Does “In The Mood” Put You OUT of the Mood?

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The experts on musical taste formation say that our tastes are mostly formed during our 14-24 age range. For example, a 60-year-old today would relate to music popular during 1970-1980 and an 80-year-old today would relate to music from 1950-1960. Someone born after the heyday of swing (the Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, et al era), could logically say “‘In the Mood’ puts me out of the mood”. MAYBE folks who have been dancing a long time would relate to music from the time they started dancing (especially if they took a lot of lessons at that time).

Disco Balls Survived Longer Than the Hustle Dance

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Louisville, KY recently had a big party to celebrate its newest monument, an 11-foot diameter, 2,300-pound disco ball, to commemorate the city’s longtime role as the capital of American disco-ball manufacturing.

The heyday of disco-balls was during the 1970’s, when disco dancing was so popular. The signature dance at the time was the hustle, a sort of swing with several variations that takes some skill to make it look and feel good, but the music’s strong beat often also brings lots of unskilled “freestyle” folks onto the dance floor. For Wilddancer, it was difficult to learn the dance figures just by watching, because of their strangely syncopated steps in comparison to the more common and intuitive east coast swing or west coast swing dances.

Disco’s popularity was also helped by the Saturday Night Fever movie starring John Travolta (with his white suit and signature pose), with the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” song. And it also got a boost from the funny send-up of “Staying Alive” from the movie Airplane!

The disco feeling and faster tempo of that song are much better matches to the figures of the hustle than those of “The Hustle” that is often played today by disk jockeys unfamiliar with the dance.