Category Archives: Hedonism

Departure City

Albany, Ny [ALB]Albuquerque, Nm [ABQ]Allentown, Pa [ABE]Amarillo, Tx [AMA]Anchorage, Ak [ANC]Appleton, Mn [AQP]Arcata, Ca [ACV]Asheville, Nc [AVL]Aspen, Co [ASE]Atlanta, Ga [ATL]Atlantic City, Nj [ACY]Austin, Tx [AUS]Baltimore, Md [BWI]Bangor, Me [BGR]Beaumont, Tx [BPT]Bethel, Ak [BET]Billings, Mt [BIL]Binghamton, Ny [BGM]Birmingham, Al [BHM]Bismarck, Nd [BIS]Bloomington, Il [BMI]Boise, Id [BOI]Boston, Ma [BOS]Brownsville, Tx [BRO]Brunswick, Ga [BQK]Buffalo, Ny [BUF]Burbank, Ca [BUR]Burlington, Vt [BTV]Calgary [YYC]Cedar Rapids, Ia [CID]Charleston, Sc [CHS]Charleston, Wv [CRW]Charlotte, Nc [CLT]Charlottesville, Va [CHO]Chicago (Midway), Il [MDW]Chicago (O'Hare), Il [ORD]Cincinnati, Oh [CVG]Cleveland, Oh [CLE]College Station, Tx [CLL]Colorado Springs, Co [COS]Columbia, Mo [COU]Columbia, Sc [CAE]Columbus, Oh [CMH]Cordova, Ak [CDV]Corpus Christi, Tx [CRP]Dallas Love Field, Tx [DAL]Dallas/Fort Worth, Tx [DFW]Dayton, Oh [DAY]Denver, Co [DEN]Des Moines, Ia [DSM] Detroit, Mi [DTW]Duluth, Mn [DLH]Durango, Co [DRO]Edmonton Intntl [YEG]Eastern Iowa, Ia [CID]El Paso, Tx [ELP]Erie, Pa [ERI]Eugene, Or [EUG]Eureka, Ca [EKA]Fairbanks, Ak [FAI]Fargo, Nd [FAR]Flint, Mi [FNT]Fresno, Ca [FAT]Ft. Lauderdale, Fl [FLL]Ft. Myers, Fl [RSW]Ft. Walton/Okaloosa [VPS]Ft. Wayne, In [FWA]Gainesville, Fl [GNV]Grand Forks, Nd [GFK]Grand Rapids, Mi [GRR]Great Falls, Mt [GTF]Green Bay, Wi [GRB]Greensboro, Nc [GSO]Greenville, Sc [GSP]Gulfport, Ms [GPT]Halifax Intntl [YHZ]Harlingen [HRL]Harrisburg, Pa [MDT]Hartford, Ct [BDL]Helena, Mt [HLN]Hilo, Hi [ITO]Hilton Head, Sc [HHH]Honolulu, Hi [HNL]Houston Hobby, Tx [HOU]Houston Busch, Tx [IAH]Huntington, Wv [HTS]Huntsville Intl, Al [HSV]Idaho Falls, Id [IDA]Indianapolis, In [IND] Islip, Ny [ISP]Ithaca, Ny [ITH]Jackson Hole, Wy [JAC]Jackson Int'L, Ms [JAN]Jacksonville, Fl [JAX]Juneau, Ak [JNU]Kahului, Hi [OGG]Kansas City, Mo [MCI]Kapalua, Hi [JHM]Kauai, Hi [LIH]Key West, Fl [EYW]Knoxville, Tn [TYS]Kona, Hi [KOA]Lanai, Hi [LNY]Lansing, Mi [LAN]Las Vegas, Nv [LAS]Lexington, Ky [LEX]Lincoln, Ne [LNK]Little Rock, Ar [LIT]Long Beach, Ca [LGB]Los Angeles, Ca [LAX]Louisville, Ky [SDF]Lubbock, Tx [LBB]Lynchburg, Va [LYH]Montreal Mirabel [YMX]Montreal Trudeau [YUL]Madison, Wi [MSN]Manchester, Nh [MHT]Maui, Hi [OGG]Mcallen, Tx [MFE]Medford, Or [MFR]Melbourne, Fl [MLB]Memphis, Tn [MEM]Miami, Fl [MIA]Midland/Odessa, Tx [MAF]Milwaukee, Wi [MKE]Minneapolis/St. Paul [MSP]Missoula, Mt [MSO]Mobile Regional, Al [MOB] Molokai, Hi [MKK]Monterey, Ca [MRY]Montgomery, Al [MGM]Myrtle Beach, Sc [MYR]Naples, Fl [APF]Nashville, Tn [BNA]New Braunfels, Tx [BAZ]New Orleans, La [MSY]New York Kennedy, Ny [JFK]New York Laguardia [LGA]Newark, Nj [EWR]Norfolk, Va [ORF]Ottawa Mcdonald [YOW]Oakland, Ca [OAK]Oklahoma City, Ok [OKC]Omaha, Ne [OMA]Ontario, Ca [ONT]Orange County, Ca [SNA]Orlando, Fl [MCO]Palm Springs, Ca [PSP]Panama City, Fl [PFN]Pensacola, Fl [PNS]Peoria, Il [PIA]Philadelphia, Pa [PHL]Phoenix, Az [PHX]Pittsburgh, Pa [PIT]Port Angeles, Wa [CLM]Portland Intl, Or [PDX]Portland, Me [PWM]Providence, Ri [PVD]Quebec Intntl [YQB]Raleigh/Durham, Nc [RDU]Rapid City, Sd [RAP]Redmond, Or [RDM]Reno, Nv [RNO]Richmond, Va [RIC]Roanoke, Va [ROA]Rochester, Ny [ROC]Rockford, Il [RFD] Sacramento, Ca [SMF]Saginaw, Mi [MBS]Salem, Or [SLE]Salt Lake City, Ut [SLC]San Antonio, Tx [SAT]San Diego, Ca [SAN]San Francisco, Ca [SFO]San Jose, Ca [SJC]Santa Barbara, Ca [SBA]Santa Rosa, Ca [STS]Sarasota/Bradenton [SRQ]Savannah, Ga [SAV]Seattle/Tacoma, Wa [SEA]Shreveport, La [SHV]Sioux City, Ia [SUX]Sioux Falls, Sd [FSD]Spokane, Wa [GEG]Springfield, Il [SPI]Springfield, Mo [SGF]St. Louis, Mo [STL]St. Petersburg, Fl [PIE]Syracuse, Ny [SYR]Toronto Pearson [YYZ]Tallahassee, Fl [TLH]Tampa, Fl [TPA]Traverse City, Mi [TVC]Tucson, Az [TUS]Tulsa, Ok [TUL]Vancouver Intntl [YVR]Victoria Intntl [YYJ]Winnipeg Intntl [YWG]Washington Natl, Dc [DCA]Washington/Dulles, Dc [IAD]Wenatchee, Wa [EAT]West Palm Beach, Fl [PBI]White Plains, Ny [HPN]Wichita, Ks [ICT]Wilkes-Barre/Scranton [AVP]

See original here:

