Why was disco ignored by british musicians?

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 2,139
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    I wonder if this thread will make it to 2013? :)
  • uniqueunique Posts: 12,435
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    i thought you said that 'saturday night fever' was the biggest selling album of the punk/disco era...

    WRONG!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_of_the_1970s_%28UK%29

    meatloaf, abba, and fleetwood mac all had albums in this era that sold more.
    /facepalm

    "list of best-selling albums OF the 1970s" - this includes all sales from release date to whenever the list was combined. that's why bat out of hell only barely scraped it into the top 10 whilst saturday night fever spent nearly half a year at the top of the charts on both sides of the atlantic.

    and the poster actually said "The biggest selling album of the punk era was the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.". so present some sales figures to show during that era the sales. the charts themselves show that saturday night fever was number 1 for nearly half a year on both sides of the atlantic, demonstrating it was the biggest selling album for that period. what other album during that period tops those sales?
  • mushymanrobmushymanrob Posts: 17,992
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    unique wrote: »
    /facepalm

    "list of best-selling albums OF the 1970s" - this includes all sales from release date to whenever the list was combined. that's why bat out of hell only barely scraped it into the top 10 whilst saturday night fever spent nearly half a year at the top of the charts on both sides of the atlantic.

    and the poster actually said "The biggest selling album of the punk era was the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.". so present some sales figures to show during that era the sales. the charts themselves show that saturday night fever was number 1 for nearly half a year on both sides of the atlantic, demonstrating it was the biggest selling album for that period. what other album during that period tops those sales?

    i highlighted the 3 albums that were on release in the punk/disco era.

    the chart position has nothing to do with it... snf might be at #1 for 18 weeks, but it didnt sell as many units as fleetwood mac, abba, or meatloaf .

    get over it... snf was NOT the biggest selling album of this era.

    official charts listings

    http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-biggest-selling-albums-of-all-time-1329/

    http://www.everyhit.com/recordalb.html
  • mushymanrobmushymanrob Posts: 17,992
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    soundstory wrote: »
    I wonder if this thread will make it to 2013? :)

    nah...ill let unique go into a great detailed response bickering over side issues then ill ignore it and repeat my post #1. which still stands firm. :D
  • uniqueunique Posts: 12,435
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    factually incorrect. snf DIDNT spend 'nearly half a year @ #1 in britain'. and its the uk that is the topic of conversation here.
    yes it did. it spent hearly half a year at number 1 on both sides of the atlantic. as i've repeated a number of times now, it was 24 weeks at number 1 in the states and 18 weeks at number 1 in the uk
    so...you want to include abums eh?... how many british disco albums were there in this period? and by disco album i mean an album where over half the tracks are disco, disco as defined by the wiki link previously posted.
    you know you are on to a losing arguement when you need to start discounting records from your count. as to what point or how that point matters is any way...
    ill be back later with a list of non disco british albums.
    well that will give you something to do
    they are not flawed, my original post cited the charts as supporting the fact that british artists seemingly ignored disco....
    your figures are deeply flawed as has been explained in a number of points throughout the thread. you've also confirmed yourself they were flawed. it was also proven that british artists did not ignore disco, with many well known established acts having hits with disco and a british act topping the charts on both sides of the atlantic for nearly half a year with disco music
    the chart stats, easily checked, that i posted (and i could do more but cant be arsed) all show the same thing.... a complete lack of british disco acts in the top 40 from 76-83, and that other styles were more popular by british acts which is what i posted in post #1.
    but they don't show that at all. did you look at this with your eyes wide shut?
    and yet again you are mis-quoting what i said. i will report this if it happens again. the point of the excercise wasnt to show that any other genre was bigger then disco, but to prove that british musicians produced other styles of music to a greater degree then disco.
    so why start a thread that clearly states "why was disco ignored by british musicians", to which it was proven it was not? and then why continue arguing about it when the answer was given early on as to why there wasn't more disco music? furthermore you've changed the goalposts repeatedly throughout the thread in response to every question or point you have raised that proves what you had said is wrong
    this was proven to be correct.
    no, it was proven to be incorrect which you can see for yourself by reading back the thread
    it also highlighted that there was as many disco hits as there was rock, new wave, soul, and that good old fashioned pop was the dominant genre.
    no it doesn't, as it doesn't consider the actual sales. the one that sold the most is the dominant genre, and as has been proven before, disco was the dominant genre for a period, with one single disco record topping the charts on both sides of the atlantic for nearly half a year
    that is what the charts clearly show.
    disco dominating the charts for a period is what the charts clearly show
    but classical is not pop (as in the umbrella term )... disco is. so of course classical doesnt get much of a look in... i suspect that classical tracks have sold far more then any pop tracks, they have been around for a couple of hundered years!
    but it still proves the point, nonetheless
    it doesnt matter how many musicians it takes to create a single track, if act 'a' has 4 members or 20 members, that counts as 1 track and one artist ... every track is released by an artist or artists, not unless named as such an ensemble.
    and that's why your figures are so deeply flawed. because 50 people making a disco record counts as one in your stats, to which you very wrongly conclude means very few people are playing it. even if the reality is that more people are playing it than other genres
    just view the charts from the early 60's when jazz was hip and pop, jazz is well reprisented, aker bilk, kenny ball, dave brubeck, johnny dankworth, etc all had a number of big hits.... so yes, when a style is 'pop', it shows. but nowdays classical, jazz, folk, etc dont come under the umbrella term of 'pop', they arent considered pop music... disco does.
    but those styles aren't represented at all in any of the stats you have provided, yet they still sold. the long and short of it is that your stats are deeply flawed as they don't give an accurate representation of what musicians were playing. and remember the title of your thread "why was disco ignored by british musicians". the charts show it was not ignored, and from what you've produced in fact they show that there was no notable difference in tracks produced between genres. in fact due to the smaller number of musicians who played on punk records, your flawed stats actually suggest that less people played punk than disco
    but hey, if you really want to include 'non pop' genres, then british discos share % wise of the market will drop even further! :D
    /facepalm - no it won't. have a think about that one
    as explained previously, it is, it is the most practical, sensible way of understanding which styles of music were being created at any one point in british music history.
    no it's not. and again you've changed the goalposts from "why was disco ignored by british musicians". you are moving away from what musicians played, to the total output. as more musicians are required to play certain styles like disco and classical music, the total output will be affected accordingly
    unless you can come up with a better, equally as practical, way of quantifying what the british musicans were creating at the time... then please do! otherwise youll just have to accept that for the purposes of this excercise, and as mentioned and defined in post #1, the british uk top 40 (i would use a larger chart if i had one that covers this period) is the data im using.
    but as i've pointed out that method simply doesn't work. remember it's YOU that's trying to prove some point, so it's YOU that needs to come up with some better metholodgy if you want to prove it
    ridiculous and rather desperate statement. you cant build a ladder to the moon, you CAN use the recorded data to draw conclusions.
    but your conclusions won't be accurate if you don't use accurate methods with accurate data. so just because you can add a bunch of stuff up and you can't think of another way to do it, doesn't mean the way you did it is accurate in any way. as has been proven with a number of points throughout this thread, the methology is deeply flawed
    eh? where have i suggested that punk sold more?..
    have a look back when you looked at chart stats
    eh? pop was reprisented in the charts far more then disco...
    far more? look at your stats. although they are flawed, they don't show this at all
    the topic isnt about sales....
    so with the thread title being "why was disco ignored by british musicians" - which was proven to be wrong, then does that mean it's about the musicians who actually played that genre of music? ie. about the musicians?
    but as disco was all but absent from the charts 1981-83,
    but it wasn't. both disco music and disco influenced music was in both the singles and albums charts in the UK and the world
    and rock, new wave, soul, (styles of which were reprisented as much as disco during discos era)
    so this contradicts what you've said earlier - "other styles were more popular". as well as changing the goal posts you chop and change your mind depending on the answers given. if those styles were represented as much as disco, then it means those styles were represented evenly? and then when you consider the numbe of musicians who played on the disco tracks, it suggests more musicians played on disco than those other styles? thus the complete opposite to any idea that "disco (was) ignored by british musicians"
