Customer Reviews

Disco Not Disco 1974-1986

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am seriously surprised to see negative reviews on this album. I downloaded it to my Zune collection a few days ago and have admittedly had it on random shuffle, BUT every single song I've heard off of it has been AMAZING! Don't expect these to sound anything like the original versions (i.e. this isn't your typical Delta 5), but all the same ... if you are a fan of dance-able, post-punk-disco indie tunes (i.e. LCD Soundsystem, Lindstrom, The Rapture's Echoes album, and of course older and better stuff, etc.) then definitely give this a spin.

I can only sum up the negative reviews by saying "I guess you just had to be there". Many of these tunes I have been looking for since the early 80s since I first heard them - either on WBLS or else at the Paradise Garage in NYC. Out of context as they are here, if you never heard them in a club, would explain why some folks have negative reviews. If you were fortunate enough to hear them "in the moment" during a frantic sequence of mixes by a master DJ they probably would have a very different affect on you. I picked this up on the strength of "Los Ninos Del Parque", Your Life" and "My Spine...." About half of these tunes are new to me, but equally as interesting.

True, it's not for everyone but I think this is a brilliant collection.

The reviewer Paul Ess is in some ways right that these tracks lack warmth and are "white-boy" disco, without the swing or swagger of great dance and funk tunes, but what Mr. Ess seems not to know is that they were all (or mostly) written tongue in cheek at the time. This was a time in pop music history where many people were so disgusted with the music industry and the state of affairs of our culture, more generally, that they were writing very ironic, distancing, parodic songs, even in styles they themselves hated (i.e. disco) or were ambivalent about, as a way to express their alienation and anger. Yes, trust me, most of these songs are tongue-in-cheek, they are parodic, while I suppose also trying to win over the post-punk dance crowd (such as it was).

As it's title conveys: 'DND' is a compilation of electro and semi-industrial dance music from its golden era; 1974 - 1986.
The biggest problem it faces (and fails to overcome) is it's inherent lack of warmth and richness. I suppose it would take on a different ambience if you were listening to it in a sweaty club waiting for Kraftwerk to come on, but these cuts laid out corpse-like on the slab, don't much engage the listener searching for aesthetic charge or stimuli. In short, it's bland and repetitive.
And that applies to the genre as a whole, not just this compilation.

It begins strongly with Vivien Goldman's floating wasp of a song 'Launderette' but it's a false dawn. The rest of 'DND' is predictable and repetitious. Tinny drum machines click away, funky basses throb, but it all seems a performance of duty. There's no guile or flexibility, it's all anodyne and static.

Shriekback's 'My Spine is the Bass Line' is a typical offender. Hiding under the 'experimental' banner, (ie; melody-less) it sputters about in limbo, trying hard (too hard?) to be gauche and vital but succeeding only in diverting the progressively apathetic listener into the paths of the far more accommodating Chic and Donna Summer.

The rest of 'DND' treads a monochord, kyphosis sing-song path. What vocals there are, are either typical Teutonic in robotic monotone, or charmless whispering in a desperate attempt to make it all sound sexy. A standard risible praxis. Functional. Automaton instead of autonomy. Riddled with cliché and wanton stubborness, it can't evolve into anything more than premeditated and straight-forward strangeness.

Each track goes on forever. There's a bewildering array of mixes and versions, which are supposedly activating and engaging the senses, but in reality are just piling on the agony.
It ends with two stormers by Six Said Red and Maximum Joy, but it's much too late in the day, the damage long being done.

Dance music without soul is an atrocious concept and in a very real sense - a contradiction in terms. 'The Hacienda Classics' is a much more satisfying collection, although not without flaws of it's own.

On this evidence, white boys (and girls) certainly can't play the funk, but they can clobber the attempt.
Some of these squeaky synths sound like cheap keyboards you might give a child for Christmas, and the unsurprising percussion, something you'd hear in a working man's club.
Worst of all, it's all so cripplingly serious. Too harsh, too formulaic, and you could say without a hint of irony, too European.

'DND' shortcomings are painfully obvious, and that's Blitz-Club, electro-dance music's problem to a tee.

i have big regrets for having bought that CD. it's not that i don't like it, it's even worse. these sounds seem so cheap to me. anyway, if you are a nostalgic of this strange music, go for it, but you have been warned.