Stand Up and Get Down!

Stand Up and Get Down!
By Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy

The primary concern of a good dance tune has always been to compel people to make a beeline for the dance floor and shake their ass. Nobody can argue with that. However, in the past we had a healthy dose of dance music that was able to make people get on down as well as stand on up. As one of the more populist forms of music, dance music was made by the people for the people and dance culture and the tunes produced from the late Sixties through to the mid-Eighties often reflected the ever-changing socio-political landscape.

Some people may believe that dance music and politics are conflicting interests. However, the very nature of dance music and culture is in itself political. Jeremy Gilbert, a senior lecturer of Cultural Studies at the University of East London, proclaims “On the one hand, dance culture is all about hedonism: pleasure in the here-and-now, the lone body on the dance floor. On the other hand, it’s all about bringing people together: putting on a party is about making a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts, which is also what building any kind of a community is about, which is what politics is all about.”

Disco grew up out of and alongside a time of political unrest and social change. It started off as music for community and gave a voice to the main themes of the day: the Vietnam War, women’s liberation, racial advancement and gay rights. Music journalist and MixMaster Michael Gomes recollects, “Just as folk music developed out of the labor movement and 1960’s pop expressed sexual liberation and psychedelic experimentation, I believe that the1970’s club movement was inspired by the ideals of the civil rights movement. If you listen to Dr. King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, you will find that it was later expanded upon in club music. The attitude is surely there in embryo.”
“Now’s the time for all good menTo get together with one another.We got to iron out our problemsAnd iron out our quarrelsAnd try to live as brothers.And try to find a peace withinWithout stepping on one another.And do respect the women of the world.Remember you all have mothers.We got to make this land a better landThan the world in which we live.And we got to help each man be a better manWith the kindness that we give.”            -The Pointer Sisters, “Yes We Can, Can”

The songs had messages that were loud and clear and artists were not afraid to stand up on a soapbox and proclaim their beliefs. Some of the best disco tunes enabled people to dance AND think at the same time. “There were clear subjects and people had something to say about them,” remembers DJ Danny Krivit. “Top artists said it well. Think of James Brown’s ‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’, Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Goin’ On’, Edwin Starr’s ‘War’, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes’ ‘Wake Up Everybody’ and the Philadelphia All-Stars’ ‘Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto’.”

“Wake up everybody, no more sleepin’ in bed,No more backward thinkin’, time for thinkin’ ahead.The world has changed so very much from what it used to be,There is so much hatred, war and poverty.Wake up all the teachers, time to teach a new way,Maybe then they’ll listen to whatcha have to say.Cause they’re the ones who’s coming up and the world is in their hands.When you teach the children, teach ‘em the very best you can.”            - Harvold Melvin and the Blue Notes, “Wake Up Everybody”

It can be argued that dance music and its social setting had a symbiotic relationship as DIY parties like David Mancuso’s “The Loft” sprang up and became a socio-political statement in themselves. Author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture 1970 – 1979 Tim Lawrence has a persuasive case. “Back in the 1970s, New York was entering a period in which the city virtually went bankrupt, while large swathes of downtown New York were evacuated by manufacturers. There was also a political backlash against the anti-war movement and the counter-cultural movement, but the energies of those movements couldn’t be straightforwardly repressed. With so much cheap space available, it was relatively straightforward for pioneering party hosts and spinners to put on parties. Ongoing homophobia, racism and sexism meant those parties were incredibly intense, and helped forge a sense of cross-cultural consciousness.”

“Here’s my chance to dance my way out of my constrictions.Givin’ you more of what you’re funkin’ for (feet don’t fail me now!).Do you promise to funk, the whole funk,nothin’ but the funk?One nation under a grooveGettin’ down just for the funk of it.One nation and we’re on the move.Nothin’ can stop us now.”            -Parliament Funkadelic, “One Nation Under A Groove”

The early 1980s saw dance music and culture carry on this revolutionary road to some extent but towards the middle of the decade, several ruptures occurred on its path.  “The idealistic sound lingered into the early 1980’s and then faded as a major genre,” points out Gomes. “I would say that Visual’s ‘The Music Got Me’ released when I was at Prelude was one of the last prominent examples.” The capitalist politics of Thatcher and Reagan became a turning point as the zeitgeist shifted to the right. Lawrence recognizes one of the elements being “the exponential rise of the property market, which followed the rise of the stock markets it the UK and the US. As club-friendly areas became gentrified, it became prohibitively expensive to open clubs, and well-to-do neighbours also became increasingly hostile to the idea of having (for example) a group of black gay men dancing until the early hours, because that would undermine real estate values in the area.”