    went on selling, id suggest that in the uk, new wave, rock and soul...let alone pop, all outsold disco.
    even though the sales figures show otherwise, and the charts show high sales of disco?
    lol... no figures show that. thats ridiculous. does a hit track list every musician who played on it?...no... each track is credited to an act, an artist, a group, so each track = 1 vote.
    thus if you use that deeply flawed methology, you aren't going to get any kind of accurate figures as to how many musicians played on each genre. and knowing that smaller number of musicians typically played on certain genres like punk and rock music, and larger numbers of musicians typically played on other styles of music like disco, clearly that type of analysising is going to give a very innacurate conclusion of the numbers of musicians playing a particular genre
    STOP focusing on punk, this isnt punk vs disco. punks place in this isnt the topic.
    but you keep mentioning that genre throughout the thread. your stats, although deeply flawed, show how little it sold, and using your methology conclude how few musicians played punk
    its subjective is it?.... well how many people would think the smurfs are equal to squeeze?... :D
    i don't know. lots of kids maybe. lots of people who don't know squeeze or it's music? lots of people who don't like squeeze? as it's subjective, and due to the popularity of the smurfs, you may well find more people prefer the smurfs to squeeze
    c'mon, stop nit picking, i lumped 'adult' pop in with 'novelty' pop and pop makes up a third of the market... three times bigger by artist/track then disco.
    so by lumping in a whole load of things that you can't define, you compare those things to something else? even then, just look at the sales. 3 times more tracks doesn't mean 3 times more sales. in fact a track at number 1 in the charts can outsell the rest of the top 5 combined, so adding up the number of tracks doesn't show popularity of a genre, and nor does it show how many musicians played a particular genre
    then went on to qualify this, because i didnt want to make the title too long.
    but that's a loaded question. not to mention one that's been proven wrong. if you had approached with a more open minded and less biased approach
    the answer to that is 'i dont know'... do you?
    well to use the ladder to the moon analogy, if you can't come up with a better answer, then it must be disco
    i stand by post #1, which clearly identifies what im on about.
    so although it's been proven that disco wasn't ignored by british musicians, and in fact british musicians had been very successful with it in the UK and around the world you still think "british musicians seem to have ignored disco" even when queen, elton john, rolling stones, pink floyd, led zeppeling, rod stewart, david bowie, cliff richard, member of the beatles, ELO, etc etc etc - literally the most successful british acts of all time had made disco and disco influenced music and had considerable success with it?
    you did! earlier...
    no i didn't. have a read back and see
    non. so?... wheres the evidence that there was a large underground disco scene where british musicians were creating disco?
    this was something you mentioned yourself, so you tell me
    for someone soooooo keen on facts, citing an albums success, providing chart stats and sales when it suits...
    ... you still have not provided a list of disco tracks that charted created by british musicians... youve named but a handful that 'dabbled'...
    the fact is, if you could provide a list of disco tracks created by british musicians between 1976 and 1983, and that this list was greater then the equivelant for the other popular styles of music in this period..... you would have proven my perception to be inaccurate .
    but the point is, you cant. because my perception that british musicians did all but ignore is close to the mark, if not completely correct.
    well that may be true. but i'm more interested in providing the facts than changing your perception. if the facts provided already haven't convinced you that "disco music WAS NOT ignored by british musicians", it still doesn't change the fact that you are far from the mark and you are completely incorrect
    .... fair play.
    now was that worth bickering about? as you can see from what i post, i check my facts first, so you can't prove me wrong about anything. your opinions may vary, but i won't post something as a fact unless i check it's right first
    except pop, but they do show that there was hardly any BRITISH disco in the charts...which is what post #1 claims.
    well the thread title was "why was disco ignored by british musicians". as has been proven throughout the thread a number of times, british musicians had been very successful with it in the UK and around the world with queen, elton john, rolling stones, pink floyd, led zeppeling, rod stewart, david bowie, cliff richard, member of the beatles, ELO, etc etc etc - literally the most successful british acts of all time having made disco and disco influenced music and had considerable success with it
    its misleading and factually incorrect, plus off topic.
    it's neither. it's factually correct. as the exact figures have been mentioned many many times on this thread, how could it be misleading? the facts can be doublechecked and compared to the exact figures i mentioned repeatedly through the thread
    STOP clouding the issue by refering to american charts when the topic is BRITISH charts.
    but the thread title is "why was disco ignored by british musicians". the very fact that british musicians topped both the UK and US chart for nearly half a year is absolute proof that disco was not ignored by british musicians, and disco music by british musicians was not ignored in the UK or the rest of the world
    snf was at #1 for 18 weeks, thats 8 weeks off 'half a year', so no, snf didnt spent 'nearly half a year @#1' here in the uk.
    yes it did. saturday night fever spent nearly half a year at number 1 on both sides of the atlantic. it spent 24 weeks at number 1 in the US and 18 weeks at number 1 in the UK. these facts are documented and checkable
    thats your opinion , the chart stats though tell a different story, the chart stats are not deeply flawed, they are accurate.
    it's your methology that's deeply flawed. the basic raw data you have presented isn't even accurate as you've not been able to accurately define genres or state your definitions for each genre to sort them
    post #1 stands intact. you have dont nothing but bicker over side issues because you cannot provide a list of british created disco tracks that disproves post #1.
    staying alive, jive talking, night fever. there you go. i'd say 3 is enough for a list. they are british created disco tracks that sold millions, thus it disproves post #1. as has numerous replies by myself on this thread
    i have provided chart stats that clearly show that british disco tracks were a clear minority in comparison to the many other styles of music british musicians were charting with.
    no you haven't. and earlier in your same post you stated yourself that "there was as many disco hits as there was rock, new wave, soul". but to bring this back to your original question and thread title "why was disco music ignored by british musicians" - this clearly is not true with british musicians topping the charts with disco in the UK and around the world, with records selling many millions of copies
  • uniqueunique Posts: 12,435
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    i highlighted the 3 albums that were on release in the punk/disco era.

