Live Action TV
When three brothers strutted down a Miami street in 1977, they started the whole world dancing, and most of Australia with it. They were expatriate Australians, but this was not a source of pride to the local rock fraternity.
— Long Way to the Top: Stories of Australian Rock & Roll
"At one stage I did set fire to a pile of disco records and declare that disco was dead. I think within weeks there were three disco records in the top ten, so it wasn't a great gesture."
— Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, Long Way to the Top: Stories of Australian Rock & Roll (he later admits "I kind of like disco now")
Music
I like pop, I like soul, I like rock, but I never liked disco!
— Everclear, "AM Radio"
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life
— The Smiths, "Panic"
Disco sucks, It won't last too long
It's big right now but it's gonna fade away
It's big right now but it's gonna fade away
— Chuck Wagon & The Wheels, "Disco Sucks (Pt. 1)
"
"Sorry guys, I didn't realize
That I needed you so much
I thought I'd get a new audience
I forgot that Disco sucks
That I needed you so much
I thought I'd get a new audience
I forgot that Disco sucks
— Weezer, "Back to the Shack"
Do you think I'm disco? Am I superficial? Lookin' hip's my only goal!
Do you think I'm disco? Maybe it's not too late to get into Rock & Roll?
<cue electric guitar and Genre Shift to Hard Rock> ROCK & ROLL!!!
I'll tell you something, I have never been happier now that I'm into this rock & roll thing! I sold my white three-piece suit at a garage sale last weekend, made $25, got rid of my 280Z, picked myself up a beat-up old '69 Dart, melted down all my gold jewelry into a Led Zeppelin belt buckle... I mean, things are happening! Why, it's so easy to be led astray by all those pictures of Margaret Trudeau in People magazine, making you think you're supposed to get into disco! I was a teenage disco duck! Oh, I've been saved! Hallelujah! Oh, long live rock & roll!
Do you think I'm disco? Maybe it's not too late to get into Rock & Roll?
<cue electric guitar and Genre Shift to Hard Rock> ROCK & ROLL!!!
I'll tell you something, I have never been happier now that I'm into this rock & roll thing! I sold my white three-piece suit at a garage sale last weekend, made $25, got rid of my 280Z, picked myself up a beat-up old '69 Dart, melted down all my gold jewelry into a Led Zeppelin belt buckle... I mean, things are happening! Why, it's so easy to be led astray by all those pictures of Margaret Trudeau in People magazine, making you think you're supposed to get into disco! I was a teenage disco duck! Oh, I've been saved! Hallelujah! Oh, long live rock & roll!
— Steve Dahl, "Do You Think I'm Disco?"
Video Games
"Gonna let you in on something, Mac. Disco's dead, rock and roll soothes the soul."
— Doc Louis in Punch-Out!! (Wii)
Western Animation
Offscreen Guy: Hey, jerk! Disco is DEAD!
Jon: What!? When? Boy, you learn a dance and then, zango! 14 years later, they change it.
Garfield: Go figure....
Jon: What!? When? Boy, you learn a dance and then, zango! 14 years later, they change it.
Garfield: Go figure....
Tommy: Disco is DEAD! (blows up Party Zoe with a rocket launcher)
— Regular Show; "Party Re-Pete"
"A chilly April morning, 1980. Disco was on the way out and it had just begun to dawn on everybody they looked absolutely ridiculous in every photo taken of them in..."
— Lawrence, Phineas and Ferb, "Lake Nose Monster"
Real Life
"Whatever the real dangers and deficiencies of disco as a genre and a mentality, some disco records do more than just succeed on their own terms, as dance music—some of them are wonderful rock and roll. The Best of the Trammps is rough, driving soul in the great tradition of Wilson Pickett; The Bee Gees' side of Saturday Night Fever is inspired silliness in the great tradition of "Carrie-Anne" and "Itchychoo Park." But the disco-sucks crowd can't hear that any more than they can hear a Charlie Parker solo or a Joni Mitchell song. These assholes are such fanatics that they seize upon the first hint of synthesized percussion or rhythmic strings or chukka-chukka guitar—hell, the first lilt—as proof that anybody from Bowie to Poco has "gone disco," though most often the discos could care less even when it's true."
is rough, driving soul in the great tradition of Wilson Pickett; The Bee Gees' side of Saturday Night Fever is inspired silliness in the great tradition of "Carrie-Anne" and "Itchychoo Park." But the disco-sucks crowd can't hear that any more than they can hear a Charlie Parker solo or a Joni Mitchell song. These assholes are such fanatics that they seize upon the first hint of synthesized percussion or rhythmic strings or chukka-chukka guitar—hell, the first lilt—as proof that anybody from Bowie to Poco has "gone disco," though most often the discos could care less even when it's true."— Robert Christgau, Village Voice Jan. 22, 1979, "New Wave Hegemony and the Bebop Question"
""...there was a viaduct in a poor neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, on which someone had spray-painted 'Russia Iran Disco Suck.' Driving underneath it on my way to and from a debate tournament one day, I gloried in the succinct eloquence of this bit of proletarian wisdom. The logic was flawless. As sucked disco, so sucked communism. So sucked Iran. Even more inspiring was the unspoken corollary: as rocked Van Halen, so rocked Ronald Reagan."
— Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas?
