WAYS TO FORGET AND EVALUATE A CULTURE: ON VISUAL LANGUAGE OF DISCO MUSIC
‘Can it destroy hearing’ and what are ‘the tendencies’ of disco music? Politikin ekspres, a former Yugoslav newspaper, raised the issue in 1979. Similar questions were only one example of social resistance that went along with the introduction of this subculture to Yugoslavia. The so-called 'soft' socialism or its progressive local type did not impose any trends yet it followed them in a measurable rhythm, sometimes with more and other times with less significant delays. At the time, the West had already been finalizing the musical and social phase filled with dance, having in mind that in 1979, when the above quoted article was written, disco came to its end in a well-known incident that took place in Chicago when a pile of disco records were blown up. The so-called Disco Demolition Night was organized by Steve Dahl, an American anti-disco campaigner and a radio personality, as an act aimed against the dominance of disco music on radio shows. He invited his radio audience to come to Comiskey Park, charged them a ticket and instructed them to bring along at least one disco record. Between baseball games, a crate was filled with disco vinyl records, graphic images and covers and blown up with a lot of joy and cheering by all gathered sports and rock fans. Arson and violence directed towards a product of a culture gathered many supporters of lynch – instead of ten expected, there were 50.000 people.
Disco music that started during the 1970’s in American underground gay clubs was forced to go illegal again. Rock and punk hated it while the new wave bands were about to take over the 1980’s. As we know from The Secret Disco Revolution, a documentary by Jamie Kastner (2012), disco music did not only change its name to ‘boogie’ but it merged with recently created first beats of house, acid and techno music. Disco stars like Amanda Lear, Village People and Donna Summer even decided to change and ‘refresh’ their sound. However, the rhythm base that Giorgio Moroder introduced in 1977 in Donna's hit song I Feel Love shall forever remain the foundation of any club music.
In its initial phase, the exhibition The Other Side of Saturday Night Fever: Socialist Disco Culture (1977-1983) tried to locate all the positive implications of this dance, music and social ‘epidemic’. The main emancipatory elements mapped for the exhibition Influences, Role Models and Innovators held at the Lotrščak Tower in Zagreb (The GKD, 30 May – 8 July 2015) present both the innovators and documents revealing liberating effect of disco regarding female and male sexuality. The new kind of perception troubled moralists and some concepts had to be abandoned. Instead of old-fashioned dances, clubbing as we know it today was introduced, DJ’ing became a profession and the first dance competitions with the practice of including national and sexual ethnicities and minorities took place. Women no longer had to humbly await male partners to invite them to dance; instead they chose for themselves what, when, where and with whom. And most importantly, how. Sexuality became more open or at least it was proclaimed as such, i.e. Donna Summer sang about arduous and precarious work of a prostitute and in Zagreb a lot of ‘hustle and bustle’ arose with Zdenka Kovačiček and Kiro Mitrev’s musical interpretation of a collection of poems by Slavica Maras titled Observations of a Puss. One of reviews stated that it was ‘eroticism with existential overtones’ and this marked the overall impression of disco in former Yugoslavia.
In Yugoslavia disco was something that started happening prior to 1977 but its development did not have massive but rather sporadic character. The performance of ‘six tigresses’ from The Love Machine at the Lisinski Concert Hall was a breakthrough after which even the music press such as the Džuboks magazine, stopped publishing exotic reports about the extraordinary success of the Swedish group ABBA and started publishing stories about wild parties taking place in Studio 54. Workers, worker self-management, intelligentsia and thinking elite found its ‘dance melting pot’. In terms of iconography, disco did a very interesting favour to socialism: by insisting on glitter and opulence, half-naked bodies and hedonism, gender equality and rights of sexual minorities it offered at least a symbolical detachment from everyday life marked with economic crisis, trade losses and Tito’s death in 1980. The latter is the cause of the ‘prolonged’ presence of disco in former Yugoslavia. Steve Dahl was writing an international obituary to it, but on the local level disco music figured as a new possibility to gain instant popularity and this inspired some of the least likely social strata. Through Muharem Serbezovski the Yugoslav disco music entered folk music, in 1983 Branko Miličević published the so-called Disko Kockica for children offering dance to the youngest while a number of Schlager music stars, like Zdenka Vučković, Miro Ungar, Tereza Kesovija and Ljupka Dimitrovska, experimented with disco music in their own bashful endeavours. As opposed to international trends, where disco music as a genre evolved in ever-longer club versions, the dominating format for publishing music in socialism was a 7’’ single. The length, producers thought, was fine if the song works. If not, it would be much easier to forget. For example, in her current biography Dubravka Jusić, a teen dance star, decided not to mention her musical career, Tereza Kesovija has never repeated her Disco ’79, whereas some other performers tend to say that they were performing nothing but ‘pop music’.