What to Expect at Hedonism | Hedonism II

Departure City

Albany, Ny [ALB]Albuquerque, Nm [ABQ]Allentown, Pa [ABE]Amarillo, Tx [AMA]Anchorage, Ak [ANC]Appleton, Mn [AQP]Arcata, Ca [ACV]Asheville, Nc [AVL]Aspen, Co [ASE]Atlanta, Ga [ATL]Atlantic City, Nj [ACY]Austin, Tx [AUS]Baltimore, Md [BWI]Bangor, Me [BGR]Beaumont, Tx [BPT]Bethel, Ak [BET]Billings, Mt [BIL]Binghamton, Ny [BGM]Birmingham, Al [BHM]Bismarck, Nd [BIS]Bloomington, Il [BMI]Boise, Id [BOI]Boston, Ma [BOS]Brownsville, Tx [BRO] Brunswick, Ga [BQK]Buffalo, Ny [BUF]Burbank, Ca [BUR]Burlington, Vt [BTV]Calgary [YYC]Cedar Rapids, Ia [CID]Charleston, Sc [CHS]Charleston, Wv [CRW]Charlotte, Nc [CLT]Charlottesville, Va [CHO]Chicago (Midway), Il [MDW]Chicago (O'Hare), Il [ORD]Cincinnati, Oh [CVG]Cleveland, Oh [CLE]College Station, Tx [CLL]Colorado Springs, Co [COS]Columbia, Mo [COU]Columbia, Sc [CAE]Columbus, Oh [CMH]Cordova, Ak [CDV]Corpus Christi, Tx [CRP]Dallas Love Field, Tx [DAL]Dallas/Fort Worth, Tx [DFW]Dayton, Oh [DAY]Denver, Co [DEN]Des Moines, Ia [DSM]Detroit, Mi [DTW]Duluth, Mn [DLH]Durango, Co [DRO]Edmonton Intntl [YEG]Eastern Iowa, Ia [CID]El Paso, Tx [ELP]Erie, Pa [ERI]Eugene, Or [EUG]Eureka, Ca [EKA]Fairbanks, Ak [FAI]Fargo, Nd [FAR]Flint, Mi [FNT]Fresno, Ca [FAT]Ft. Lauderdale, Fl [FLL]Ft. Myers, Fl [RSW]Ft. Walton/Okaloosa [VPS]Ft. Wayne, In [FWA]Gainesville, Fl [GNV]Grand Forks, Nd [GFK]Grand Rapids, Mi [GRR]Great Falls, Mt [GTF]Green Bay, Wi [GRB]Greensboro, Nc [GSO]Greenville, Sc [GSP]Gulfport, Ms [GPT]Halifax Intntl [YHZ]Harlingen [HRL]Harrisburg, Pa [MDT]Hartford, Ct [BDL]Helena, Mt [HLN]Hilo, Hi [ITO]Hilton Head, Sc [HHH]Honolulu, Hi [HNL]Houston Hobby, Tx [HOU]Houston Busch, Tx [IAH]Huntington, Wv [HTS]Huntsville Intl, Al [HSV]Idaho Falls, Id [IDA]Indianapolis, In [IND]Islip, Ny [ISP]Ithaca, Ny [ITH]Jackson Hole, Wy [JAC]Jackson Int'L, Ms [JAN]Jacksonville, Fl [JAX]Juneau, Ak [JNU]Kahului, Hi [OGG]Kansas City, Mo [MCI]Kapalua, Hi [JHM]Kauai, Hi [LIH]Key West, Fl [EYW]Knoxville, Tn [TYS]Kona, Hi [KOA]Lanai, Hi [LNY]Lansing, Mi [LAN]Las Vegas, Nv [LAS]Lexington, Ky [LEX]Lincoln, Ne [LNK]Little Rock, Ar [LIT]Long Beach, Ca [LGB]Los Angeles, Ca [LAX]Louisville, Ky [SDF]Lubbock, Tx [LBB]Lynchburg, Va [LYH]Montreal Mirabel [YMX]Montreal Trudeau [YUL]Madison, Wi [MSN]Manchester, Nh [MHT]Maui, Hi [OGG]Mcallen, Tx [MFE]Medford, Or [MFR]Melbourne, Fl [MLB]Memphis, Tn [MEM]Miami, Fl [MIA]Midland/Odessa, Tx [MAF]Milwaukee, Wi [MKE]Minneapolis/St. Paul [MSP]Missoula, Mt [MSO]Mobile Regional, Al [MOB]Molokai, Hi [MKK]Monterey, Ca [MRY]Montgomery, Al [MGM]Myrtle Beach, Sc [MYR]Naples, Fl [APF]Nashville, Tn [BNA]New Braunfels, Tx [BAZ]New Orleans, La [MSY]New York Kennedy, Ny [JFK]New York Laguardia [LGA]Newark, Nj [EWR]Norfolk, Va [ORF]Ottawa Mcdonald [YOW]Oakland, Ca [OAK]Oklahoma City, Ok [OKC]Omaha, Ne [OMA]Ontario, Ca [ONT]Orange County, Ca [SNA]Orlando, Fl [MCO]Palm Springs, Ca [PSP]Panama City, Fl [PFN]Pensacola, Fl [PNS]Peoria, Il [PIA]Philadelphia, Pa [PHL]Phoenix, Az [PHX]Pittsburgh, Pa [PIT]Port Angeles, Wa [CLM]Portland Intl, Or [PDX]Portland, Me [PWM]Providence, Ri [PVD]Quebec Intntl [YQB]Raleigh/Durham, Nc [RDU]Rapid City, Sd [RAP]Redmond, Or [RDM]Reno, Nv [RNO]Richmond, Va [RIC]Roanoke, Va [ROA]Rochester, Ny [ROC]Rockford, Il [RFD]Sacramento, Ca [SMF]Saginaw, Mi [MBS]Salem, Or [SLE]Salt Lake City, Ut [SLC]San Antonio, Tx [SAT]San Diego, Ca [SAN]San Francisco, Ca [SFO]San Jose, Ca [SJC]Santa Barbara, Ca [SBA]Santa Rosa, Ca [STS]Sarasota/Bradenton [SRQ]Savannah, Ga [SAV] Seattle/Tacoma, Wa [SEA]Shreveport, La [SHV]Sioux City, Ia [SUX]Sioux Falls, Sd [FSD]Spokane, Wa [GEG]Springfield, Il [SPI]Springfield, Mo [SGF]St. Louis, Mo [STL]St. Petersburg, Fl [PIE]Syracuse, Ny [SYR]Toronto Pearson [YYZ]Tallahassee, Fl [TLH]Tampa, Fl [TPA]Traverse City, Mi [TVC]Tucson, Az [TUS]Tulsa, Ok [TUL]Vancouver Intntl [YVR]Victoria Intntl [YYJ]Winnipeg Intntl [YWG]Washington Natl, Dc [DCA]Washington/Dulles, Dc [IAD]Wenatchee, Wa [EAT]West Palm Beach, Fl [PBI]White Plains, Ny [HPN]Wichita, Ks [ICT]Wilkes-Barre/Scranton [AVP]

Read more:

HEDONISM II: HOTWIFING HEAVEN - Hedonism II

Music genre

Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.

Disco started as a mixture of music from venues popular with Italian Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans and Black Americans[5] in Philadelphia and New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco can be seen as a reaction by the 1960s counterculture to both the dominance of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music at the time. Several dance styles were developed during the period of disco's popularity in the United States, including "the Bump" and "the Hustle".

In the course of the 1970s, disco music was developed further mainly by artists from the United States and Europe. Well-known artists include: ABBA, the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Giorgio Moroder, Baccara, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan, Chic, KC and the Sunshine Band, Thelma Houston, Sister Sledge, Sylvester, The Trammps and the Village People.[6][7] While performers garnered public attention, record producers working behind the scenes played an important role in developing the genre. By the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had thriving disco club scenes, and DJs would mix dance records at clubs such as Studio 54 in Manhattan, a venue popular among celebrities. Nightclub-goers often wore expensive, extravagant outfits, consisting predominantly of loose, flowing pants or dresses for ease of movement while dancing. There was also a thriving drug subculture in the disco scene, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine and quaaludes, the latter being so common in disco subculture that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits". Disco clubs were also associated with promiscuity as a reflection of the sexual revolution of this era in popular history. Films such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) contributed to disco's mainstream popularity.

Disco declined as a major trend in popular music in the United States following the infamous Disco Demolition Night, and it continued to sharply decline in popularity in the U.S. during the early 1980s; however, it remained popular in Italy and some European countries throughout the 1980s, and during this time also started becoming trendy in places elsewhere including India[8] and the Middle East,[9] where they were blended with regional folk styles such as ghazals and belly dancing. Disco would eventually become a key influence in the development of electronic dance music, house music, hip hop, new wave, dance-punk, and post-disco. The style has had several newer scenes since the 1990s, and the influence of disco remains strong across American and European pop music. A current revival has been underway since the early 2010s, coming to great popularity in the early 2020s. Albums that have contributed to this revival include Confessions On A Dance Floor, Random Access Memories, The Slow Rush, Cuz I Love You, Future Nostalgia, Hey U X, Melodrama, What's Your Pleasure?, About Last Night..., Risn Machine, and Kylie Minogue's album itself titled Disco.[10][11][12][13]

The term "disco" is shorthand for the word discothque, a French word for "library of phonograph records" derived from "bibliothque". The word "discothque" had the same meaning in English in the 1950s.[14]

"Discothque" became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, France, after these had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian nightclub in an English magazine.[14]

In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called "discotheque dress" was briefly very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form "disco" described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964, Playboy magazine used it in September of the same year to describe Los Angeles nightclubs.[14]

Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the feature article "Discotheque Rock Paaaaarty" that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine in September 1973.[15][16][17]

The music typically layered soaring, often-reverberated vocals, often doubled by horns,[citation needed] over a background "pad" of electric pianos and "chicken-scratch" rhythm guitars played on an electric guitar. Lead guitar features less frequently in disco than in rock. "The "rooster scratch" sound is achieved by lightly pressing the guitar strings against the fretboard and then quickly releasing them just enough to get a slightly muted poker [sound] while constantly strumming very close to the bridge."[18] Other backing keyboard instruments include the piano, electric organ (during early years), string synthesizers, and electromechanical keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes electric piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, and Hohner Clavinet. Donna Summer's 1977 song "I Feel Love", produced by Giorgio Moroder with a prominent Moog synthesizer on the beat, was one of the first disco tracks to use the synthesizer.

