barbarella

Ok, so it's not cool to admit that you like Disco, but it's Ok if you like Funk. I don't always get what the difference is. Flashlight by Parliament is revered as Great Funk and Brick House by the Commodores has been called a Great Disco Record but is it Funk or Disco ?

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Below Zero.

cheezyridr

i would think the difference is painfully obvious

mr dave

can you spot the difference between nirvana and nickelback?

it's less about what you hear and more about why you're hearing it ($$$).

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cheezyridr

a very interesting way of thinking. i want to agree with you more than i actually do. i dunno, i need to mull it over more. i think somehow that's very close to what i think also, but somewhat different.

TumorAttitude

Brilliantly said.

someonecompletelyrandom

Not really. In fact there are a whole slew of angry PMs I should be sending to him right now but.. self control and all.

mr dave

considering this is the most substantial post you've made in the entire thread i'm actually quite curious about your views on disco and funk. why limit it to PMs?

i stand by my opinion that disco (as a mainstream style) was entirely based around commercial and financial gain.

funk on the other hand, even in its most mainstream, is still rooted in music and performance. it draws as much from jazz as rock and r&b, it's not trying to be anything besides itself.

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gandhara

I never really cared about the differences honestly, I just know I love the rhythms of both styles. besides, alot of bands and musicians mixed the two, like Crown Heights Affair, Instant Funk, Rose Royce, Slave, One Way etc....

Funk just branches out more than Disco does, like it's not always about the party, club and dance scene.

Also love all that 80's Electro Dance, Hi NRG, Latin Freestyle!!!! it's all cool with me

Scots_ML

As someone who lived through the disco years as a teenager I would say that 1975 was when the term disco became popular. Before that it was simply known as soul or funk. Round about 1974 there appears to have been a morphing of the two styles into a popular club groove that later became termed disco. I don’t think anybody used the term "Disco" until mid to late '74. Initially the sound was mostly underground, and was popular with hard core dance freaks with centres in places such as Philadelphia.

In its early years disco coexisted quite nicely alongside other music styles, at least on the radio (which was much more influential than now). Then in 1977 Saturday night fever came along and spoiled everything. What up till then was a burgeoning scene became chewed up, spat out and raped by both the media and record companies eager for a quick pound. When tracks such as bridge over troubled water got the disco treatment everybody knew that discos death toll had been sounded. It was the **** presented as disco at this time that earned it all the hatred it received.

As always happens in cases such as this, the cool crowd (well in the UK at least) left the mainstream to it and moved on to jazz funk.

As regards to funk: Funk maintained its following throughout the 70’s and into the 80’s despite bands who might be classed as funk dipping there toe in the dance scene ( mostly in the form of singles) to earn a few sheckles.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Disco is about dancing vertically
Funk is about dancing horizontally

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