disco hit by bee gees saturday night fever

Disco hit by bee gees saturday night fever movie#

Saturday Night Fever had its roots in what was then called “the new journalism.” In 1976, British rock critic and reporter Nik Cohn wrote an article for New York magazine called “Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night,” about the working-class young men and women in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge who’d get slicked up and go out dancing at nightclubs, just like the fancy folks over in Manhattan, but without their intense self-awareness. “Jive Talkin’” “The picture on the front of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack isn’t the apex for Tony it’s a step toward something higher.” For some, the film will always be inextricably, unforgivably tied to its soundtrack.

Disco hit by bee gees saturday night fever movie#

Even today, the film is so deeply identified with the expanded reach of disco-and disco itself is so hated by so many-that what’s often forgotten is how good and how tough of a movie Saturday Night Fever actually is. Saturday Night Fever popularized the fashions, the dances, and the genre’s varying subgenres (from pop balladry to Latin rhythms), breathing a second life into disco. Stigwood showcased his longtime clients The Bee Gees on the soundtrack, and when the movie and the album were both wildly successful, disco made an unexpected leap in the culture, from popular musical style to genuine phenomenon. Then rock promoter and manager Robert Stigwood-under the auspices of his company RSO Films-produced Saturday Night Fever, about a talented young Italian-American dancer (played by John Travolta) who deals with the pains of growing up and taking responsibility against the backdrop of the Brooklyn discotheque where he spends his weekends. What began as a slick, uptempo variation of R&B that thrived in gay nightclubs and black and Hispanic neighborhoods was fast becoming the new bubblegum pop: formulaic and simplistic, ideal for one-off novelty singles. Rock and pop acts like David Bowie, Elton John, ABBA, and others had been purposefully adding slinky guitars and insistent backbeats to their songs, to the extent that music critics were starting to rebel, looking to the nascent punk-rock movement to save them from the scourge of disco. By late 1977, when the movie Saturday Night Fever and its soundtrack were released, many of the biggest hit disco singles had come and gone: “Rock The Boat,” “Kung Fu Fighting,” “Lady Marmalade,” “The Hustle,” “Get Down Tonight,” “Love Machine,” “Disco Lady,” “Play That Funky Music,” “Disco Duck,” and more.