The rhythm is laid down by prominent, syncopated basslines (with heavy use of broken octaves, that is, octaves with the notes sounded one after the other) played on the bass guitar and by drummers using a drum kit, African/Latin percussion, and electronic drums such as Simmons and Roland drum modules. The sound was enriched with solo lines and harmony parts played by a variety of orchestral instruments, such as harp, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, clarinet, flugelhorn, French horn, tuba, English horn, oboe, flute (sometimes especially the alto flute and occasionally bass flute), piccolo, timpani and synth strings, string section or a full string orchestra.[citation needed]

Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat set by a bass drum, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat pattern with an open hissing hi-hat on the off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line.[21] A recording error in the 1975 song "Bad Luck" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes where Earl Young's hi-hat was too loud in the recording is said to have established loud hi-hats in disco. Other Latin rhythms such as the rhumba, the samba, and the cha-cha-cha are also found in disco recordings, and Latin polyrhythms, such as a rhumba beat layered over a merengue, are commonplace. The quaver pattern is often supported by other instruments such as the rhythm guitar and may be implied rather than explicitly present.

Songs often use syncopation, which is the accenting of unexpected beats. In general, the difference between disco, or any dance song, and a rock or popular song is that in dance music the bass drum hits four to the floor, at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time is 4 beats per measure).[citation needed] Disco is further characterized by a 16th note division of the quarter notes as shown in the second drum pattern below, after a typical rock drum pattern.

The orchestral sound is usually known as "disco sound" relies heavily on string sections and horns playing linear phrases, in unison with the soaring, often reverberated vocals or playing instrumental fills, while electric pianos and chicken-scratch guitars create the background "pad" sound defining the harmony progression. Typically, all of the doubling of parts and use of additional instruments creates a rich "wall of sound". There are, however, more minimalist flavors of disco with reduced, transparent instrumentation.

Harmonically, disco music typically contains major and minor seven chords,[citation needed] which are found more often in jazz than pop music.

The "disco sound" was much more costly to produce than many of the other popular music genres from the 1970s. Unlike the simpler, four-piece-band sound of funk, soul music of the late 1960s, or the small jazz organ trios, disco music often included a large band, with several chordal instruments (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer), several drum or percussion instruments (drumkit, Latin percussion, electronic drums), a horn section, a string orchestra, and a variety of "classical" solo instruments (for example, flute, piccolo, and so on).

Disco songs were arranged and composed by experienced arrangers and orchestrators, and record producers added their creative touches to the overall sound using multitrack recording techniques and effects units. Recording complex arrangements with such a large number of instruments and sections required a team that included a conductor, copyists, record producers, and mixing engineers. Mixing engineers had an important role in the disco production process, because disco songs used as many as 64 tracks of vocals and instruments. Mixing engineers and record producers, under the direction of arrangers, compiled these tracks into a fluid composition of verses, bridges, and refrains, complete with builds and breaks. Mixing engineers and record producers helped to develop the "disco sound" by creating a distinctive-sounding, sophisticated disco mix.

Early records were the "standard" three-minute version until Tom Moulton came up with a way to make songs longer so that he could take a crowd of dancers at a club to another level and keep them dancing longer. He found that it was impossible to make the 45-RPM vinyl singles of the time longer, as they could usually hold no more than fiveminutes of good-quality music. With the help of Jos Rodriguez, his remaster/mastering engineer, he pressed a single on a 10" disc instead of 7". They cut the next single on a 12" disc, the same format as a standard album. Moulton and Rodriguez discovered that these larger records could have much longer songs and remixes. 12" single records, also known as "Maxi singles", quickly became the standard format for all DJs of the disco genre.[22]

By the late 1970s most major US cities had thriving disco club scenes. The largest scenes were most notably in New York City but also in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington, D.C. The scene was centered on discotheques, nightclubs, and private loft parties.

In the 1970s, notable discos included "Crisco Disco", "The Sanctuary", "Leviticus", "Studio 54" and "Paradise Garage" in New York, "Artemis" in Philadelphia, "Studio One" in Los Angeles, "Dugan's Bistro" in Chicago, and "The Library" in Atlanta.[23][24]

In the late '70s, Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan was arguably the best known nightclub in the world. This club played a major formative role in the growth of disco music and nightclub culture in general. It was operated by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager and was notorious for the hedonism that went on within; the balconies were known for sexual encounters, and drug use was rampant. Its dance floor was decorated with an image of the "Man in the Moon" that included an animated cocaine spoon.

The "Copacabana", another New York nightclub dating to the 1940s, had a revival in the late 1970s when it embraced disco; it would become the setting of a Barry Manilow song of the same name.

In Washington, D.C., large disco clubs such as "The Pier" ("Pier 9") and "The Other Side," originally regarded exclusively as "gay bars", became particularly popular among the capital area's gay and straight college students in the late '70s.

By 1979 there were 15,000-20,000 disco nightclubs in the US, many of them opening in suburban shopping centers, hotels and restaurants. The 2001 Club franchises were the most prolific chain of disco clubs in the country.[25] Although many other attempts were made to franchise disco clubs, 2001 was the only one to successfully do so in this time frame.[26]

Powerful, bass-heavy, hi-fi sound systems were viewed as a key part of the disco club experience. "[Loft-party host David] Mancuso introduced the technologies of tweeter arrays (clusters of small loudspeakers, which emit high-end frequencies, positioned above the floor) and bass reinforcements (additional sets of subwoofers positioned at ground level) at the start of the 1970s to boost the treble and bass at opportune moments, and by the end of the decade sound engineers such as Richard Long had multiplied the effects of these innovations in venues such as the Garage."[27]

Typical lighting designs for disco dance floors could include multi-coloured lights that swirl around or flash to the beat, strobe light, an illuminated dance floor and a mirror ball.

Disco-era disc jockeys (DJs) would often remix existing songs using reel-to-reel tape machines, and add in percussion breaks, new sections, and new sounds. DJs would select songs and grooves according to what the dancers wanted, transitioning from one song to another with a DJ mixer and using a microphone to introduce songs and speak to the audiences. Other equipment was added to the basic DJ setup, providing unique sound manipulations, such as reverb, equalization, and echo effects unit. Using this equipment, a DJ could do effects such as cutting out all but the bassline of a song and then slowly mixing in the beginning of another song using the DJ mixer's crossfader. Notable U.S. disco DJs include Francis Grasso of The Sanctuary, David Mancuso of The Loft, Frankie Knuckles of the Chicago Warehouse, Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage, Nicky Siano, Walter Gibbons, Karen Mixon Cook, Jim Burgess, John "Jellybean" Benitez, Richie Kulala of Studio 54 and Rick Salsalini.

Some DJs were also record producers who created and produced disco songs in the recording studio. Larry Levan, for example, was a prolific record producer as well as a DJ. Because record sales were often dependent on dance floor play by DJs in leading nightclubs, DJs were also influential for the development and popularization of certain types of disco music being produced for record labels.

In the early years, dancers in discos danced in a "hang loose" or "freestyle" approach. At first, many dancers improvised their own dance styles and dance steps. Later in the disco era, popular dance styles were developed, including the "Bump", "Penguin", "Boogaloo", "Watergate" and "Robot". By October 1975 the Hustle reigned. It was highly stylized, sophisticated and overtly sexual. Variations included the Brooklyn Hustle, New York Hustle and Latin Hustle.[24]

During the disco era, many nightclubs would commonly host disco dance competitions or offer free dance lessons. Some cities had disco dance instructors or dance schools, which taught people how to do popular disco dances such as "touch dancing", "the hustle", and "the cha cha". The pioneer of disco dance instruction was Karen Lustgarten in San Francisco in 1973. Her book The Complete Guide to Disco Dancing (Warner Books 1978) was the first to name, break down and codify popular disco dances as dance forms and distinguish between disco freestyle, partner and line dances. The book topped the New York Times bestseller list for 13 weeks and was translated into Chinese, German and French.

In Chicago, the Step By Step disco dance TV show was launched with the sponsorship support of the Coca-Cola company. Produced in the same studio that Don Cornelius used for the nationally syndicated dance/music television show, Soul Train, Step by Step's audience grew and the show became a success. The dynamic dance duo of Robin and Reggie led the show. The pair spent the week teaching disco dancing to dancers in the disco clubs. The instructional show aired on Saturday mornings and had a strong following. The viewers of this would stay up all night on Fridays so they could be on the set the next morning, ready to return to the disco on Saturday night knowing with the latest personalized dance steps. The producers of the show, John Reid and Greg Roselli, routinely made appearances at disco functions with Robin and Reggie to scout out new dancing talent and promote upcoming events such as "Disco Night at White Sox Park".

In Sacramento, California, Disco King Paul Dale Roberts danced for the Guinness Book of World Records. Roberts danced for 205 hours which is the equivalent of 8 days. Other dance marathons took place after Roberts held the world's record for disco dancing for a short period of time.[28]

Some notable professional dance troupes of the 1970s included Pan's People and Hot Gossip. For many dancers, a key source of inspiration for 1970s disco dancing was the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). This developed into the music and dance style of such films as Fame (1980), Disco Dancer (1982), Flashdance (1983), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). Interest in disco dancing also helped spawn dance competition TV shows such as Dance Fever (1979).

