Communiqué

It was untouchable in the 1970s, but a backlash led to its demise: the finale of DISCO: SOUNTRACK OF A REVOLUTION – July 2 at 9 pm


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Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution

Finale premiere on Tuesday, July 2 at 9:00 pm

Episode 3: “Stayin’ Alive”

 

Rock-n-roll sign on Disco Demolition Night at Cominsky baseball Park in Chicago, 1979. Credit: Diane Alexander White / BBC
Rock-n-roll sign Demolition Night 1979.
Credit: Diane Alexander White / BBC

The final episode documents the wellspring of resentment from white, straight, male-dominated, rock-loving middle Americans, as they targeted disco for its hedonism, femininity, and queerness. A vocal “Disco Sucks” movement began to gain momentum, culminating in the “Disco Demolition Derby” at Comiskey Park Stadium in Chicago, where organizers destroyed thousands of disco records in front of a baying audience of baseball fans. In addition, the hedonism and sexual liberation embodied by disco found itself stopped in its tracks by the AIDS crisis. Pushed out of the mainstream, the pioneers of disco retreated and regrouped. Cult disco DJ Frankie Knuckles left New York for Chicago, where he remixed disco breaks with R&B to produce a new genre of dance music – house. He and other disco pioneers kept disco alive as it evolved into world electronic dance music.