XANADU

[Mick]

I'm new to this site, and due to time constraint, I went straight to the message boards for some help.

Hopefully some of you have seen that disaster called Xanadu, made in the early 80s with Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly...

I was coerced into throwing a theme party dedicated to it.  If anyone has any insight into the whole Greek muse/Aging Clarinet Player/Roller Disco/Tormented Commercial Artist thing and has any ideas, please respond?

[The Burgomaster]

Coincidentally, I just bought XANADU on DVD.  Don't ask me why.  But I guess if I own movies like MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE, BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN, and FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I bought XANADU.

[onionhead]

Shoulda been Xana-don't, but that's just one man's oh-pin-yun.

[peter johnson]

Whatever you do, you have to play it straight --
The whole disco thing was a completely culturally predictable reaction to the 10 previous years of ultra-serious popular music that was going to change the world & herald in The Revolution:  Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Jefferson Airplane, Dylan, etc. etc.  KC and The Sunshine Band and the like were the biggest Reactionary cultural backlash ever seen.  Almost overnight we went from a youth culture of serious, committed souls to ultra-hedonic airheads -- and the thing you remember from that era was how SERIOUS everyone who was into the disco scene was about their ultra-hedonic airheadism.  It was as if by embracing cocaine and flashing lights and pounding repetifive bass-lines as the "thing-in-itself", intentionally having no meaning beyond the surface, that some grand cultural statement was being made.  For all the alleged "fun" going on, nobody was laughing.  It was Dionysianism without genuine ritual.  It was an act of despair that things were ever going to genuinely improve.
"Disco Sucks" was a popular expression of the time, even among those who went to discos.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Susan]

I loved that movie as a kid, mostly *because* it was the 70's, rollerskating disco era. ;-) I have the soundtrack on CD in my car.  I don't know if I could rewatch the movie tho, because it really is a bad movie because it doesn't realize it's bad.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Jesus Peter!  Getting a little deep on us?  lol

[AndyC]

peter johnson wrote:
> "Disco Sucks" was a popular expression of the time, even among
> those who went to discos.

I'm not surprised. My friends and I used to frequent a few places, from 1989 to the early 90s, that played nothing but the crappy dance music of the day. We went for the excitement, the booze and the chicks, but we always thought the music sucked, and made fun of the patrons who were a little more into that whole scene than we were. For good music, we went to a little small-town dive close to home, where rock still rules to this day.

Well, if disco was a reaction to the seriousness of the early 70s (and I agree it was), I wonder what the second half of this decade will be like. Popular music today takes itself way too seriously, as do a lot of things right now. I doubt 9/11 or the current political climate helped in that regard. I imagine when the pendulum finally swings back, it will swing pretty far.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Andy,

I always kinda thought that the whole 'Rave and Extasy' thing would be this generation's 'Disco and Cocaine'.  It looks like this might be the case being as use of Extasy is rising and electronica is still pretty big in some areas.

I seriously hope I'm wrong though.

[raj]

I remember watching Airplane! in the theater when it came out, and the scene where the radio station announces "Where disco lives forever" gets knocked off the air, that got a huge laugh and applause.
Disco sucks was my motto in the 70s.

[AndyC]

Yep, 'disco sucks' was a pretty poular saying around here too. Funny, I don't even mind some of it, 25 years later. Quite a lot of it is still pretty unbearable though.

I get a kick out of the Buck Rogers series of the 70s, where disco survives 500 years and a nuclear war.

[raj]

AndyC wrote:


> I get a kick out of the Buck Rogers series of the 70s, where
> disco survives 500 years and a nuclear war.

Hmm, disco = cockroaches

[peter johnson]

disco = cockroaches --
that's really a deeper analysis than anything I said prior --
Good one!
Part of the fun of this board is being able to just go off on the occasional tangent.
I too remember the huge screaming cheer that went up in the theatre when the Airplane hit the disco radio antennae.  And then some of those very same people went off to a disco that very same night . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[JohnL]

Personally, I'm just glad that break dancing didn't survive...

[dean]

Bah, breakdancing is possibly the funniest thing to base a movie on.

Recently, as part of a musicals course at Uni, I have been watching lots of 80's dance musicals in which Breakin' and Breakin'2: Electric Boogaloo and xanadu were included.

Since this is a bad-movie site, these films, along with the likes of Purple Rain and Footloose, deserve their place in b-movie history.

[Kory]

Don't forget the "breakdance fighting" scene in Zoolander!