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love to love you babydisco and the mechanization of music

by alison mccarthy

• Artificiality has been a part of music since recording technology was introduced.

• These recording techniques and effects gave producers greater freedom to create new sounds; musicians were no longer limited to what they could create live.

• In early years, studio technology was treated with suspicion. It was necessary, but not something to be celebrated within itself.

• The late 1960s: Artists began to embrace, exploit and control technology.

• These recordings retained the artists' personal vision.

new studio technologies

Kraftwerk (Germany, 1970’s)

The human becomes irrelevant.

Music reflected the urban, mechanized environment around them.

Mundane and repetitive subject matter.

Ironic and detached vocals. Live: turned knobs and pressed

buttons on machines. Totally at odds with rock’s music

quest for authenticity of the 1970s.

What’s real and what’s prerecorded? Does it matter?

“Music made by computers and performed by robots” (241).

mechanization of music

disco: two histories(1974-1977) (1977-1979)

Influenced by positive ideals rooted in the 1960s

Major labels now involved; Saturday Night Fever

A coming together as a cathartic process

Mass market appeal: accessible, fun, upbeat

Mixture of democracy and exclusivity (intimate, in-the-know)

Increasingly hedonistic; toned down homosexuality

Grew out of various subcultures (gay/black/working-class)

Studio 54 and celebrity disco (celebrating the individual)

“Downtown” “Uptown”

Disco’s own version of authenticity

The way we remember disco?

characteristics Escapist: Glitter, fantasy and celebration – had little to do with

everyday life. Romantic: Flourishing instrumentation, harmonies, effeminate

and overacted vocals. Emphasized feminine pleasure and desire vs. rock's phallocentrism.

Erotic: Yearning from the body vs. yearning from the heart and soul.

Camp: self-aware artificiality; ironic and absurd; deliberately manufactured (237).

Rooted in and extremely popular with black and gay culture, who were already suspicious of authenticity (236).

disco & authenticity“Anti-Disco” Movements (236)

Aesthetic Reaction: Disco reduced the dance beat to simple basics, pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Cultural Reaction: Often due to homophobia and racism, and fear of sexuality and urbanity: Disco Demolition Derby

Disco vs. Rock (1970s): Theatrical, universal, manufactured, tongue in cheek, urban,

aspirational, gay and female sexuality versus… Natural, spontaneous, personal, creative and earnest, rural, white

working class male values (252). Disco was looked at as shallow, plastic, fake, politically unsound. But disco deliberately avoided authenticity; embraced artifice and the

synthetic.

“Love to Love You Baby” (1975)Performed, marketed and perceived by the public as a sex symbol (234).

The problem: Who she really was vs. who she was perceived to be.

- This one sexualized side of her was accepted as “the real” by her audiences.

- She was literally acting this role.

- Because she’s best known as a disco performer, she’s often been considered “inauthentic” (259).

“I do not sing; I act. When I sing, I sing with the voice of the character in the song” (229).

love to love you baby

the performer & persona Musicians must always think about how they

project themselves onto their audiences. Two main responses to this gap (244):

1) Glorify the degree to which you are faking it. Real or fake is irrelevant; theatrics; persona; perform a role. (Madonna, Divine, David Bowie, Lady Gaga)

2) The performer minimizes the gap between the person and persona. Artist projects an authentic persona and lives up to that persona. An ongoing quest for authenticity, integrity and sincerity. “Performance is a window directly to the soul.” (247)

(John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young)

Barker and Taylor believe this gap remains constantly uncloseable (245).The human personality is too complex to be projected in full.