In 1979, disco was everywhere, and The Eagles weren’t exactly thrilled about it.
So Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Don Felder responded with one of the strangest songs in the band’s catalog: “The Disco Strangler,” a dark, jittery deep cut from The Long Run that turned the late-’70s disco scene into something decidedly sinister. The album credits list all three Eagles as writers, with Henley singing lead.
In his memoir “Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles”, Felder explained exactly what the band had in mind, writing that “‘Disco Strangler’ was designed as an antidote to the Bee Gees-discotheque craze” that followed the success of Saturday Night Fever.
“The one thing the Eagles agreed on was that we all hated disco music,” Felder added.
Felder said he started with a four-on-the-floor beat, straight quarter-note bass drum and no melody, then played over it. Henley came up with the concept of a beautiful woman dancing in the spotlight while the “disco strangler” waits in the wings to put his hands around her throat.
If the premise sounds creepy, that’s because even writers who have studied the Eagles’ catalog haven’t been quite sure what to make of it.
In “Eagles on Track: Every Album, Every Song,” author John Van der Kiste described “The Disco Strangler” as an “intentionally unpleasant” song that took the band’s previous digs at disco even further. He called its story “more sinister” than simple satire and ultimately dismissed the track as “filler of the worst kind.”
He wasn’t alone.
Eagles biographer Marc Eliot went even further, calling “The Disco Strangler” “a new low for the band.”
But the song has its defenders. AllMusic critic Mike DeGagne called it a “gem,” praising its anxious guitar work and Henley’s dry satire, while Rolling Stone ranked “The Disco Strangler” No. 28 on its list of the Eagles’ greatest songs, praising it as a “shadowy, pulsating” track with a ” subtle, ironic nod to thumpy disco beats [that] ended up being one of the Eagles’ most mordant recorded moments.”
More than four decades later, that disagreement might be the most interesting thing about “The Disco Strangler.” The Eagles set out to make an antidote to the Bee Gees-era disco explosion and wound up with a song that sounded enough like disco to become a strange, dark parody of the very music they disliked.
And depending on which critic you ask, the antidote may have been worse than the disease.
There’s even a strange afterlife for the song’s title. Brooklyn Nine-Nine featured a fictional serial killer known as the Disco Strangler, an old nemesis of Captain Holt (Andre Braugher). The character’s name was a nod to the Eagles song.
Related: 1977 Hit, Recorded by an 18-Year-Old, Had a 4-Week Reign at No. 1 49 Years Ago for Andy Gibb
Hence then, the article about dark 1979 song written as a bee gees antidote was called a new low for the eagles was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Dark 1979 Song, Written as a Bee Gees ‘Antidote,’ Was Called ‘a New Low’ for The Eagles )
Also on site :
- Pulitzer-Winning Author’s Novel, Written in a Home Basement, Ranked ‘Greatest Book of the Last 20 Years’
- ‘Combine your passion with an investment strategy’: Meet the VC using 500,000 Pokémon and trading cards as a hedge against a debt crisis
- ‘All of us are going to pay’: 30% of Americans are taking out BNPL loans to pay for groceries, and it’s probably going to cost you