leslie huynh | Our Top 20 NYC Albums

Disco is not a very popular musical genre in today’s time; pop music is, namely, what’s poppin’ on the radio. So its interesting to think about the album Saturday Night Fever and how much disco has ACTUALLY impacted what you’re bopping your head to on the radio. Before being exposed to it, one might think that disco is only for hippies and only pertained to the 70s, but more research shows disco’s rich history and how its influences on other genres, such as house music and funk, still live on today.

Disco, in fact, was initially a way of going against all societal norms; it represents a time and place for being not straight, for being black and Latino, and for being a safe haven away from the racist, sexist, and homophobic ways of the majority at the time. The movie Saturday Night Fever and its soundtrack are iconic, making the genre of disco popular in mainstream. However, many have forgotten this movie as a relic of the past–the past of loud outfits, loud hair, and loud music, but the socio-political aspects of the film must not be forgotten. The issues of race, gender, and poverty are rampant in the film. Yes, the music made disco popular again, but the music was meant to enhance the messages of the story, not to be the sole purpose of the film.

The term “Saturday Night Fever” refers to the feeling one gets when partying out on a Saturday night. Saturday is the end of the week, the day one looks forward to for going out on the town, drinking, dancing, and women. The next day is Sunday, the start of a new week and going back to regular life. The main character of the movie, Tony Manero, is a poor, uneducated, misogynistic, and racist neighborhood kid living in Brooklyn, and he escapes his sad life every Saturday, where he becomes the star of the discotheque. He has every woman at his feet, and nothing can stop him. The movie itself shows all the glamorous aspects of disco, from the music, to the dancing, to its cultural elements of clothing and sexuality. In the iconic first scene, with Tony walking down the streets of Brooklyn in his white suit and big hair, strutting along to the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” The style and manner of the 70s is absolutely encapsulated in this scene. The prom suits of the day would cower under the dominance of white polyester.

The soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever is a collaborative work, with contributing artists Yvonne Elliman, Walter Murphy, Tavares, David Shire, Ralph MacDonald, Kool & the Gang, KC and the Sunshine Band, MFSB, and the Trammps providing their vocals, songwriting, or plain music to the album. However, the its primary composers and performers are the Bee Gees, an English pop music group formed in 1958 consisting of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. One of the world’s best-selling music artists of all time, they experienced much success while they recorded music.

Before Saturday Night Fever was released, disco had been on its last legs. As disco was on its way out, it was morphed into a cheesy, shallow surface of what it truly was meant to be. However, Fever changed that, showing a gritty Brooklyn neighborhood with troublesome people and their struggles, which were let loose at the discotheque. With the movie and the Bee Gees’ contribution to the soundtrack, disco was officially part of popular culture. Music supervisor Oakes said that “Disco had run its course. These days, Fever is credited with kicking off the whole disco thing—it really didn’t. Truth is, it breathed new life into a genre that was actually dying”.

Disco music played a major role in the queer community of New York City. Disco pre-dated the AIDS epidemic and represented the seemingly carefree life of the sexually promiscuous. However, disco was a way for many HIV/AIDS positive people to have some semblance of happiness when the world was shunning them and forcing them into clubs and bars that gave them a safe haven. Disco is trivialized as a fad of the 70s, but not many people are aware of its historical and social significance, especially to the marginalized. As historian Alice Echols says, “[people] were keen on keeping the beat going and on the ever-expanding song length that kept the beat alive.” Initially, discos were a way for queer people to have a place where they could be themselves, and it allowed cross-racial collaboration while also blurring gender and sexuality lines.

Though the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack embodies the positive aspects of disco, from the perseverance of “Stayin’ Alive” to the romance of “More Than A Woman,” the movie itself shows New York City as it really was, and maybe even still is. Tony Manero is a classic macho man—aggressive, misogynistic, and homophobic—who takes part in this inherently gay culture. The juxtaposition of the album’s upbeat and funky songs with the history of disco and its participants’ struggle could be seen as tacky, or as optimism. Nevertheless, seeing Fever as an embodiment of disco, and especially comparing Brooklyn back then to Brooklyn now, is only paying disrespect. Fever represented the “straightening” of disco, with the macho Tony spewing homophobic remarks at his discotheque, with gay dancers and gay music. With the pros of popularity and universality came the cons of ridicule and mockery.

Listening to this album alone, and even seeing the movie too, will only give the audience one perspective of what disco in New York City was really like, and even then, the story that inspired Fever was a fake. It was actually from an article titled “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” written by Nik Cohn that turned out to be completely fictitious. It’s wonderfully ironic that the film that brought disco to the mainstream is based on something made up. Cohn later confessed and said:

“My story was a fraud, I’d only recently arrived in New York. Far from being steeped in Brooklyn street life, I hardly knew the place. As for Vincent, my story’s hero, he was largely inspired by a Shepherd’s Bush mod whom I’d known in the Sixties, a one-time king of Goldhawk Road.”

Without him, Fever would not exist, Travolta would not be such a household name, and disco would not have been put into mainstream. Barry Gibb allegedly told Cohn once that “It’s all your bloody fault, isn’t it?”, showing that the film and album’s success were both a blessing and a curse. The image of disco that Fever gives is one of an emasculated man that is threatened by the minorities around him, very unlike what disco was initially sought to be.

Only a few aspects of the movie still exist in Brooklyn today, such as Lenny’s Pizza in Bensonhurst, and maybe that is a good thing. The film and album were seemingly at odds with what was actually happening with disco at the time. No doubt knowing the history of Brooklyn, and New York City in general, in regards to disco will show a deeper appreciation for the genre, but not necessarily for the film itself. Saturday Night Fever did not invent disco music, but “whatever its impact then or now, there is some amazing music on here– and even more beyond”.

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