    the chart position has nothing to do with it... snf might be at #1 for 18 weeks, but it didnt sell as many units as fleetwood mac, abba, or meatloaf .

    get over it... snf was NOT the biggest selling album of this era.

    official charts listings

    http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-biggest-selling-albums-of-all-time-1329/

    http://www.everyhit.com/recordalb.html
    again, the very same thing as i mentioned before. those stats are ALL TIME sales. not the sales during the punk/disco era. the part where it says "40 biggest selling albums OF ALL TIME" is a hint to this
  • mushymanrobmushymanrob Posts: 17,992
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    unique wrote: »
    yes it did. it spent hearly half a year at number 1 on both sides of the atlantic. as i've repeated a number of times now, it was 24 weeks at number 1 in the states and 18 weeks at number 1 in the uk

    you know you are on to a losing arguement when you need to start discounting records from your count. as to what point or how that point matters is any way...

    well that will give you something to do

    your figures are deeply flawed as has been explained in a number of points throughout the thread. you've also confirmed yourself they were flawed. it was also proven that british artists did not ignore disco, with many well known established acts having hits with disco and a british act topping the charts on both sides of the atlantic for nearly half a year with disco music

    but they don't show that at all. did you look at this with your eyes wide shut?

    so why start a thread that clearly states "why was disco ignored by british musicians", to which it was proven it was not? and then why continue arguing about it when the answer was given early on as to why there wasn't more disco music? furthermore you've changed the goalposts repeatedly throughout the thread in response to every question or point you have raised that proves what you had said is wrong

    no, it was proven to be incorrect which you can see for yourself by reading back the thread

    no it doesn't, as it doesn't consider the actual sales. the one that sold the most is the dominant genre, and as has been proven before, disco was the dominant genre for a period, with one single disco record topping the charts on both sides of the atlantic for nearly half a year