Disco fashions were very trendy in the late 1970s. Discothque-goers often wore glamorous, expensive, and extravagant fashions for nights out at their local disco club. Some women would wear sheer, flowing dresses, such as Halston dresses or loose, flared pants. Other women wore tight, revealing, sexy clothes, such as backless halter tops, disco pants, "hot pants", or body-hugging spandex bodywear or "catsuits".[29] Men would wear shiny polyester Qiana shirts with colorful patterns and pointy, extra wide collars, preferably open at the chest. Men often wore Pierre Cardin suits, three piece suits with a vest and double-knit polyester shirt jackets with matching trousers known as the leisure suit. Men's leisure suits were typically form-fitted in some parts of the body, such as the waist and bottom, but the lower part of the pants were flared in a bell bottom style, to permit freedom of movement.[29]

During the disco era, men engaged in elaborate grooming rituals and spent time choosing fashion clothing, both activities that would have been considered "feminine" according to the gender stereotypes of the era.[29] Women dancers wore glitter makeup, sequins, or gold lam clothing that would shimmer under the lights.[29] Bold colors were popular for both genders. Platform shoes and boots for both genders and high heels for women were popular footwear.[29] Necklaces and medallions were a common fashion accessory. Less commonly, some disco dancers wore outlandish costumes, dressed in drag, covered their bodies with gold or silver paint, or wore very skimpy outfits leaving them nearly nude; these uncommon get-ups were more likely to be seen at invitation-only New York City loft parties and disco clubs.[29]

In addition to the dance and fashion aspects of the disco club scene, there was also a thriving club drug subculture, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud, bass-heavy music and the flashing colored lights, such as cocaine[30] (nicknamed "blow"), amyl nitrite ("poppers"),[31] and the "...other quintessential 1970s club drug Quaalude, which suspended motor coordination and gave the sensation that one's arms and legs had turned to 'Jell-O.'"[32] Quaaludes were so popular at disco clubs that the drug was nicknamed "disco biscuits".[33]

Paul Gootenberg states that "[t]he relationship of cocaine to 1970s disco culture cannot be stressed enough..."[30] During the 1970s, the use of cocaine by well-to-do celebrities led to its "glamorization" and to the widely held view that it was a "soft drug".[34] LSD, marijuana, and "speed" (amphetamines) were also popular in disco clubs, and the use of these drugs "...contributed to the hedonistic quality of the dance floor experience."[35] Since disco dances were typically held in liquor licensed-nightclubs and dance clubs, alcoholic drinks were also consumed by dancers; some users intentionally combined alcohol with the consumption of other drugs, such as Quaaludes, for a stronger effect.

According to Peter Braunstein, the "massive quantities of drugs ingested in discothques produced the next cultural phenomenon of the disco era: rampant promiscuity and public sex. While the dance floor was the central arena of seduction, actual sex usually took place in the nether regions of the disco: bathroom stalls, exit stairwells, and so on. In other cases the disco became a kind of 'main course' in a hedonist's menu for a night out."[32] At The Saint nightclub, a high percentage of the gay male dancers and patrons would have sex in the club; they typically had unprotected sex, because in 1980, HIV-AIDS had not yet been identified.[36] At The Saint, "dancers would elope to an un[monitored] upstairs balcony to engage in sex."[36] The promiscuity and public sex at discos was part of a broader trend towards exploring a freer sexual expression in the 1970s, an era that is also associated with "swingers clubs, hot tubs, [and] key parties."[37]

In his paper, "In Defense of Disco" (1979), Richard Dyer claims eroticism as one of the three main characteristics of disco.[38] As opposed to rock music which has a very phallic centered eroticism focusing on the sexual pleasure of men over other persons, Dyer describes disco as featuring a non-phallic full body eroticism.[38] Through a range of percussion instruments, a willingness to play with rhythm, and the endless repeating of phrases without cutting the listener off, disco achieved this full body eroticism by restoring eroticism to the whole body for both sexes.[38] This allowed for the potential expression of sexualities not defined by the cock/penis, and the erotic pleasure of bodies that are not defined by a relationship to a penis.[38] The sexual liberation expressed through the rhythm of disco is further represented in the club spaces that disco grew within.

In Peter Shapiro's Modulations: A History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound, he discusses eroticism through the technology disco utilizes to create its audacious sound.[39] The music, Shapiro states, is adjunct to "the pleasure-is-politics ethos of post-Stonewall culture." He explains how "mechano-eroticism," which links the technology used to create the unique mechanical sound of disco to eroticism, sets the genre in a new dimension of reality living outside of naturalism and heterosexuality.

He uses Donna Summer's singles "Love to Love You Baby" (1975) and "I Feel Love" (1977) as examples of the ever present relationship between the synthesized bass lines and backgrounds to the simulated sounds of orgasms Summers echoes in the tracks, and likens them to the drug-fervent, sexually liberated fans of disco who sought to free themselves through disco's "aesthetic of machine sex."[40] Shapiro sees this as an influence that creates sub-genres like hi-NRG and dub-disco, which allowed for eroticism and technology to be further explored through intense synth bass lines and alternative rhythmic techniques that tap into the entire body rather than the obvious erotic parts of the body.

The New York nightclub The Sanctuary under resident DJ Francis Grasso is a prime example of this sexual liberty. In their history of the disc jockey and club culture, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton describe the Sanctuary as "poured full of newly liberated gay men, then shaken (and stirred) by a weighty concoction of dance music and pharmacoia of pills and potions, the result is a festivaly of carnality." The Sanctuary was the "first totally uninhibited gay discotheque in America" and while sex was not allowed on the dancefloor, the dark corners, the bathrooms and the hallways of the adjacent buildings were all utilized for orgy like sexual engagements.

By describing the music, drugs and liberated mentality as a trifecta coming together to create the festival of carnality, Brewster and Broughton are inciting all three as stimuli for the dancing, sex and other embodied movements that contributed to the corporeal vibrations within the Sanctuary. This supports the argument that the disco music took a role in facilitating this sexual liberation that was experienced in the discotheques. Further, this coupled with the recent legalization of abortions, the introduction of antibiotics and the pill all facilitated a culture shift around sex from one of procreation to pleasure and enjoyment fostering a very sex positive framework around discotheques.

Further, in addition to gay sex being illegal in New York state, until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as an illness. This law and classification coupled together can be understood to have heavily dissuaded the expression of queerness in public, as such the liberatory dynamics of discotheques can be seen as having provided space for self-realization for queer persons. David Mancuso's club/house party, The Loft, was described as having a "pansexual attitude [that] was revolutionary in a country where up until recently it had been illegal for two men to dance together unless there was a woman present; where women were legally obliged to wear at least one recognizable item of female clothing in public; and where men visiting gay bars usually carried bail money with them."

Disco was mostly developed from music that was popular on the dance floor in clubs that started playing records instead of having a live band. The first discotheques mostly played swing music. Later on uptempo rhythm and blues became popular in American clubs and northern soul and glam rock records in the UK. In the early 1940s, nightclubs in Paris resorted to playing jazz records during the Nazi occupation.[14]

Rgine Zylberberg claimed to have started the first discotheque and to have been the first club DJ in 1953 in the "Whisky Go-Go" in Paris. She installed a dance floor with coloured lights and two turntables so she could play records without having a gap in the music.[44] In October 1959, the owner of the Scotch Club in Aachen, West Germany chose to install a record player for the opening night instead of hiring a live band. The patrons were unimpressed until a young reporter, who happened to be covering the opening of the club, impulsively took control of the record player and introduced the records that he chose to play. Klaus Quirini later claimed to thus have been the world's first nightclub DJ.[14]

During the 1960s, discotheque dancing became a European trend that was enthusiastically picked up by the American press.[14] At this time, when the discotheque culture from Europe became popular in the United States, several music genres with danceable rhythms rose to popularity and evolved into different sub-genres: rhythm and blues (originated in the 1940s), soul (late 1950s and 1960s), funk (mid-1960s) and go-go (mid-1960s and 1970s; more than "disco", the word "go-go" originally indicated a music club). Those genres, mainly African-American ones, would influence much of early disco music.

Also during the 1960s, the Motown record label developed its own approach, described as having "1) simply structured songs with sophisticated melodies and chord changes, 2) a relentless four-beat drum pattern, 3) a gospel use of background voices, vaguely derived from the style of the Impressions, 4) a regular and sophisticated use of both horns and strings, 5) lead singers who were half way between pop and gospel music, 6) a group of accompanying musicians who were among the most dextrous, knowledgeable, and brilliant in all of popular music (Motown bassists have long been the envy of white rock bassists) and 7) a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing (boosting the high range frequencies) to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio."[45] Motown had many hits with early disco elements by acts like the Supremes (for instance "You Keep Me Hangin' On" in 1966), Stevie Wonder (for instance "Superstition" in 1972), The Jackson 5 and Eddie Kendricks ("Keep on Truckin'" in 1973).

