Quote Originally Posted by Breukelen advocaat
The "Hippie" stuff was pretty-much long gone by the time Disco came around. I can't see how the "government" had anything to do with the popularity of Disco.

I remember the filming of Saturday Night Fever in my neighborhood, and others, in Brooklyn, c. 1976. I didn't like very much of it, but there were, and still are, worse forms of "rock".
Sorry, I didn't make my point very well, so let's put the music aside for now. Disco (Distracting Individuals from Spreading Communist Order) was a social engineering program of the U.S. government to combat the counter-culture of the time. The strategic planning for Disco was conducted by the CIA and the U.S. Department of Interior in 1969, during the first Nixon administration. The aim was to alter the norms and behaviors of a generation focused way too much on social and political change. The program was meant to be launched in 1972 but Watergate apparently made operatives nervous. How did it work? Dress codes were established in clubs to create conformity; complex dance discouraged the spontaneous, communal movements of the 1960's; and several elitist clubs were opened to promote class distinction and materialism. By the late 1970's Disco's objectives of creating both social division and cultural conformity were achieved, resulting in a fragmented, less ideological generation.

And if I can keep on babbling like this for another hundred paragraphs maybe I could get a large grant... :rasta: