Love to hear percussion.

If this blog is going to succeed, I feel that it is important for you to trust me. You need to know that what I am writing is true, and that it comes from the heart. Therefore, I feel I must go ahead and come clean about something right up front: I love disco.

There, I said it. And I can’t take it back. I grew up in the 70s and listened to the radio 24/7, so how could I not love disco? It was the soundtrack to my youth. Critics love to make fun of the genre, and often for good reason. Many of the songs of the era were indeed truly, truly awful. Take this one, for example:

Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots: “Disco Duck” (Rick Dees)

From the album The Original Disco Duck

RSO Records, 1976

Disco Duck, Part 1

At this point, I would usually tell you something about Rick Dees and how he was a DJ and wrote this song in an hour blah blah blah. But I just can’t do it. The less said about “Disco Duck,” the better. [More disclosure: my disdain for the song cannot obscure the fact that I have three different versions of “Disco Duck” in my iTunes music library, including an extended disco mix and an instrumental version with nothing but quacks. Yes, I know I need help. You are not the first person to point this out.]

Let’s cleanse the palate, shall we? Have a cracker. Have some sorbet. Better? OK, good. Now let’s move on to a song that epitomizes everything that is right and good about disco.

Vicki Sue Robinson: “Turn The Beat Around” (Gerald & Peter Jackson)

From the album Never Gonna Let You Go

RCA Records, 1976

Turn The Beat Around

Vicki Sue Robinson was already an accomplished Broadway performer when she released “Turn The Beat Around” back in 1976, and the song made it all the way to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and to #1 on the Dance charts). This version is the hard-to-find full-length album version, ripped just last night by yours truly from my original vinyl. Love to hear percussion indeed!

Vicki never had another hit song, and she succumbed to cancer at the age of 45 in 2000. Rick Dees went on to host Solid Gold and even had his own late-night talk show, and he is still very much among the living. That shit is quack.

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Bonus tracks!

The first rule of The Analog Kid blog is that if you write about a song on the Analog Kid blog, you share the song on the Analog Kid blog.

Vicki Sue Robinson: “Turn The Beat Around” [Single Version] (Gerald & Peter Jackson)

RCA Records, 1976

Turn The Beat Around [Single Version]

Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots: “Disco Duck [Disco Version]” (Written by Rick Dees)

RSO Records, 1976

Disco Duck [Disco Version]

Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots: “Disco Duck [Part 2]” (Written by Rick Dees)

RSO Records, 1976

Disco Duck, Part II [Instrumental]

I apologize for posting the last two. I just couldn’t help myself.