At the end of the 1960s, musicians and audiences from the Black, Italian and Latino communities adopted several traits from the hippie and psychedelia subcultures. They included using music venues with a loud, overwhelming sound, free-form dancing, trippy lighting, colorful costumes, and the use of hallucinogenic drugs.[46][47][48] In addition, the perceived positivity, lack of irony, and earnestness of the hippies informed proto-disco music like MFSB's album Love Is the Message.[46][49]Partly through the success of Jimi Hendrix, psychedelic elements that were popular in rock music of the late 1960s found their way into soul and early funk music and formed the subgenre psychedelic soul. Examples can be found in the music of the Chambers Brothers, George Clinton with his Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Sly and the Family Stone and the productions of Norman Whitfield with The Temptations.

The long instrumental introductions and detailed orchestration found in psychedelic soul tracks by the Temptations are also considered as cinematic soul. In the early 1970s, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes scored hits with cinematic soul songs that were actually composed for movie soundtracks: "Superfly" (1972) and "Theme from Shaft" (1971). The latter is sometimes regarded as an early disco song.[50] From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Philadelphia soul and New York soul developed as sub-genres that also had lavish percussion, lush string orchestra arrangements, and expensive record production processes. In the early 1970s, the Philly soul productions by Gamble and Huff evolved from the simpler arrangements of the late-1960s into a style featuring lush strings, thumping basslines, and sliding hi-hat rhythms. These elements would become typical for disco music and are found in several of the hits they produced in the early 1970s:

Other early disco tracks that helped shape disco and became popular on the dance floors of (underground) discotheque clubs and parties include:

Early disco was dominated by record producers and labels such as Salsoul Records (Ken, Stanley, and Joseph Cayre), West End Records (Mel Cheren), Casablanca (Neil Bogart), and Prelude (Marvin Schlachter), to name a few. The genre was also shaped by Tom Moulton, who wanted to extend the enjoyment of dance songs thus creating the extended mix or "remix", going from a three-minute 45 rpm single to the much longer 12" record. Other influential DJs and remixers who helped to establish what became known as the "disco sound" included David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, and Chicago-based Frankie Knuckles. Frankie Knuckles was not only an important disco DJ; he also helped to develop house music in the 1980s.

Disco hit the television airwaves as part of the music/dance variety show Soul Train in 1971 hosted by Don Cornelius, then Marty Angelo's Disco Step-by-Step Television Show in 1975, Steve Marcus' Disco Magic/Disco 77, Eddie Rivera's Soap Factory, and Merv Griffin's Dance Fever, hosted by Deney Terrio, who is credited with teaching actor John Travolta to dance for his role in the film Saturday Night Fever, as well as DANCE, based out of Columbia, South Carolina.

In 1974, New York City's WPIX-FM premiered the first disco radio show.[52]

In the 1970s, the key counterculture of the 1960s, the hippie movement, was fading away. The economic prosperity of the previous decade had declined, and unemployment, inflation and crime rates had soared. Political issues like the backlash from the Civil Rights Movement culminating in the form of race riots, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, and the Watergate scandal, left many feeling disillusioned and hopeless. The start of the '70s was marked by a shift in the consciousness of the American people: the rise of the feminist movement, identity politics, gangs, etc. very much shaped this era. Disco music and disco dancing provided an escape from negative social and economic issues. The non-partnered dance style of disco music allowed people of all races and sexual orientations to enjoy the dancefloor atmosphere.[54]

In Beautiful Things in Popular Culture, Simon Frith highlights the sociability of disco and its roots in 1960s counterculture. "The driving force of the New York underground dance scene in which disco was forged was not simply that city's complex ethnic and sexual culture but also a 1960s notion of community, pleasure and generosity that can only be described as hippie", he says. "The best disco music contained within it a remarkably powerful sense of collective euphoria."[55]

The birth of disco is often claimed to be found in the private dance parties held by New York City DJ David Mancuso's home that became known as The Loft, an invitation-only non-commercial underground club that inspired many others.[17] He organized the first major party in his Manhattan home on Valentine's Day 1970 with the name "Love Saves The Day". After some months the parties became weekly events and Mancuso continued to give regular parties into the 1990s.[56] Mancuso required that the music played had to be soulful, rhythmic, and impart words of hope, redemption, or pride.

When Mancuso threw his first informal house parties, the gay community (which made up much of The Loft's attendee roster) was often harassed in the gay bars and dance clubs, with many gay men carrying bail money with them to gay bars. But at The Loft and many other early, private discotheques, they could dance together without fear of police action thanks to Mancuso's underground, yet legal, policies. Vince Aletti described it "like going to party, completely mixed, racially and sexually, where there wasn't any sense of someone being more important than anyone else," and Alex Rosner reiterated this saying "It was probably about sixty percent black and seventy percent gay...There was a mix of sexual orientation, there was a mix of races, mix of economic groups. A real mix, where the common denominator was music."

Film critic Roger Ebert called the popular embrace of disco's exuberant dance moves an escape from "the general depression and drabness of the political and musical atmosphere of the late seventies."[57] Pauline Kael, writing about the disco-themed film Saturday Night Fever, said the film and disco itself touched on "something deeply romantic, the need to move, to dance, and the need to be who you'd like to be. Nirvana is the dance; when the music stops, you return to being ordinary."[58]

In the late 1960s, uptempo soul with heavy beats and some associated dance styles and fashion were picked up in the British mod scene and formed the northern soul movement. Originating at venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, it quickly spread to other UK dancehalls and nightclubs like the Chateau Impney (Droitwich), Catacombs (Wolverhampton), the Highland Rooms at Blackpool Mecca, Golden Torch (Stoke-on-Trent) and Wigan Casino. As the favoured beat became more uptempo and frantic in the early 1970s, northern soul dancing became more athletic, somewhat resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing. Featuring spins, flips, karate kicks and backdrops, club dancing styles were often inspired by the stage performances of touring American soul acts such as Little Anthony & the Imperials and Jackie Wilson.

In 1974, there were an estimated 25,000 mobile discos and 40,000 professional disc jockeys in the United Kingdom. Mobile discos were hired deejays that brought their own equipment to provide music for special events. Glam rock tracks were popular, with, for example, Gary Glitter's 1972 single "Rock and Roll Part 2" becoming popular on UK dance floors while it did not get much radio airplay.[59]

From 1974 to 1977, disco music increased in popularity as many disco songs topped the charts. The Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" (1974), a US number-one single and million-seller, was one of the early disco songs to reach number one. The same year saw the release of "Kung Fu Fighting", performed by Carl Douglas and produced by Biddu, which reached number one in both the UK and US, and became the best-selling single of the year[60] and one of the best-selling singles of all time with 11million records sold worldwide,[61][62] helping to popularize disco to a great extent.[61] Another notable disco success that year was George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby":[63] it became the United Kingdom's first number one chart disco single.[64][63]

In the northwestern sections of the United Kingdom, the northern soul explosion, which started in the late 1960s and peaked in 1974, made the region receptive to disco, which the region's disc jockeys were bringing back from New York City. The shift by some DJs to the newer sounds coming from the U.S.A. resulted in a split in the scene, whereby some abandoned the 1960s soul and pushed a modern soul sound which tended to be more closely aligned with disco than soul.

In 1975, Gloria Gaynor released her first side-long vinyl album, which included a remake of the Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" (which, in fact, is also the album title) and two other songs, "Honey Bee" and her disco version of "Reach Out (I'll Be There)", first topped the Billboard disco/dance charts in November 1974. Later in 1978, Gaynor's number-one disco song was "I Will Survive", which was seen as a symbol of female strength and a gay anthem,[65] like her further disco hit, a 1983 remake of "I Am What I Am"; in 1979 she released "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)", a single which gained popularity in the civil rights movements. Also in 1975, Vincent Montana Jr.'s Salsoul Orchestra contributed with their Latin-flavored orchestral dance song "Salsoul Hustle", reaching number four on the Billboard Dance Chart and their 1976 hits "Tangerine" and "Nice 'n' Naasty", the first being a cover of a 1941 song.[citation needed]

Songs such as Van McCoy's 1975 "The Hustle" and the humorous Joe Tex 1977 "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" gave names to the popular disco dances "the Bump" and "the Hustle". Other notable early successful disco songs include Barry White's "You're the First, the Last, My Everything" (1974), Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" (1974), Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes' "Get Dancin'" (1974), Silver Convention's "Fly, Robin, Fly" (1975) and "Get Up and Boogie" (1976), Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" (1976), and Vicki Sue Robinson's hit single, "Turn the Beat Around" (1976).

Formed by Harry Wayne Casey (a.k.a. "KC") and Richard Finch, Miami's KC and the Sunshine Band had a string of disco-definitive top-five singles between 1975 and 1977, including "Get Down Tonight", "That's the Way (I Like It)", "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty", "I'm Your Boogie Man" and "Keep It Comin' Love". In this period, rock bands like the English Electric Light Orchestra featured in their songs a violin sound that became a staple of disco music, as in the 1975 hit "Evil Woman", although the genre was correctly described as orchestral rock.

