Love is the message

I did an interview Tuesday for a local paper. It's a series called "Record shelf raid", so I dug out some of my favorite records and talked about the role of music in my life. I also answered a lot of questions about disco, and these two of the questions got me thinking: "do you see any social messages on the music you play" and "what about the aspect of irony regarding disco".

I'm not a good interviewee, so I answered that it's problematic to just see social messages in song lyrics. I tried to refer to classic views on how disco music brought people together in the dancefloor and helped loose the relations between people from different backgrounds. It was a way too theoretical answer to give, but there's some logic behind it: there's not that much of deeper meaning to be found on disco lyrics - there are some exceptions of course - but I firmly believe there's loads of meaning and massive amounts of talent in the musicianship behind disco cuts. Those musicians were from hardworking jazz backgrounds and had the possibility to pursuit a full-time musical career - made less and less possible today by file sharing -, so I doubt we will see as talented generation of music any time soon. Even if I love to dig the weirdest and dumbest disco - and people who go out to a club want to listen to those cuts to loosen up -, I still like to emphasize the musical aspects of the good disco. Next time you listen to a disco cut, go ahead and listen if every instrument takes turns in jamming it out on the beat - a bit like in jazz.

Here's a prime example and quite aptly named. Edited by the great Danny Krivit.



Man, I should get this record, it's not aging at all.

- P-Funk