Disco Demolition Night, a Major League Baseball promotion happened on this day (July 12) in 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois. At the climax of the event, a bin filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games of a doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Many of those in attendance had come to see the explosion rather than the games and rushed onto the field after the detonation. The playing field was so damaged by the explosion and by the fans that the White Sox were required to forfeit the game to the Tigers.
Disco music at the time was a very popular and a very danceable genre of music that eventually created a backlash among Rock fans, especially as many radio stations were switching from Rock to Disco. Disco music was everywhere as Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees dominated the air waves.
Disco was criticized as mindless, consumerist, overproduced and escapist. The slogans "Disco sucks" and "Death to disco" became common. Rock artists such as Rod Stewart and David Bowie who added disco elements to their music were accused of selling out.
Even Kiss had a disco song.
Anti-disco sentiment was expressed in some television shows and films. A recurring theme on the show WKRP in Cincinnati was a hostile attitude towards disco music. In one scene of the 1980 comedy film Airplane!, a wayward airplane slices a radio tower with its wing, knocking out an all-disco radio station. July 12, 1979, became known as "the day disco died" because of the Disco Demolition Night, an anti-disco demonstration in a baseball double-header at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Rock station DJs Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, along with Michael Veeck, son of Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck, staged the promotional event for disgruntled rock fans between the games of a White Sox doubleheader which involved exploding disco records in centerfield. As the second game was about to begin, the rowdy crowd stormed onto the field and started setting fires, tearing out seats and pieces of turf, as well as other damages. The Chicago Police Department made numerous arrests, and the extensive damage to the field forced the White Sox to forfeit the second game to the Detroit Tigers, who had won the first game.
Disco's decline in popularity after Disco Demolition Night was swift. On July 21, 1979, the top six records on the U.S. music charts were disco songs. By September 22, there were no disco songs in the US Top 10 chart, with the exception of Herb Alpert's instrumental "Rise," a smooth jazz composition with some disco overtones. Some in the media, in celebratory tones, declared disco "dead" and rock revived. The Bee Gees were even getting bomb threats. Karen Mixon Cook, the first female disco DJ, stated that people still pause every July 12 for a moment of silence in honor of disco. Dahl stated in a 2004 interview that disco was "probably on its way out [at the time]. But I think it [Disco Demolition Night] hastened its demise".
Disco may have died, but it was instrumental in the development of electronic dance music genres like house, techno, eurodance.
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