for a rock station where he began his infamous crusade against what he referred to as “Disco Dystrophy”, an infectious disease that had become a social pandemic. His followers were essentially white folk who couldn’t dance, I assume, but I have no factual basis for that statement, so I digress.

Their objective was clear, and their slogan was simple:

DISCO SUCKS!

No room for ambiguity there.

So that’s when it happened. July 1979. The great “Disco Demolition” at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. The promo took place during a night time double-header between the Sox and Detroit Tigers. Anyone bringing a disco album to the game would be admitted for just 98 cents. Between games, DJ Steve Dahl would blow up those disco albums with fireworks.

Sure. It sounds like a great idea when you say it like that, but over 75,000 people showed up and the huge box containing the records was rigged with what was essentially a small bomb! When it exploded, the bomb tore an enormous hole in the grass! Now, I’m not the most manly sporty type, but it is my understanding that baseball players actually use that little portion of ground. They even have a name for it. It’s commonly referred to as ….THE OUTFIELD!!

The next thing you know, thousands of fans are rushing the field, lighting fires, rioting, destroying the batting cage and stealing bases (no pun intended), but DJ Dahl had already escaped just as he discovered that his listeners were essentially insane.

Disco Sucks? You suck, Steve Dahl!

Okay, honestly, I could live 200 years without ever hearing I Will Survive, YMCA or Staying Alive again, but what about Off The Wall by Michael Jackson, He’s The Greatest Dancer by Sister Sledge, or Got To Give It Up by Marvin Gaye. Everyone remembers Shame by Evelyn "Champagne" King and who can forget Push Push In The Bush by Musique?
Ring My Bell by Anita Ward, or I Love The Nightlife (on the disc ra-howwwnd, yeah!) by Alicia Bridges.

I wish I could have been there. Disco sounds like a blast! (okay, that time the pun was intended)

To quote the inimitable Zohan, “disco disco, good good”.

Happy Anniversary!