Conventionality Belongs to Yesterday

November 21, 2014 12:35 AM

1980 Frankie Valli & The Commodores - Grease - Lots of white pants and rhinestones and people having fun.

Full Commodores album starting exactly here.

posted by vapidave (18 comments total)

Years from now people will look back on the late 70's and the early 80's and talk about the enormous changes that were happening back then. It was a transition period. The Sixties were over. The Cold War hadn't ended yet. David Bowie was bisexual. The Apple II was released. John Travolta was a good singer.

It was a confusing time.

That's why people wore suits with sleeves rolled up and shirts opened to the last button.

So confusing.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:35 AM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, Lionel Richie.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:42 AM on November 21, 2014

I always mix up Burt Sugarman with Don Kirshner.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 2:42 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Remember when Paul Shaffer regularly impersonated Don Kirshner on SNL before he became David Letterman's sidekick?

If so, you are old, my friend.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:55 AM on November 21, 2014 [9 favorites]

YES I KNOW
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 3:13 AM on November 21, 2014

Remember when Paul Shaffer regularly impersonated Don Kirshner on SNL before he became David Letterman's sidekick?

What is that on Shaffer's head?
posted by octothorpe at 5:37 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Such brilliance. This was the BEST POSSIBLE start to my work day. Thank you for this.
posted by Annabelle74 at 6:44 AM on November 21, 2014

I want to know why the audience wasn't dancing. Was it the quaaludes or were they just blinded by the rhinestones.

I'm thinking it must have been quaaludes.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:56 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

"were they just blinded by the rhinestones"

Could have been the numbing repetitiveness of disco.

I have recently learned to appreciate disco as a social force for change, how liberating it was for gay club patrons in New York.

But still I think the world went the wrong direction with disco. It wasn't quaaludes. It was music that switched us from rock and roll expressive dancing to a detached and more rigid set of dance steps, 3 piece suits, consumerism, Gordon Gecko, and Reaganism.
posted by surplus at 7:35 AM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

> Could have been the numbing repetitiveness of disco.

Oh come on, this trope was tired thirty-five years ago and I thought it had long been forgotten by now. Music changes, it was time for something new, disco was it for a while and it was fun and joyous and freed a lot of people up, and then music moved on. I understand that a lot of people who weren't used to it were frightened, confused, and resentful for a while—reader, I was one of them!—but most of them got over it, and so should you.

> rock and roll expressive dancing

Otherwise known as "bad dancing." I was there, and I'm telling you, people couldn't dance in the late '60s and early '70s.
posted by languagehat at 7:59 AM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

(White people, I mean.)
posted by languagehat at 7:59 AM on November 21, 2014

God those Midnight Special shows were wonderful.
posted by JanetLand at 8:11 AM on November 21, 2014

Oh man, I love that song so much. I was going to call it inexplicable, considering how out of place it is among my other musical tastes, but that's not really true. I saw Grease the movie at a pretty young age, so basically all those songs hold the same fond place in my heart as every Disney song. Like, I didn't even really recognize it as disco before today. I just hear those horns and the bu-du mu-nu bu-do nu-nu beu-nu-nu-nu guitar riff, and the part of my brain that evaluates whether a song is any good turns off, and I start dancing and singing along. ♪Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion...♪
posted by gueneverey at 8:23 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Youtube's failure to load is depriving me of disco-era nostalgia, which I'm sure is even better than the version I heard in my head when I saw this post. WOE.
posted by immlass at 8:32 AM on November 21, 2014

I recently loaned a 20-something neighbor an old headshop-type gift catalog from the early 80s. When he returned it, he opened to a bookmarked set of pages featuring rainbows. There were rainbow hot satin hot pants, rainbow headbands, sparkly rainbow wristbands and t-shirts, posters and bedspreads and all manner of unicorn-and-rainbow merchandise. Male and female models alike wore fishnet wifebeaters and big, satin, rainbow-and-rhinestone jackets. "Was everyone gay back then?" he asked, clearly puzzled.

After a moment's reflection, I could only reply, "Yes, yes we were. Until AIDS."
posted by kinnakeet at 10:52 AM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thank you for that. The Commodores rubbed a bit of funk on that song.

Over the past few years I've found that Disco is a wonderful remedy for insoluble real world problems.
posted by monopas at 10:57 AM on November 21, 2014

I finally tried opening up the video in Chrome and funny, that worked even when Safari didn't. Man, I miss that Lionel Richie. There are many things I love about the 80s, but Lionel Richie of the 80s is not one of them, particularly not compared to what he was doing in the 70s.

Also, that's a great song, especially when it's funked up with the Commodores, but I've never been able to figure out what the theme of the song has to do with the themes of the musical at large (at least the film; I've never seen the musical on which it was based so maybe there's some stuff I'm missing there).
posted by immlass at 12:07 PM on November 21, 2014

Yeah but the song... doesn't belong... in the movie. The movie/original musical is based on some retro 50s pop nostalgia, and this just sticks out like a sore thumb.

Reminder: I AM OLD
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 5:38 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]