‘Disco, I’m Coming Out’

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. This time it's all about the history of disco. The latest exhibition of L 'Harmonie de Paris is dedicated to the genre. In Disco, I'm Coming Out. Visitors will find out more about the 70s genre that dominated the airwaves around the world, including, of course, in France. I spoke with the curator of the exhibition, Gene-Yves Le Loop, who started telling me about his first dab with disco.

0:57As a kid, I was listening to this kind of music and my first record was YMCF by The Village People. That was a 12-inch. I thought it was a LP, but it was a 12-inch, in fact. I was a bit surprised, but it was only like two tracks. So that was what a kid could listen to in 1978. And I was really into the Chase track by George Mordor from the Midnight Express soundtrack. That was one of my favorite tracks at the time. And it's still the same.

1:44So I was into this kind of popular music as many other popular music of the time. It can be pop or French chanson or rock. And after, during the 80s, I was more into, I would say, new wave and a bit more gothic music. And I was a bit more into more Joy Division than New Order, for example. and so during this more new wave or darker period disco was something really like out of fashion for a teenager like me and after i went through the whole house and techno and rave revolution i was a raver i was a clubber and as many other people people who worked on this project who also documented the disco years they're all coming from the house era or the the detroit chicago house techno era so and there was a very natural connection between disco and and the dj culture of of the 90s so slowly we get we got back to disco through the house culture and this dj culture from the 1990s we heard so many like for example more uh not so many british DJs but more like DJs from New York or Chicago they were very often coming to to DJ I had a daily radio show on on a French radio station called AFG which was the first really radio station dedicated to electronic dance music so we had so many DJs from the New York scene or from the Chicago scene some of the best some of the greatest DJs they all came when they were coming to Paris to DJ, they were coming also to our radio show.

3:28So they were all playing this kind of house, heavily fueled with the garage, gospel, disco feeling. So that was always been present during these years, even if I was also into techno and into trance and also sometimes more experimental ambient music. but I would say that the lyrics, the refrains, the voices of disco have always been present during this 1990s period, during this Czechoslovakia era. I wonder if you can introduce us to the space. I've seen plenty of imagery, because like your electro exhibition, it's a very beautiful, interactive exhibition as well. It's not just kind of some vinyls on the floor.

4:15So tell us a bit more, because did you want to recreate a dance floor? Not really recreate a dance floor, but working in a kind of an immersive exhibition space with a very... You can really visit the exhibition in a very free way, as you were working in a club or in another space. Of course, the exhibition is really structured with four parts, with sub parts, but you can very freely walk inside the exhibition because it's not totally chronological. So it's more like we have different themes like the music and the black culture, the political side and the LGBT side, the discotheque era and its inventions, the dance and the body, and also the eternal comeback of the disco since 1980, which is the last part of the exhibition.

5:14So you can freely let your body flow inside the exhibition. And we have a lot of neons, for example. It can be a reproduction of all neons, like a reproduction of the Paradise Garage neon. But it can be also a neon by artists. So you have slogans, lights, and also a lot of mirror balls which were seen by contemporary artists also. So it's full of impressions, lights, illusions. We have also on the floor a whole series of kind of, I would say, printed carpets, carpets with illusions on the floor. So the discotheque was a world of light and sound and illusions. So we wanted to have this kind of very funny, colored, colorful environment, even if we are also an art museum, a music museum.

6:08So we really want to have a very serious content also. So the idea was to have a kind of a balance between this kind of a very joyful visit and also a very well-documented series of items, texts and objects. And Dimitri from Paris did a special soundtrack for the exhibition, right? Yes, absolutely. he made a one hour and a half mix which is really reflecting reflecting the content of the exhibition and in fact he made um he put together 30 tracks in 90 minutes because he made like specific edits shorter edits not long disco edits but shorter edits of some disco songs and he's really he has really mixed them like he would mix them in a kind of a party so and the it's mainly concentrated of i would say american disco from 1970 to 1980 with a lot of uh it's really dimitri from paris he is really influenced by the the philly sound the more orchestral side of it even if also we put some great hits by Earth, Wind & Fire or Michael Jackson or Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer, of course.

7:31But we have a lot of songs with beautiful melodies, very well orchestrated and less electronic disco tracks. I have a question. How did France react to disco? I'm sure it was popular like most countries in the world because the only reason I ask, because even today when I listen to some French artists, like Corinne, Dabeul and others, you can feel the influence of disco and it's still so strong. Yeah, well, it's been very strong since 1978 because most of the singers from the French chansons, either men or women, made some discos and made some huge hits in France, in Europe and sometimes even in the States, like Ceyron or Patrick Jouvet, for example, with I Love America.

8:24So it was a very strong trend between 1978 and 81 or 82. And except a very few French singers, a lot of them tried to make disco, sometimes nicely, sometimes that was a bit of a disaster. But it was a very strong period on French television. and sometimes people say that France was the second country of disco and we had so many producers who got a lot of success in the US also like the creators and producers of village people for example they were French just like Frank Farian in Germany for example that was some of these European producers who got a bigger success even bigger than some of the African-American producers of the first years of disco.

9:19And so that was huge. And now it's deeply anchored inside the popular French culture since 1980. So if you go to a wedding, it can be a wedding of any kind of social class. You will still have some disco songs. Of course, that would be the biggest hits from, I don't know, Ottawa or Earth, Wind & Fire or Tana Summer. But it's always been present. And some of the popular French radio still play disco on Saturday night, for example. So it's still present, which is very different from what happened in the US, for example, since the 1980s. And I guess after the last album of the Daft Punk, or we have also some younger French singers like Clara Luciani, Juliette Armanet.

10:15They both made a huge success in France recently with kind of a disco-oriented songs or songs about disco.

10:40It had a huge success. These are the two, one of the main, the most popular French singer from the new French chanson, for example. So it's always been present in France. In fact, it never, of course, it could look, it could sound a bit old fashioned for, and during the new wave, some of the alternative rock era or the punk era, but anyway, it's always been present. I think it's fun and it brings us joy. and I love Juliet Armanet and Clara Luciani as well. They're fantastic. And I was listening the other day to a disco track. I think Dalida did a few disco tracks, like Monday, Tuesday. That was amazing.

11:18I like it. I'm a fan here.

11:32yeah dalido she was a huge french well she was she was coming from egypt but she stayed most of her career in france and she was one of the most popular french singer who turned disco during a certain period of time her songs were playing in discotheques and just like Claude Francois also was also a popular figure of the time but sometimes they only made like three or four singles disco singles like Claude Francois and after they did something else so it was a very short period between like between 79 and 82 something like this but it's the same for many other American producers also and singers.

12:15They were making soul music before. They had their disco period. And after they did some more funky stuff or more poppy stuff. So it's the same for everyone. Disco was a very short period for most of the people who did some disco, except maybe like Ceron, for example, always did the same thing. Or Chic also, they were always into disco. into disco but most of the other people they were they had a career before and they had a career after the disco era finally uh jean i want to know what's your favorite disco song oh my favorite disco song i don't know maybe some some songs from the the sister sledge trio like lost in music for example um i realized but i really like most of the chic productions from Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards.

13:08There's also this few songs I discovered during my research. For example, Don't You Want My Love by, of course, there's some of the Gwen Macrae songs and the Carl Binn song, which is really nice. I was born this way, which is a really strange song because that's maybe the only really like gay songs without double meaning it really says I was born this way and it's funny because this guy made only one track one record, one single with this song which was produced and released by Motown I was born this way and he was a very religious man he was a pastor and he made this song which is a really beautifully written song by Carl Dean so I was born this way which which is one of the best songs we had in the soundtrack of the exhibition.

14:03And it's one of my favorite songs and one of the favorite songs of Dimitri also.

14:33Thank you very much. Jeanne-Yves Le Lupe there, curator of Disco, I'm Coming Out, which is out now at Philharmonie de Paris till the 17th of August. The show was edited by Flynn Simons, and thank you for listening.