    disco dominating the charts for a period is what the charts clearly show


    but it still proves the point, nonetheless

    and that's why your figures are so deeply flawed. because 50 people making a disco record counts as one in your stats, to which you very wrongly conclude means very few people are playing it. even if the reality is that more people are playing it than other genres

    but those styles aren't represented at all in any of the stats you have provided, yet they still sold. the long and short of it is that your stats are deeply flawed as they don't give an accurate representation of what musicians were playing. and remember the title of your thread "why was disco ignored by british musicians". the charts show it was not ignored, and from what you've produced in fact they show that there was no notable difference in tracks produced between genres. in fact due to the smaller number of musicians who played on punk records, your flawed stats actually suggest that less people played punk than disco

    /facepalm - no it won't. have a think about that one

    no it's not. and again you've changed the goalposts from "why was disco ignored by british musicians". you are moving away from what musicians played, to the total output. as more musicians are required to play certain styles like disco and classical music, the total output will be affected accordingly

    but as i've pointed out that method simply doesn't work. remember it's YOU that's trying to prove some point, so it's YOU that needs to come up with some better metholodgy if you want to prove it

    but your conclusions won't be accurate if you don't use accurate methods with accurate data. so just because you can add a bunch of stuff up and you can't think of another way to do it, doesn't mean the way you did it is accurate in any way. as has been proven with a number of points throughout this thread, the methology is deeply flawed

    have a look back when you looked at chart stats

    far more? look at your stats. although they are flawed, they don't show this at all

    so with the thread title being "why was disco ignored by british musicians" - which was proven to be wrong, then does that mean it's about the musicians who actually played that genre of music? ie. about the musicians?

    but it wasn't. both disco music and disco influenced music was in both the singles and albums charts in the UK and the world

    so this contradicts what you've said earlier - "other styles were more popular". as well as changing the goal posts you chop and change your mind depending on the answers given. if those styles were represented as much as disco, then it means those styles were represented evenly? and then when you consider the numbe of musicians who played on the disco tracks, it suggests more musicians played on disco than those other styles? thus the complete opposite to any idea that "disco (was) ignored by british musicians"

    even though the sales figures show otherwise, and the charts show high sales of disco?

    thus if you use that deeply flawed methology, you aren't going to get any kind of accurate figures as to how many musicians played on each genre. and knowing that smaller number of musicians typically played on certain genres like punk and rock music, and larger numbers of musicians typically played on other styles of music like disco, clearly that type of analysising is going to give a very innacurate conclusion of the numbers of musicians playing a particular genre

    but you keep mentioning that genre throughout the thread. your stats, although deeply flawed, show how little it sold, and using your methology conclude how few musicians played punk

    i don't know. lots of kids maybe. lots of people who don't know squeeze or it's music? lots of people who don't like squeeze? as it's subjective, and due to the popularity of the smurfs, you may well find more people prefer the smurfs to squeeze

    so by lumping in a whole load of things that you can't define, you compare those things to something else? even then, just look at the sales. 3 times more tracks doesn't mean 3 times more sales. in fact a track at number 1 in the charts can outsell the rest of the top 5 combined, so adding up the number of tracks doesn't show popularity of a genre, and nor does it show how many musicians played a particular genre

    but that's a loaded question. not to mention one that's been proven wrong. if you had approached with a more open minded and less biased approach

    well to use the ladder to the moon analogy, if you can't come up with a better answer, then it must be disco

    so although it's been proven that disco wasn't ignored by british musicians, and in fact british musicians had been very successful with it in the UK and around the world you still think "british musicians seem to have ignored disco" even when queen, elton john, rolling stones, pink floyd, led zeppeling, rod stewart, david bowie, cliff richard, member of the beatles, ELO, etc etc etc - literally the most successful british acts of all time had made disco and disco influenced music and had considerable success with it?