Another undeniable factor that contributed to the demise of socially aware dance culture was the outbreak of AIDS which hit the dance community hard and forced the closure of some the most eminent gay clubs. Lawrence states, “At an early point in the disease’s evolution, AIDS was known as Saint’s disease because so many of the dancers at the Saint, New York’s most influential private white gay venue of the 1980s, were becoming infected. Although the Paradise Garage was hit a little less hard than the Saint, significant number of dancers and staff members died. When owner Michael Brody discovered he was sick with AIDS he decided against the idea of renewing the Garage’s ten-year lease, which was due to expire in September 1987. In the end, that was the date the club closed.”

Instead of embracing the topic of AIDS in their songwriting, dance artists seem to shy away from it. Krivit recalls, “Songs about AIDS seemed to be taboo and most people seemed unready to embrace this subject in their favorite dance music.” The infiltration of AIDS into dance culture and the music’s close relationship with the disease probably made it too painful to speak about so for the most part, dance lyricists left this topic untouched. As dance artists dropped controversial topics like AIDS from their lyrics, hip hop artists picked up the torch and ran with it.

“Yo, let’s talk about AIDS (go on) to the unconcerned and uninformed.You think you can’t get it? Well you’re wrong!Don’t dismiss, dis, or blacklist the topic.That ain’t gonna stop it.”            -Salt-N-Pepa, “Let’s Talk About AIDS”

From the mid-eighties to the present, dance artists have made a move to a more socially sanitized form of songwriting. Although there are some examples of socially conscious dance music, they are few and far in between. Capitalism seems to be the root, realization and ultimate goal of both the music business and dance music today. “As the music industry shifted and started to falter, social and political messages were replaced with the safe bottom line. The ‘gotta make this money, no time to make people think, I’m in it to make it’ mentality is the state of the music industry today. Socially and politically aware music is just plain rare,” states Krivit.

With the Obama election as a prime example, many social groups have made obvious progress so perhaps the need for a call to action is less pronounced. “The social groups who injected so much urgency into dance culture have directed their energies elsewhere, or have made gains that make their need for an alternative celebratory space less urgent,” states Lawrence. “It’s clear that gay men have become all but mainstream in New York and London and women have made significant gains in the work place and many of the basic premises of feminism are now accepted.”

So where does that leave us today? Things still ain’t perfect and socio-political awareness just needs to shift its gaze. We still live in a time of war and global recession.  Is dance culture once again ready to face the music? Krivit hopes “as the money rapidly disappears from the music industry, it might just reopen the door [to socio-political conscious dance music].” Gilbert is also optimistic. “Right now we’re in becalmed waters politically, as the cycle of greed and over-consumption which characterised the past 15 years has obviously ground to a halt, but nobody has yet quite figured out what can come after it and it’s becoming obvious that we need something much more radical than Obama getting elected to make it happen. That won’t go on forever, and once things start to move, the dance will move too. Whether we’ll be dancing alone to our iPods or making joyful noise in the streets will be for us to decide. Just by keeping open spaces where people can come together, especially spaces that aren’t entirely controlled by the search for profits, we’re keeping open little enclaves of freedom.”

Lawrence believes Mancuso’s Loft parties currently being held in New York, London and Japan are fine examples of a return to the culturally and socially progressive ritual: “As David says, ‘We’re all part of a dance that goes back thousands and thousands of years. That social ritual is so powerful it’ll never end.’ And as capitalism creaks and regular people, including young kids, suffer disproportionately, perhaps dance music and culture will discover a new kind of urgency.”

It seems the times they are a-changin’ and maybe now the time is right for a new kind of dance floor revolution. So let’s turn down the lights, turn up the music and get ready for some serious fun.

“We can make it happen,If we only try,If we can just touch,One life at a time.Stop living in a bubble,Thinking everything’s fine.No I’m not gonna stop,Until I see a complete turnaround.A revolution,A love solution,A revolution of change.”            -Mavis featuring Candi Staton, “Revolution”