Disco: Spinning the Story

I'll admit it now, so you have no illusions about me having good taste--I like most disco music. And so it was natural that I would watch this documentary that chronicles the roots of disco to the "death of disco" in 1979-80 and the music that it inspired today. For "old fogies" like myself, it's as nice stroll down memory lane. The interviews, music and history was great.

My only complaint is that it seemed a bit disingenuous when the film blamed the demise of popularity of the music as due to "racism" and "homophobia"! Please...give this a rest! It's too easy to chalk up anything to racism or gay-bashing. While I liked the music, there was also too much of it and after a while it all started to sound the same--prompting, in my opinion, the "disco sucks" movement and demise of disco. To me their assertion seemed self-serving--instead of looking at themselves, they blame others for the decline. Just my two cents worth.

I have always loved disco and have seen most of the movies ever produced with a disco theme. Frankly, I was not expecting much from this documentary, but I was happily surprised. It was very well written and researched and while I knew most of the artists who were interviewed, but I did not know their particular roles and the specific origins of disco. The apparently spontaneous interviews were lively, thoughtful, well-edited and interspersed with personal stories, snippets of the original music and factual backgrounds of the many creators of the disco movement. What I loved most about this film was the excellent quality of the many original video recordings, presumably done for TV. I would recommend this film for anyone who is interested in disco's short-lived dominant role in th world of music. Particularly interesting to me was disco's genesis from funk, soul, R&B and the strong influences from black music.