APRIL 26th - At Least We Got the Bee Gees



On this day in 1977, Studio 54 opened on 254 West 54th in NYC. Over the next three years the club became ground zero for decadence and excess. And disco music. I always found it funny how crazy the disco era was, because the music hasn’t exactly endured. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great disco songs. The Bee Gees still get some airplay round these parts (I’m pointing to the general area around me), and Gloria Gaynor, and some others. But for the most part disco burned out. And I wonder if that is why stuff got so crazy, especially at Studio 54. It was like everybody kind of knew that disco wasn’t all that great, so they did a bunch of drugs and had orgies and stuff. I mean people got wild n’ crazy to rock n’ roll too, but the music always was the fuel in that scenario. It often was just a fuel for sex and drugs, but it was an important fuel. Disco music seemed to be incidental to the decadence. Background music. But what do I know? I wasn’t there. And you can certainly dance to disco. Plus it’s not like other music that isn’t great gets enveloped by all this debauchery. Just saying, I would have to be on drugs to consistently listen to Pop Country these days. What I do know is that Studio 54 furthered the model of creating a cool place by catering to the elite. By excluding people they became hip. And that is not something they teach you in middle school, but it is when you learn it. Studio 54 was basically that little-popular-girl-drama-queen telling her minions who was cool and who wasn’t. Until everybody realized that disco kind of sucked. And, you know, they got busted for drugs and seedy, underhanded business. But at least we got the Bee Gees.

This Day has been Marked.

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