The Twelve Inch #217 - The B-Side : Beats, Acapella & Dub: đȘ© How Disco Turned Desire Into A Dancefloor Revolution
The Twelve Inch 217 : Push In The Bush (Musique)
Welcome to the B-side.
This is where things get a little closer to the source.
The parts of the story that donât always make it into the main piece. The details behind the sound. The personal notes. And the versions that really tell you how a track worked on the dancefloor.
If you missed the A-Side story, you can read it here. đ
đ„ Banned, Sexy and Unstoppable, How Musiqueâs In The Bush Became Discoâs Guilty Pleasure
How does a song that hundreds of radio stations refused to play become one of the defining disco records of all time?
Every twelve inch had a B-side where the DJs and collectors found the extra tools: beats, dubs and alternate versions.
This is the B-Side of this weekâs episode, where we dig deeper into the story behind the record. Read it in one go or enjoy the different sections on different moments. The choice is yours
This weekâs B-Side isnât really about Musique anymore.
Musique simply opens the door.
Once you walk through it, you discover a much bigger story about sex, liberation, coded language and one of the most misunderstood aspects of disco culture.
Together weâll explore three questions that have fascinated me while researching this episode.
Why did disco become known as âthe sexy genre,â when popular music had been flirting with sex long before disco came along?
If gay men were among discoâs greatest pioneers and most devoted audience, why do so many of the genreâs biggest songs seem to tell exclusively heterosexual stories?
And finally, which records pushed the boundaries furthest, sometimes so far that radio simply refused to play them?
Because no discussion about disco and sex would be complete without music, Iâve also assembled ten wonderfully cheeky records that stretched the limits of what could be pressed onto vinyl.
So dim the lights, pour yourself a drink, and letâs dig a little deeper into one of discoâs most fascinating stories.
đ„ Mix 1 â The Beats
đȘ© Sex, Freedom and the Dancefloor, Why Disco Was About So Much More Than Seduction
If youâve been reading The Twelve Inch for a while, youâve probably noticed that I rarely shy away from the bigger questions behind a record.
Musiqueâs In The Bush almost forces us to ask one.
Why did disco become known as âthe sexy genreâ?
Itâs such an accepted part of discoâs identity that we hardly question it anymore. Mention disco and people immediately picture glitter, sweaty dancefloors, Studio 54 and lyrics full of double entendres.
But was disco really more sexual than everything that came before it?
I donât think so. At least, not in the way people often imagine.
đ„ Sex Was Already Everywhere
One of the biggest misconceptions about disco is that it somehow invented sex in popular music.
It didnât.
American popular music had been flirting with sexuality almost from the beginning.
Take the word âfunkâ. It originally referred in African American slang to the smell of a body in a state of sexual arousal. Dirty. Sweaty. Authentic. Uninhibited.
Jazz. Bebop. Rock ânâ roll. All those names all carry sexual connotations if you trace them back far enough.
The blues practically built an entire language around innuendo. Everything was coded. Suggestive. Full of metaphors that everyone understood but nobody had to admit they understood.
By the early 1970s those metaphors had already become far less subtle. Marvin Gaye wasnât hiding much when he recorded Letâs Get It On. Barry White practically built an empire around the seductive power of that unmistakable bass voice.
So disco didnât invent musical sexuality.
It changed where that sexuality lived.
And thatâs a much bigger story.
đ The Dancefloor Became A Liberated Zone
To understand disco, you have to forget Studio 54 for a moment. Go back a few years. Back to New Yorkâs underground. Back to places like The Loft, The Sanctuary, 12 West, Flamingo, and later Paradise Garage and The Saint.
These werenât simply clubs. For many people they were the only places where they could become themselves. Itâs almost impossible to imagine today, but at the beginning of the 1970s homosexuality was still illegal in 49 American states.
Until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association even classified homosexuality as a mental illness.
Dancing with someone of the same sex could attract police attention (and was forbidden in New York). Holding hands could be dangerous.
Now imagine finally walking into a room where none of those rules applied. Where nobody cared who you danced with. Where nobody judged how you dressed. Where you could kiss your partner without constantly looking over your shoulder.
Thatâs the world disco was born into.
After Stonewall in 1969 those clubs became far more than entertainment venues. They became spaces of self-discovery. Of community. Of freedom. Of joy.
And yes⊠Of sex.
But itâs important to understand why. The sexuality wasnât simply hedonism. It was liberation.
đ Music, Drugs and Freedom
Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton describe Francis Grassoâs legendary Sanctuary as being: âpoured full of newly liberated gay men, then shaken and stirred by a weighty concoction of dance music and a pharmacopoeia of pills and potions.â
Itâs one of my favourite descriptions of early disco culture because it captures something essential. The music. The drugs. The atmosphere.
None of them existed in isolation. They fed each other. Sex wasnât happening on the dancefloor itself. But throughout these clubs there were dark rooms, corridors and hidden spaces where intimacy became just another expression of freedom.
Seen from todayâs perspective itâs tempting to reduce that world to excess. I think thatâs unfair. For many people these clubs offered something theyâd never experienced before. The freedom to exist exactly as they were. The dancefloor wasnât escaping reality.
It was creating a better one.
đ It Wasnât Just A Gay Revolution