This exhibition intends to establish who were Yugoslav disco music stars. The answer to this question may be found in this type of music’s preferred mean of communication – that is, of course, covers for music editions and the strategies used that were by no means reserved, diffident or concealed. Quite the opposite, even today when the new biographies have been upgraded and made-up it is very difficult to come answer those questions for a number of reasons. First of all, these records were published to test or probe the market, response of the media and the audience. They were very carefully launched in limited editions only. The second reason for the experiment was linked to the fact that various music festivals were held in Zagreb, Split or Opatija. Buried among standard songs about seagulls, sun, sea or beautiful and very unique charms of the streets of Zagreb there were some small disco pearls hidden - ventures into something entirely different, relaxed and offbeat - such as Ljupka Dimitrovska’s song Robot: “I shared my life with a device / it didn’t even know who I am / and when it was supposed to find that out / it entirely broke down”
Another phenomenon of the Yugoslav scene was a very large production of fake compilations whose purpose was to quickly make money. Labels like Diskos, but also RTV Ljubljana and PGP RTB, made some considerable sums of money from the so-called Disco Hits albums holding unmarked cover versions of international hits. They were recorded by studio musicians but sometimes also by famous Yugoslav compositors who used pseudonyms because the practice was to make minor changes to a title or a composition in order to bypass copyrights. Design of those records went to extremes to attract attention since they were unable to trick buyers more than once with the music. Although they were created following foreign role models, such records were exceptionally popular because of their price, which was half the price of regular or original compilations.
The intention of the exhibition at the CDA Gallery is primarily to indicate the visual language of disco and different ways it used to communicate ideological postulates of the movement, i.e. sexual emancipation, inclusion of minorities, modernity of club ambience as well as socially accentuated hedonism as a kind of protest against socialistic norms. An LP, single or cassette cover had the task to deliver a message to the audience in the shortest possible time. Covers with their unsubtle disco aesthetic were also used as marketing and one of the most efficient advertising tools. As is the case in this branch, some authors were more successful in leaving their mark while the others opted for duplication of the given formula without asking any questions. Visual formula for disco implied several (un)obligatory elements: motifs found in disco clubs, a dance floor, bright reflectors, disco fashion and tight and shiny costumes revealing more than they were concealing. The two best-known and iconic elements of disco design are a disco ball and roller skates (in Disco: An Encyclopaedic Guide to the Cover Art of Disco Records, Soul Jazz 2014).
In the conditions of ex-Yugoslavia and former affiliation of designers to graphic departments functioning within discography labels, covers were designed by Ivan Ivezić (Jugoton) and Ivan Ćulum (PGP RTB) but very often design was not credited at all or only portrait photos were signed (ZKP RTVL, Jugodisk). However, the lettering used on covers was sometimes very playful and followed the lines of a human body, curvy and soft edges, dance and corresponding aesthetic of colourful and bright inscriptions that seemed to work as a kind of banner for the entrance in a sex-bar. From the disco covers it is obvious that worker self-management form of socialism did not entirely overtake the two other international trends, i.e. male nudity as an object of desire and complete absence of the so-called ‘portrait’ design and its replacement by abstraction. Male nudity came to life in 1982 in magazines such as Extra Reporter but editors of LP covers decided to ‘play safe’ for at least some time. Somewhat less faint-hearted act was to replace performers with unnamed and unknown ‘dancers’. Another very interesting thing were motifs with elements of science fiction, robots, faraway planets and the future world. It seems that SF was just another way out in the quest for the ultimate freedom. In contrast with their colleagues working for major Yugoslav labels, the authors commissioned from the outside, such as Mirko Ilić, used that freedom and space abundantly to create art projects of permanent value.
