There are two kinds of people in this world: those who create beauty and those who blow it up.

Which would you rather be?

The Bee Gees have left an indelible mark on the music industry. They were one of the most successful singing groups in history. Their hits included the beautiful:

 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

Massachusetts

I Started a Joke

 (Listen to the harmony Butterfly recorded when they were practically kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSb3gNjibtI )

In the seventies, they regrouped and produced songs like:

Jive Talkin’

Nights on Broadway

In the late 1970s, they hit the stratosphere. Producer Robert Stigwood asked them to write and sing songs for his new movie. The motion picture was based upon an article written in New York magazine entitled Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night. Not much was expected from it.

The Bee Gees were asked to release their songs from the soundtrack beginning in September 1977. They did, and the songs became massive hits over the next few months and into the new year. They helped the movie.

On December 16, 1977, Saturday Night Fever was released. It became a worldwide cultural phenomenon. [Saturday Night Fever still influences culture almost fifty years later. You have likely seen this Capitol One commercial with John Travolta playing off the movie’s opening sequence and the Bee Gee’s song, Stayin’ Alive. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXjHEVlXMPY ]

The Bee Gees had three consecutive number-one songs from the SNF soundtrack:

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

Stayin’ Alive

Night Fever

Almost every popular music fan, including those from the Disco world, loved them. And therein lies the problem.

A disc jockey named Steve Dahl worked his show out of Chicago, radio station WLUP 97.9 FM. Steve was what was known in the industry as a shock jock. The station was pure rock ‘n’ roll, and Steve did not merely dislike disco; he hated it.

Dahl had an idea for a promotion. He invited fans to attend the Chicago White Sox baseball game with the Detroit Tigers on July 12, 1979. Any fan who attended the game with a donation of a vinyl disco record would pay only 98 cents for a ticket.

After the game, Dahl invited all fans to come onto the field and place their disco records in a pile. After they had done so, he callously blew up the disco records with dynamite. A riot ensued, and the fans tore up the field, a stark reminder of the destruction that can be wrought in the name of personal preference.

The disco backlash had begun.

You may dislike disco, and that’s fine because I’m guessing you don’t want to incite a riot with your dislike of the genre.

Piecing together the available information later, some people had placed Bee Gee records on the pile that predated disco by a decade. Beautiful music. But Steve Dahl blew it up.

There are a lot of people in life like Steve Dahl. They go around blowing things up. Notably, and unfortunately, they blow up lovely things.

The music of the Bee Gees will live on forever. It’s so vast and varied that even a person who doesn’t like one style will find another song they like in the Bee Gees’ song catalog.  They are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

As for Steve Dahl, he would not tell you he has had a failed career. It is telling, though, that if he is remembered for anything, it is for Disco Demolition Night. Steve Dahl is remembered for blowing things up.

The question for you and me is, which choice do we want to make? Do we seek to be creators of beauty, adding to the world’s richness? Or do we choose to live our lives blowing things up, diminishing the beauty that others have created?

Do we want to generate quality work? Or do we want to tear the good work of others down?

Mark

Dr. Mark Edge 

Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World

https://www.amazon.com/sk=mark+edge&crid=3B1BM6W3LHOG0&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent