One for the Vine

This makes me unreasonably happy.

Stayin' Alive

So this actually happened?

I assumed it was a parody, and was impressed by how on the money the Ozzy impression was (although I thought there were a few bits where they didn't get him quite right), and then discovered that, no, it's really him and Dweezil. Turns out this was released during the years where I had almost no access to new music or radio or TV or any of those things in the paleolithic period before the internet.

All of which is to say my life is slightly better now than it was an hour ago.

Mega Party

I've never been a huge fan of dance music—the closest I come is my fondness for 70s disco. This, however, is making me reconsider.

Stayin' Alive

Well. Learn something new every day.

Despite having heard this I don't even know how many hundreds of times, and unapologetically loving it every single time, I had no idea that it was Barry on guitar and Maurice on bass. That's some seriously funky playing. If this were your first time hearing it, you wouldn't be surprised if Curtis Mayfield started singing, or perhaps (after 12 minutes) Isaac Hayes.

On the Radio

I never understood the whole "disco sucks" thing. I was only about 11, I guess, when it first started popping up, and while by then I was listening to more Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen (and, yes, Kiss and Aerosmith) than Top 40, I didn't understand how someone could listen to this:

and not hear how obviously fantastic it was. Never mind that clearly the Rolling Stones and David Bowie and Pink Floyd and the Kinks saw the potential in disco. How does someone who thinks of himself as a music fan listen to this song and manage to miss its greatness? The melody, the vocal, the lyric and, yes, the beat. It's incredible stuff. How hard do you have to try to not hear that?

[I just finished reading the second day of the Donna Summer tribute on PopMatters by Christian John Wikane. Here's the first part. Do yourself a favor and click through and read it. It'll be time well-spent.]

RIP Donna Summer

OK, so neither of us are exactly what you would call huge fans of disco. It had its good stuff and it had its awful stuff. We don't hate it, but we never really counted it among our favorites either.

But when it was great, it was great.

And Donna Summer was great.

The queen is dead. Long live the queen.