Line #29 Music/VillagePeople


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/villagepeople.png]]
2
3	->'''Johnny Cage:''' You just need a cop, a sailor and a cowboy.\
4	'''Kotal Kahn:''' For what, Johnny Cage?\
5	'''Johnny Cage:''' Only the greatest disco reboot ever.
6	-->-- ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''
7
8	Village People are a concept {{disco}} group consisting of gay stereotypes formed in the late [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. The group is as well known for their on-stage costumes as for their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics.
9
10	Original members were: policeman (Victor Willis), American Indian chief (Felipe Rose), cowboy (Randy Jones), construction worker (David Hodo), leatherman (Glenn Hughes) and Military man (Alex Briley). For the release of "In the Navy", both Willis and Briley appeared temporarily as sailors. Originally created to target disco's primarily gay fan base by featuring stereotypical gay fantasy personas, the band's popularity quickly brought them into mainstream. The group is seen by some music critics as less serious for their camp style, appearance and musical choices.
11
12	Village People scored a number of disco and dance hits, including their trademark "Macho Man", "Go West", the classic club medley of "San Francisco (You've Got Me) / In Hollywood (Everybody is a Star)", "In the Navy", "Can't Stop the Music", "Sex Over the Phone" and their biggest hit, "Y.M.C.A.".
13
14	The group was created by Jacques Morali, who was a French musical composer. He had written a few songs when he heard Victor Willis singing background vocals in a studio. Morali approached Willis and told him, "I had a dream that you sang lead on my album and it went very, very big." Willis agreed to sing on the first album, Village People.
15
16	It was a success, so Morali and his business partner, Henri Belolo, (under the collaboration Can't Stop Productions), decided to build a real group around Willis for a stage act to showcase and perform their disco music creations. They took out an ad in a trade magazine band which read: "Macho Types Wanted: Must Have Moustache." The first recruit, Indian Felipe Rose, Morali literally bumped into on the streets of Greenwich Village. Rose was a bartender who wore jingle bells on his boots. He was invited along to take part in the sessions for the first album. Alex Briley (who eventually took on the soldierman persona) was a friend of Willis'. The other three, Mark Mussler (construction worker), Dave Forrest (cowboy) and Lee Mouton (leatherman), were quickly replaced, respectively, by Dave Hodo, Randy Jones and Glenn Hughes, who all had more experience as actors/singers/dancers. {{Leatherman}} Hughes had first been spotted as a toll collector at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Early on, one of the group's songwriters, Peter Whitehead, even performed with the group for a brief time.
17
18	Despite the French songwriters, the songs lyrics were all in English as Morali and Belolo used American lyricists. On the first album, they brought in songwriting legends Phil Hurtt and the aforementioned Peter Whitehead. For the next three albums (and on other Can't Stop Productions such as Ritchie Family and Patrick Juvet) lead singer Willis was the lyricist.
19
20	Their original career was derailed by 1980's ''Film/CantStopTheMusic'', a musical comedy film directed by Nancy Walker. It is a pseudo-biography of the group [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory which bears only a vague resemblance to the actual story of their formation]]. ''Newsweek'' described the movie like this: "''Can't Stop the Music'' ushers in a whole new concept in entertainment -- it's the first all-singing, all-dancing horror film; the ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'' of the disco era." This movie, along with ''Film/{{Xanadu\|1980}}'', inspired John Wilson to create the MediaNotes/{{Golden Raspberry Award}}s to honor the worst that Hollywood had to offer, and contributed to rendering the (live-action) movie musical genre [[PopularityPolynomial functionally dead for about twenty years]].
21
22	Village People {{Signature Song}}s:
23	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmGuy0jievs "In the Navy"]]
24	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-BPRXYk9g "Macho Man"]]
25	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUoO4T_23pA "Y.M.C.A."]]
26	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsewgYaTqU "Go West"]]
27	----
28	!!'''Village People has examples of:'''
29
30	* CelebrityEdition: An episode of ''Series/FamilyFeud'' pit the group against a team of disco divas.
31	* DanceSensation: Most significantly, the "Y.M.C.A.". It has become an AscendedMeme by the official [[http://ymca.net/about-us/ YMCA website]], which uses the dance on their "About Us" tab.
32	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: They don't spell YMCA with their arms in said song's video. After audiences started doing so on their own, [[ThrowItIn they incorporated it in their performances.]][[invoked]]
33	* FauxDocumentary: ''Can't Stop the Music''.
34	* FunWithHomophones: "They're signing up new seamen fast," from "In the Navy".
35	* GayCowboy: Randy Jones is one of several 'cowboy' characters and is openly gay.
36	* HelloSailor: Alex Briley. Well, a soldier (imitators even go with sailor costumes). Also, "In the Navy".
37	* HomoeroticSubtext: Often the songs wound up with these. The YMCA was used by gay men to pick up dates, the allusion to "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_West,_young_man Go West, young man]]" also serves to San Francisco's state as a gay capital, the Navy [[HelloSailor has a bad "Don't ask don't tell" reputation]]. It should be noted that much of this subtext flew under the radar of most mainstream audiences in the 1970s. MoralGuardian parents even allowed "Y.M.C.A." to be played at children's birthday parties, which they never would have done if they got the subtext.
38	* HotMenAtWork: The "construction worker" members are rugged men who indulge in as much macho camp as the rest of the band.
39	* IAmSong: "I Am What I Am" is a pride-themed song about the singer accepting himself.
40	* InsistentTerminology: They are not THE Village People, just Village People. The movie in particular points out how awkward this gets, albeit unintentionally.
41	* {{Leatherman}}: Glenn Hughes. His Leatherman persona directly influenced [[HellBentForLeather Rob Halford]] of Music/JudasPriest. When Hughes died he was reportedly buried in that very outfit.
42	* MachoCamp: Part of the band's appeal is the members' flamboyant yet masculine costumes that include characters such as a cowboy or leatherman.
43	* ManlyFacialHair: Their first recruitment was through a flyer that read, "Macho Types Wanted: Must Have Moustache".
44	* ManlyGay: When the group first formed, part of their appeal was their masculine characters i.e. the cowboy, the Native American, the cop, or the construction worker. Later albums have the band embrace their camp appeal.
45	* PopCulturalOsmosis: Most people know the "Y.M.C.A." from the song rather than the center for young men to meet up.
46	* PornStache: Construction Worker, Leatherman, and Cowboy.
47	* RefugeInTheWest: "Go West" by more famously covered by the Music/PetShopBoys, presents the titular west as an Elysium:
48	-->''There where the air is free\
49	We'll be what we want to be\
50	Now if we take a stand\
51	We'll find our promised land''
52	* RepurposedPopSong: "Go West", which uses notes from the Soviet national anthem. Music/PetShopBoys did a cover version which became more popular and was used in a few commercials.
53	* SesameStreetCred: The Muppets used "In The Navy" for a sketch with pigs as [[HornyVikings vikings]]. Gonzo also did an outrageous performance of "Macho Man" together with his chickens and a bunch of leatherman pigs.
54	* SpellingSong: The chorus of "Y.M.C.A." involves the group singing the initials, and it's popular for the audience to spell the chorus with their arms.
55	* WrestlingDoesntPay: Despite the acclaim they earned for their music, they still have to work as policemen/construction workers/etc.

Context Music / VillagePeople