Other disco producers such as Tom Moulton took ideas and techniques from dub music (which came with the increased Jamaican migration to New York City in the 1970s) to provide alternatives to the "four on the floor" style that dominated. DJ Larry Levan utilized styles from dub and jazz and remixing techniques to create early versions of house music that sparked the genre.[66]

Norman Whitfield was an influential producer and songwriter at Motown records, renowned for creating innovative "psychedelic soul" songs with many hits for Marvin Gaye, the Velvelettes, the Temptations and Gladys Knight & The Pips. From around the production of the Temptations' album Cloud Nine in 1968, he incorporated some psychedelic influences and started to produce longer, dance-friendly tracks, with more room for elaborate rhythmic instrumental parts. An example of such a long psychedelic soul track is "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", which appeared as a single edit of almost seven minutes and an approximately 12-minute-long 12" version in 1972. By the early 70s, many of Whitfield's productions evolved more and more towards funk and disco, as heard on albums by the Undisputed Truth and the 1973 album G.I.T.: Get It Together by The Jackson 5. The Undisputed Truth, a Motown recording act assembled by Whitfield to experiment with his psychedelic soul production techniques, found success with their 1971 song "Smiling Faces Sometimes". Their disco single "You + Me = Love" (number 43) was produced by Whitfield and made number 2 on the US Dance Charts in 1976.

In 1975, Whitfield left Motown and founded his own label Whitfield records, on which also "You + Me = Love" was released. Whitfield produced some more disco hits, including "Car Wash" (1976) by Rose Royce from the album soundtrack to the 1976 film Car Wash. In 1977, singer, songwriter and producer Willie Hutch, who had been signed to Motown since 1970, now signed with Whitfield's new label, and scored a successful disco single with his song "In and Out" in 1982.

Other Motown artists turned to disco as well. Diana Ross embraced the disco sound with her successful 1976 outing "Love Hangover" from her self-titled album. Her 1980 dance classics "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out" were written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the group Chic. The Supremes, the group that made Ross famous, scored a handful of hits in the disco clubs without her, most notably 1976's "I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking" and, their last charted single before disbanding, 1977's "You're My Driving Wheel".

At the request of Motown that he produce songs in the disco genre, Marvin Gaye released "Got to Give It Up" in 1978, despite his dislike of disco. He vowed not to record any songs in the genre, and actually wrote the song as a parody. However, several of Gaye's songs have disco elements, including "I Want You" (1975). Stevie Wonder released the disco single "Sir Duke" in 1977 as a tribute to Duke Ellington, the influential jazz legend who had died in 1974. Smokey Robinson left the Motown group the Miracles for a solo career in 1972 and released his third solo album A Quiet Storm in 1975, which spawned and lent its name to the "Quiet Storm" musical programming format and subgenre of R&B. It contained the disco single "Baby That's Backatcha". Other Motown artists who scored disco hits include: Robinson's former group, the Miracles, with "Love Machine" (1975), Eddie Kendricks with "Keep On Truckin'" (1973), the Originals with "Down to Love Town" (1976) and Thelma Houston with her cover of the Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes song "Don't Leave Me This Way" (1976). The label continued to release successful songs into the 1980s with Rick James' "Super Freak" (1981), and the Commodores' "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" (1981).

Several of Motown's solo artists who left the label went on to have successful disco songs. Mary Wells, Motown's first female superstar with her signature song "My Guy" (written by Smokey Robinson), abruptly left the label in 1964. She briefly reappeared on the charts with the disco song "Gigolo" in 1980. Jimmy Ruffin, the elder brother of the Temptations lead singer David Ruffin, was also signed to Motown, and released his most successful and well-known song "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as a single in 1966. Ruffin eventually left the record label in the mid-1970s, but saw success with the 1980 disco song "Hold On (To My Love)", which was written and produced by Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, for his album Sunrise. Edwin Starr, known for his Motown protest song "War" (1970), reentered the charts in 1979 with a pair of disco songs, "Contact" and "H.A.P.P.Y. Radio". Kiki Dee became the first white British singer to sign with Motown in the US, and released one album, Great Expectations (1970), and two singles "The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday" (1970) and "Love Makes the World Go Round" (1971), the latter giving her first-ever chart entry (number 87 on the US Chart). She soon left the company and signed with Elton John's The Rocket Record Company, and in 1976 had her biggest and best-known single, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", a disco duet with John. The song was intended as an affectionate disco-style pastiche of the Motown sound, in particular the various duets recorded by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston.

Many Motown groups who had left the record label charted with disco songs. The Jackson 5, one of Motown's premier acts in the early 1970s, left the record company in 1975 (Jermaine Jackson, however, remained with the label) after successful songs like "I Want You Back" (1969) and "ABC" (1970), and even the disco song "Dancing Machine" (1974). Renamed as 'the Jacksons' (as Motown owned the name 'the Jackson 5'), they went on to find success with disco songs like "Blame It on the Boogie" (1978), "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" (1979) and "Can You Feel It?" (1981) on the Epic label.

The Isley Brothers, whose short tenure at the company had produced the song "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)" in 1966, went on release successful disco songs like "That Lady" (1973) and "It's a Disco Night (Rock Don't Stop)" (1979). Gladys Knight and the Pips, who recorded the most successful version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (1967) before Marvin Gaye, scored commercially successful singles such as "Baby, Don't Change Your Mind" (1977) and "Bourgie, Bourgie" (1980) in the disco era. The Detroit Spinners were also signed to the Motown label and saw success with the Stevie Wonder-produced song "It's a Shame" in 1970. They left soon after, on the advice of fellow Detroit native Aretha Franklin, to Atlantic Records, and there had disco songs like "The Rubberband Man" (1976). In 1979, they released a successful cover of Elton John's "Are You Ready for Love", as well as a medley of the Four Seasons' song "Working My Way Back to You" and Michael Zager's "Forgive Me, Girl". The Four Seasons themselves were briefly signed to Motown's MoWest label, a short-lived subsidiary for R&B and soul artists based on the West Coast, and there the group produced one album, Chameleon (1972) to little commercial success in the US. However, one single, "The Night", was released in Britain in 1975, and thanks to popularity from the Northern Soul circuit, reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart. The Four Seasons left Motown in 1974 and went on to have a disco hit with their song "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" (1975) for Warner Curb Records.

By far the most successful Euro disco act was ABBA (19721982). This Swedish quartet, which sang primarily in English, found success with singles such as "Waterloo" (1974), "Fernando" (1976), "Take a Chance on Me" (1978), "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" (1979), and their signature smash hit "Dancing Queen" (1976)ranks as the Fourth best-selling act of all time.

In 1970s Munich, West Germany, music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte made a decisive contribution to disco music with a string of hits for Donna Summer, which became known as the "Munich Sound".[68] In 1975, Summer suggested the lyric "Love to Love You Baby" to Moroder and Bellotte, who turned the lyric into a full disco song. The final product, which contained the vocalizations of a series of simulated orgasms, initially was not intended for release, but when Moroder played it in the clubs it caused a sensation and he released it. The song became an international hit, reaching the charts in many European countries and the US (No. 2). It has been described as the arrival of the expression of raw female sexual desire in pop music. A nearly 17-minute 12-inch single was released. The 12" single became and remains a standard in discos today.[69][70] In 1976 Donna Summer's version of "Could It Be Magic" brought disco further into the mainstream. In 1977 Summer, Moroder and Bellotte further released "I Feel Love", as the B-side of "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)", which revolutionized dance music with its mostly electronic production and was a massive worldwide success, spawning the Hi-NRG subgenre.[69] Giorgio Moroder was described by AllMusic as "one of the principal architects of the disco sound".[71] Another successful disco music project by Moroder at that time was Munich Machine (19761980).

Boney M. (19741986) was a West German Euro disco group of four West Indian singers and dancers masterminded by record producer Frank Farian. Boney M. charted worldwide with such songs as "Daddy Cool" (1976) "Ma Baker" (1977) and "Rivers Of Babylon" (1978). Another successful West German Euro disco recording act was Silver Convention (19741979). The German group Kraftwerk also had an influence on Euro disco.

In France, Dalida released "J'attendrai" ("I Will Wait") in 1975, which also became successful in Canada, Europe and Japan. Dalida successfully adjusted herself to disco era and released at least a dozen of songs that charted among top number 10 in whole Europe and wider. Claude Franois, who re-invented himself as the "king of French disco", released "La plus belle chose du monde", a French version of the Bee Gees song "Massachusetts", which became successful in Canada and Europe and "Alexandrie Alexandra" was posthumously released on the day of his burial and became a worldwide success. Cerrone's early songs, "Love in C Minor" (1976), "Supernature" (1977) and "Give Me Love" (1978) were successful in the US and Europe. Another Euro disco act was the French diva Amanda Lear, where Euro disco sound is most heard in "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)" (1978). French producer Alec Costandinos assembled the Euro disco group Love and Kisses (19771982).