Finally, what was recorded on those vinyl records? In Yugoslavia there were no consistent and comprehensive disco ‘oeuvres’ and LP records again belong to various phases in music careers of performers who were able to realize that disco music is no longer ‘in’. The first and brightest YU-disco stars created their hits following the model of Boney M. played in the band called Mirzino jato from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Opera singer Mirza Alijagić, singers Zumreta Midžić and Gordana Ivandić together with Sead Lipovača from the bend called Divlje jagode in 1979 published Šećer i med (Sugar & Honey), the best-selling Yugoslav album. The idiom was frequently used by Zdravko Čolić who, together with Lokice (a group of female dancers and singers), became the biggest star of stadium concerts. Zdravko, who tried an international career under the name of Dravco, was a star whose image copied John Travolta’s style and looks. This formula was further multiplied. Marjan Miše was supposed to become somewhat harsher version of Zdravko Čolić, Aske were supposed to present more competent musicians than Lokice, but together they all inspired an entire subculture of dance groups mesmerized by the appearance of aerobics and fitness, that were disco’s natural partners taking over dance floors for gyms in exchange for beautiful and fit bodies that eagerly insisted on their desirability. Cice mace, Žeris, Spektar, Elektra and Arruba, Hamid Đogani, Disco Štrukla, Vesna Mimica’s tapes for exercising, Milena Dravić and Gordana Magaš all made part of a new culture of dance competitions with brilliant performances by the Roma or Albanians as well as many other ethnic outsiders. At the time, such groups did not require special measures for social inclusion. Unfortunately, today they are victims of the completely different ‘blood cell count’.
Nowadays such emancipatory elements of disco tend to be neglected. In contrast with the new wave, disco music has not been in the focus of research papers. On the other hand, the layer of kitsch and distaste has remained: people still think that Village People chose their uniforms randomly because they liked to dress in army, police, cowboy or Indian costumes. Sylvester, Patrick Cowley and Divine are distant members of a culture that has only recently started receiving posthumous awards. John Travolta played the role of Divine in the mainstream new version of Hairspray (2007). Some works created by the author of hit song such as Do You Wanna Funk and Megatron Man recorded for porno films have been recently discovered and published. Village People still refuse to explain what is the famous YMCA song actually about and late Donna turned to Catholicism after the disco phase, while Giorgio Moroder still wonders how come he is so popular with the younger members of the audience. On her latest album, Amanda Lear sings I Don’t Like Disco.
The ways to forget or evaluate disco music are separate and individual and the success of disco music in Yugoslavia has never been only kitsch, trash and camp. Serious musicians creating at the border of jazz, funk and soul, such as compositors Igor Savin, Alfi Kabiljo, Kornelije Kovač, Tadej Hrušovar, followed by Boban Petrović, Miša Blam, Dejan Petković, Aleksandar Sanja Ilić, Darko Lukač, Andrej Baša, Nenad Vilović and others all published vinyl records that can be sold today for a few hundred euros. However, the least known are those artists with exceptional international careers: Silvestar Levaj from Subotica, as the mastermind behind the world-famous group Silver Convention (Fly Robin Fly, 1975) and Began Čekić, an Albanian from Montenegro and a musician playing for music groups like Brooklyn Express and Common Sense. Some of these names will be included in the special edition that will finalize this exhibition cycle by the end of 2015. An LP published by the label Fox & His Friends under the working title Socialist Disco Sound Archives will call attention to some of the least expected moments of whirling socialism.
(June 2015; Introduction to the second part of Socialist Disco Culture exhibition concept)
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