    no i didn't. have a read back and see

    this was something you mentioned yourself, so you tell me

    well that may be true. but i'm more interested in providing the facts than changing your perception. if the facts provided already haven't convinced you that "disco music WAS NOT ignored by british musicians", it still doesn't change the fact that you are far from the mark and you are completely incorrect

    now was that worth bickering about? as you can see from what i post, i check my facts first, so you can't prove me wrong about anything. your opinions may vary, but i won't post something as a fact unless i check it's right first

    well the thread title was "why was disco ignored by british musicians". as has been proven throughout the thread a number of times, british musicians had been very successful with it in the UK and around the world with queen, elton john, rolling stones, pink floyd, led zeppeling, rod stewart, david bowie, cliff richard, member of the beatles, ELO, etc etc etc - literally the most successful british acts of all time having made disco and disco influenced music and had considerable success with it

    it's neither. it's factually correct. as the exact figures have been mentioned many many times on this thread, how could it be misleading? the facts can be doublechecked and compared to the exact figures i mentioned repeatedly through the thread

    but the thread title is "why was disco ignored by british musicians". the very fact that british musicians topped both the UK and US chart for nearly half a year is absolute proof that disco was not ignored by british musicians, and disco music by british musicians was not ignored in the UK or the rest of the world

    yes it did. saturday night fever spent nearly half a year at number 1 on both sides of the atlantic. it spent 24 weeks at number 1 in the US and 18 weeks at number 1 in the UK. these facts are documented and checkable

    it's your methology that's deeply flawed. the basic raw data you have presented isn't even accurate as you've not been able to accurately define genres or state your definitions for each genre to sort them

    staying alive, jive talking, night fever. there you go. i'd say 3 is enough for a list. they are british created disco tracks that sold millions, thus it disproves post #1. as has numerous replies by myself on this thread

    no you haven't. and earlier in your same post you stated yourself that "there was as many disco hits as there was rock, new wave, soul". but to bring this back to your original question and thread title "why was disco music ignored by british musicians" - this clearly is not true with british musicians topping the charts with disco in the UK and around the world, with records selling many millions of copies

    well that was a waste of time.

    im not even going to bother reading it, as you have not produced what ive asked for...a list of british created disco hits from 76-83. post #1 clearly details the point im making , and the projected chart stats show that at best british disco only occupied c 3% of chart placing.... id suggest that that is being ignored, or as good as.


    for my part im most happy that post #1 stands intact. there are very very few british disco hits in our top 40 between the years 1976 and 1983. the chart stats clearly show this is true.

    but there was considerably more british rock, british ska, british punk, british electro, british pop, british reggae, etc etc etc. that charted during this period. fact.

    the charts stats also highlight that disco as a whole and at its peak, 78-80, only had a similar % of chart placings as new wave, rock, soul, and only a third of the % pop chart placings had.

    british acts were clearly not producing disco, because when the 'disco sucks' campaigne in america struck, and american disco stopped being released, there was no british disco to fill the void. surely it would have if there was any there!

    i asked why brits seemingly ignored disco. i believe its because the punk/post punk generation was into 'doing it for themselves', so people who were inspired to make music, did so. imho its no accident that the singles chart/music scene following punk was the most diverse in british music history, but apart from a successful film score, and a few established artists dabbling in disco, it was all but ignored.. especially by the punk generation. and its the punk generation who created reggae, reggae/rock fusion, two tone ska, funk and jazz funk inspired electro music, in fact nearly every style but disco.

    and that is the gist of it, maybe there are some exceptions, but going around in circles bickering over side issues takes nothing away from the main point, the gist of post #1 which remains intact.
  • mushymanrobmushymanrob Posts: 17,992
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    unique wrote: »
    again, the very same thing as i mentioned before. those stats are ALL TIME sales. not the sales during the punk/disco era. the part where it says "40 biggest selling albums OF ALL TIME" is a hint to this

    yyyyep.... i have no stats from that era. so if anyone does, fair play, stop making claims though without sales stats from 1977, 1978, 1979. to support it. snf might have been the biggest selling album from the disco/punk era IN the disco/punk era. only sales stats will confirm this, and i see none, only total sales. weeks in chart mean nothing, only that in those weeks they sold more in those weeks.

    but snf kept on selling after that period as those other albums did.
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