In Italy Raffaella Carr was the most successful Euro disco act, alongside La Bionda, Hermanas Goggi and Oliver Onions. Her greatest international single was "Tanti Auguri" ("Best Wishes"), which has become a popular song with gay audiences. The song is also known under its Spanish title "Para hacer bien el amor hay que venir al sur" (which refers to Southern Europe, since the song was recorded and taped in Spain). The Estonian version of the song "Jtke vtmed vljapoole" was performed by Anne Veski. "A far l'amore comincia tu" ("To make love, your move first") was another success for her internationally, known in Spanish as "En el amor todo es empezar", in German as "Liebelei", in French as "Puisque tu l'aimes dis le lui", and in English as "Do It, Do It Again". It was her only entry to the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 9, where she remains a one-hit wonder.[72] In 1977, she recorded another successful single, "Fiesta" ("The Party" in English) originally in Spanish, but then recorded it in French and Italian after the song hit the charts. "A far l'amore comincia tu" has also been covered in Turkish by a Turkish popstar Ajda Pekkan as "Sakn Ha" in 1977.

Recently, Carr has gained new attention for her appearance as the female dancing soloist in a 1974 TV performance of the experimental gibberish song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" (1973) by Adriano Celentano.[73] A remixed video featuring her dancing went viral on the internet in 2008.[74][citation needed] In 2008 a video of a performance of her only successful UK single, "Do It, Do It Again", was featured in the Doctor Who episode "Midnight". Rafaella Carr worked with Bob Sinclar on the new single "Far l'Amore" which was released on YouTube on March 17, 2011. The song charted in different European countries.[75] Another prominent European disco act was the pop group Luv' from the Netherlands.

Euro disco continued evolving within the broad mainstream pop music scene, even when disco's popularity sharply declined in the United States, abandoned by major U.S. record labels and producers.[76] Through the influence of Italo disco, it also played a role in the evolution of early house music in the early 1980s and later forms of electronic dance music, including early 1990s' Eurodance.

In December 1977, the film Saturday Night Fever was released. It was a huge success and its soundtrack became one of the best-selling albums of all time. The idea for the film was sparked by a 1976 New York magazine[77] article titled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" which supposedly chronicled the disco culture in mid-1970s New York City, but was later revealed to have been fabricated.[78] Some critics said the film "mainstreamed" disco, making it more acceptable to heterosexual white males.[79]

The Bee Gees used Barry Gibb's falsetto to garner hits such as "You Should Be Dancing", "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "More Than A Woman" and "Love You Inside Out". Andy Gibb, a younger brother to the Bee Gees, followed with similarly styled solo singles such as "I Just Want to Be Your Everything", "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" and "Shadow Dancing".

In 1978, Donna Summer's multi-million selling vinyl single disco version of "MacArthur Park" was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The recording, which was included as part of the "MacArthur Park Suite" on her double live album Live and More, was eight minutes and 40 seconds long on the album. The shorter seven-inch vinyl single version of MacArthur Park was Summer's first single to reach number one on the Hot 100; it does not include the balladic second movement of the song, however. A 2013 remix of "MacArthur Park" by Summer topped the Billboard Dance Charts marking five consecutive decades with a number-one song on the charts.[80] From mid-1978 to late 1979, Summer continued to release singles such as "Last Dance", "Heaven Knows" (with Brooklyn Dreams), "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights" and "On the Radio", all very successful songs, landing in the top five or better, on the Billboard pop charts.

The band Chic was formed mainly by guitarist Nile Rodgersa self-described "street hippie" from late 1960s New Yorkand bassist Bernard Edwards. Their popular 1978 single, "Le Freak", is regarded as an iconic song of the genre. Other successful songs by Chic include the often-sampled "Good Times" (1979), "I Want Your Love" (1979), and "Everybody Dance" (1979). The group regarded themselves as the disco movement's rock band that made good on the hippie movement's ideals of peace, love, and freedom. Every song they wrote was written with an eye toward giving it "deep hidden meaning" or D.H.M.[81]

Sylvester, a flamboyant and openly gay singer famous for his soaring falsetto voice, scored his biggest disco hit in late 1978 with "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". His singing style was said to have influenced the singer Prince. At that time, disco was one of the forms of music most open to gay performers.[82]

The Village People were a singing/dancing group created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo to target disco's gay audience. They were known for their onstage costumes of typically male-associated jobs and ethnic minorities and achieved mainstream success with their 1978 hit song "Macho Man". Other songs include "Y.M.C.A." (1979) and "In the Navy" (1979).

Also noteworthy are The Trammps' "Disco Inferno" (1978, reissue due to the popularity gained from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack), Cheryl Lynn's "Got to Be Real" (1978), Evelyn "Champagne" King's "Shame" (1978), Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife" (1978), Patrick Hernandez' "Born to Be Alive" (1978), Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" (1978), Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" (1979), Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" (1979), Kool & the Gang's "Ladies' Night" (1979), Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown" (1979), The Brothers Johnson's "Stomp!" (1980), George Benson's "Give Me the Night" (1980), and Walter Murphy's various attempts to bring classical music to the mainstream, most notably his disco song "A Fifth of Beethoven" (1976), which was inspired by Beethoven's fifth symphony.

At the height of its popularity, many non-disco artists recorded songs with disco elements, such as Rod Stewart with his "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" in 1979.[83] Even mainstream rock artists adopted elements of disco. Progressive rock group Pink Floyd used disco-like drums and guitar in their song "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" (1979),[84] which became their only number-one single in both the US and UK. The Eagles referenced disco with "One of These Nights" (1975)[85] and "Disco Strangler" (1979), Paul McCartney & Wings with "Silly Love Songs" (1976) and "Goodnight Tonight" (1979), Queen with "Another One Bites the Dust" (1980), the Rolling Stones with "Miss You" (1978) and "Emotional Rescue" (1980), Stephen Stills with his album Thoroughfare Gap (1978), Electric Light Orchestra with "Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train to London" (both 1979), Chicago with "Street Player" (1979), the Kinks with "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" (1979), the Grateful Dead with "Shakedown Street", The Who with "Eminence Front" (1982), and the J. Geils Band with "Come Back" (1980). Even hard rock group KISS jumped in with "I Was Made for Lovin' You" (1979),[86] and Ringo Starr's album Ringo the 4th (1978) features a strong disco influence.

The disco sound was also adopted by artists from other genres, including the 1979 U.S. number one hit "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" by easy listening singer Barbra Streisand in a duet with Donna Summer. In country music, in an attempt to appeal to the more mainstream market, artists began to add pop/disco influences to their music. Dolly Parton launched a successful crossover onto the pop/dance charts, with her albums Heartbreaker and Great Balls of Fire containing songs with a disco flair. In particular, a disco remix of the track "Baby I'm Burnin'" peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart; ultimately becoming one of the years biggest club hits.[87]Additionally, Connie Smith covered Andy Gibb's "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" in 1977, Bill Anderson recorded "Double S" in 1978, and Ronnie Milsap released "Get It Up" and covered blues singer Tommy Tucker's song "Hi-Heel Sneakers" in 1979.

Pre-existing non-disco songs, standards, and TV themes were frequently "disco-ized" in the 1970s, such as the I Love Lucy theme (recorded as "Disco Lucy" by the Wilton Place Street Band), "Aquarela do Brasil" (recorded as "Brazil" by The Ritchie Family), and "Baby Face" (recorded by the Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps). The rich orchestral accompaniment that became identified with the disco era conjured up the memories of the big band erawhich brought out several artists that recorded and disco-ized some big band arrangements, including Perry Como, who re-recorded his 1945 song "Temptation", in 1975, as well as Ethel Merman, who released an album of disco songs entitled The Ethel Merman Disco Album in 1979.

Myron Floren, second-in-command on The Lawrence Welk Show, released a recording of the "Clarinet Polka" entitled "Disco Accordion." Similarly, Bobby Vinton adapted "The Pennsylvania Polka" into a song named "Disco Polka". Easy listening icon Percy Faith, in one of his last recordings, released an album entitled Disco Party (1975) and recorded a disco version of his "Theme from A Summer Place" in 1976. Even classical music was adapted for disco, notably Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" (1976, based on the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony) and "Flight 76" (1976, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee"), and Louis Clark's Hooked On Classics series of albums and singles.

Many original television theme songs of the era also showed a strong disco influence, such as S.W.A.T. (1975), Wonder Woman (1975), Charlie's Angels (1976), NBC Saturday Night At The Movies (1976), The Love Boat (1977), The Donahue Show (1977), CHiPs (1977), The Professionals (1977), Dallas (1978), NBC Sports broadcasts (1978), Kojak (1977), and The Hollywood Squares (1979).

Disco jingles also made their way into many TV commercials, including Purina's 1979 "Good Mews" cat food commercial[88] and an "IC Light" commercial by Pittsburgh's Iron City Brewing Company.

Several parodies of the disco style were created. Rick Dees, at the time a radio DJ in Memphis, Tennessee, recorded "Disco Duck" (1976) and "Dis-Gorilla" (1977); Frank Zappa parodied the lifestyles of disco dancers in "Disco Boy" on his 1976 Zoot Allures album and in "Dancin' Fool" on his 1979 Sheik Yerbouti album; "Weird Al" Yankovic's eponymous 1983 debut album includes a disco song called "Gotta Boogie", an extended pun on the similarity of the disco move to the American slang word "booger". Comedian Bill Cosby devoted his entire 1977 album Disco Bill to disco parodies. In 1980, Mad Magazine released a flexi-disc titled Mad Disco featuring six full-length parodies of the genre. Rock and roll songs critical of disco included Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" and, especially, The Who's "Sister Disco" (both 1978)although The Who's "Eminence Front" (four years later) had a disco feel.

