The Backlash

'Disco sucks': the saturation, the resentment and Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979 — the night the industry declared disco dead.

Part of Disco

6 moments in this segment.

1. 1979 — 'Disco Sucks'. By 1979 a rock-radio-driven 'Disco Sucks' movement had turned a musical craze into a culture war.
2. 1979 — The disco glut. Everyone cashed in — even Ethel Merman and a disco Star Wars — until the market collapsed under its own weight.
3. 1979 — The end of the disco boom. By 1980 the major labels had shuttered their disco divisions and the hits dried up almost overnight.
4. 1979 — Rock radio versus disco. Rock stations and their listeners cast disco as shallow, commercial and 'other' — a backlash with an ugly edge.
5. 1979-07-12 — Disco Demolition Night. At Comiskey Park in Chicago, a crate of disco records was blown up between games — a riot that came to symbolize the backlash.
6. 1979-07-12 — Steve Dahl and the anti-disco army. The rock DJ Steve Dahl, fired by a disco-format station, led the crowd that stormed the field at Comiskey Park.