The Memory Remains

Almost no one really likes disco music. It is a very pragmatic genre where music is suitable for the situation when it attracts people to the dance floor. This requires among other things that it is not too ridiculous, although ridiculouness is inherent in disco.

Once I went into parapara dance class. Parapara is a Japanese club dance and the music is mainly Japanese disco music. Even the long-time dancers didn't express any liking towards disco music. At car they listened other kinds of Japanese music (for example Antic Cafe, a rock group). When they said that some song is their favourite, they meant that they like to dance the choreography for that song.

The only person I know who has expressed liking disco music is DJ Ozma, and as the initials tell he's a DJ and his job is to evaluate music based on its ability to attract people to the dance floor.

Lately, I've been going to group exercise classes at the gym. Some of them are dance classes. The movements in group exercises are like rabbit-duck figures which seem ridiculous hand-waving of efficient exercise based on context. Music is part of that context. Playing classics of disco like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Ray Charles etc. links a dance class to a respectable tradition of disco dancing, while playing second-rate bands which were ridiculed as long as they have existed (Waldo...) makes jumppa movements seem especially embarrasing.

So I hope that the music of Michael Jackson lives on. Inside his genre of choice, he has undeniable musical merit which advanced the genre.

Update: Also Miss Marketcrash struggles with disco's inherent ridiculousness and empahizes dancefloor.