By the end of the 1970s, anti-disco sentiment developed among rock music fans and musicians, particularly in the United States.[89][90] Disco was criticized as mindless, consumerist, overproduced and escapist.[91] The slogans "Disco sucks" and "Death to disco"[89] became common. Rock artists such as Rod Stewart and David Bowie who added disco elements to their music were accused of selling out.[92][93]

The punk subculture in the United States and United Kingdom was often hostile to disco,[89] although in the UK, many early Sex Pistols fans such as the Bromley Contingent and Jordan liked disco, often congregating at nightclubs such as Louise's in Soho and the Sombrero in Kensington. The track "Love Hangover" by Diana Ross, the house anthem at the former, was cited as a particular favourite by many early UK punks.[94]The film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and its soundtrack album contained a disco medley of Sex Pistols songs, entitled Black Arabs and credited to a group of the same name.

However, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, in the song "Saturday Night Holocaust", likened disco to the cabaret culture of Weimar-era Germany for its apathy towards government policies and its escapism. Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo said that disco was "like a beautiful woman with a great body and no brains", and a product of political apathy of that era.[95] New Jersey rock critic Jim Testa wrote "Put a Bullet Through the Jukebox", a vitriolic screed attacking disco that was considered a punk call to arms.[96] Steve Hillage, shortly prior to his transformation from a progressive rock musician into an electronic artist at the end of the 1970s with the inspiration of disco, disappointed his rockist fans by admitting his love for disco, with Hillage recalling "it's like I'd killed their pet cat."[97]

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.[98] 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.[99] 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 raucous crowd stormed onto the field and proceeded by setting fires, tearing out seats and pieces of turf, and other damage. 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 rapid. On July 12, 1979, the top six records on the U.S. music charts were disco songs.[100] 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.[100] Some in the media, in celebratory tones, declared disco "dead" and rock revived.[100] 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".[101]

Link:

Disco - Wikipedia

Jamaican adults-only resort

Hedonism II is an adults-only vacation resort in Jamaica, owned and operated by Marshmallow Ltd, headed by Harry Lange.[1] The resort has areas reserved for naturism and it is known for its sexually liberal culture. As of 2020[update], only Hedonism II is in operation. There was never a Hedonism I, and Hedonism III closed in 2010.

Hedonism II opened in 1976 as "Negril Beach Village" and was given its current name in 1981; it was built by the Government of Jamaica at a cost of $10 million.[2] It occupies 22 acres (89,000m2) at the northern end of Negril beach and has 280 rooms in two-story buildings. A 50% interest in the hotel was bought by the SuperClubs in 1989,[3] a resort company owned by John Issa & his family, for $12.25 million.[4] On February 26, 2013, the resort was sold to Marshmallow Ltd headed by Harry Lange with a minority stock held by the Issa family[5] and Kevin Levee, a 28-year employee of SuperClubs and its current general manager.[6] Harry W. Lange's company is now named PB&J Resorts II (Jamaica) Limited.

Hedonism III opened in 1999 in Runaway Bay and was built on 10 acres (40,000m2) and contained 225 rooms in 3-story buildings; in August 2010 the company closed Hedonism III temporarily, to allow for remodeling work. It reopened on October 14, 2010, as SuperFun Beach Resort and Spa[7] catering to a wider market through additional tour operators. However, SuperFun Beach Resort entered receivership in March 2011 and closed in June 2011.[8] While it was an adult-only resort, SuperFun did not allow topless or nude sunbathing. The property was leased to SuperClubs by the Development Bank of Jamaica, while[9] the hotel's first-ranked secured lenders were Caribbean Development Bank, PanCaribbean, and Development Bank of Jamaica.[8]

Hedonism II often receives bookings from tour companies, who cater to swingers.

Public nudity is illegal in Jamaica, but the laws are not enforced and may not apply inside the private resort. A nude wedding of eight couples in 2001 at Hedonism III caused protests by the government tourist office and radio talk show hosts, who called the event "improper and offensive." In February 2003, 29 couples were involved in another round of nude weddings at the Hedonism III;[10] Hedonism resorts host nudist and swingers conventions: it has been alleged that open sex is common,[11] including in the hot tubs at night.[12] SuperClubs owner John Issa said he was not aware of this.[13]

Issa also said he was not running a "whorehouse" and that, to his knowledge, "whores are not working" in his Hedonism hotels.[14] Issa sued two employees of Unique Vacations in Miami, Florida, over e-mails sent in 2007 and 2008 which he said contained "defamatory statements" about activities at Hedonism Resorts[15] and sought damages of an unspecified amount for what he said were false and malicious statements.

Issa said he feels satisfied with Hedonism's image of decadence and debauchery[16] and is satisfied with the idea, expressed on his website, that "When it's good it's oh so good and when it's bad it's even better and yes, everything you ever heard is true".[17] Issa allegedly promoted bisexual activities at Hedonism III.[18]

In September 2009, Hedonism Resorts lost a WIPO trial against Relevansanalys[19] related to the registration of the Internet domain name 'hedonismhotels.com'.

Continued here:

Hedonism Resorts - Wikipedia

What is hedonism?

Hedonism is closely associated with utilitarianism. Where utilitarianism says ethical actions are ones that maximise the overall good of a society, hedonism takes it a step further by defining good as pleasure.

There are different perspectives on what pleasure and pain really mean. For Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, pleasure was the absence of pain. Though his name has become synonymous with indulgence Epicurean holidays, afood appcalled Epicurious he advocated finding pleasure in a simple life with a bland diet.

If we live a rich, complex lifestyle we risk suffering more when it ends. Best not to love them to begin with, he suggests.

John Stuart Millbelieved in a hierarchy of pleasures. Although sensory pleasuresmight be the most intense, it was fitting for higher order beings like humans to enjoy higher order pleasures like art. It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, he said. (With evidence to suggest pigs canorgasm for up to fifteen minutes, Mills account feels a little incomplete).

Most people will agree pleasure and pain are important for determining the value of something. Thats not enough to make you a hedonist. What makes hedonism unique is the claimonlypleasure and pain matter. Thats where people tend to be more hesitant.

The philosopherRobert Nozickwanted people tofeel the pinch of measuring life only based on pain and pleasure. He developed a thought experiment calledthe experience machine.

Imagine a machine that can plug into your brain and simulate the most pleasurable life you could imagine. It would respond to your specific desires you could be a rock star, philosopher or space cowboy depending on what was most pleasurable. But if you plugged in, you could never unplug. Plus, although youdfeelas though you were experiencing amazing things, youd be floating in a vat, feeding through a tube.

Nozick thought most people would choose not to plug into the machine proving there was more to life than pleasure and pain. But Nozicks argument depends on peoples lives being of a certain quality. Its easier to value hard work and authenticity if youre confident your life will be pretty pleasurable. For those living in constant fear, pain, or misery, perhaps the authenticity of their experience matters less than some simple moments of bliss.

Continued here:

What Is Hedonism? An Ethics Explainer by The Ethics Centre

Concept in Stoic philosophy

Eudaimonia (Greek: [eudaimona]; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, ) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'.

In the works of Aristotle, eudaimonia was the term for the highest human good in older Greek tradition. It is the aim of practical philosophy-prudence, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider and experience what this state really is, and how it can be achieved. It is thus a central concept in Aristotelian ethics and subsequent Hellenistic philosophy, along with the terms aret (most often translated as 'virtue' or 'excellence') and phronesis ('practical or ethical wisdom').[1]

Discussion of the links between thik aret (virtue of character) and eudaimonia (happiness) is one of the central concerns of ancient ethics, and a subject of much disagreement. As a result, there are many varieties of eudaimonism.

In terms of its etymology, eudaimonia is an abstract noun derived from the words e ('good, well') and damn ('dispenser, tutelary deity'), the latter referring maybe to a minor deity or a guardian spirit.[2]

Semantically speaking, the word (damn) derives from the same root of the Ancient Greek verb (daomai, "to divide") allowing the concept of eudaimonia to be thought of as an "activity linked with dividing or dispensing, in a good way".

Definitions, a dictionary of Greek philosophical terms attributed to Plato himself but believed by modern scholars to have been written by his immediate followers in the Academy, provides the following definition of the word eudaimonia: "The good composed of all goods; an ability which suffices for living well; perfection in respect of virtue; resources sufficient for a living creature."

In his Nicomachean Ethics (21; 1095a1522), Aristotle says that everyone agrees that eudaimonia is the highest good for humans, but that there is substantial disagreement on what sort of life counts as doing and living well; i.e. eudaimon:

Verbally there is a very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is [eudaimonia], and identify living well and faring well with being happy; but with regard to what [eudaimonia] is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth or honour... [1095a17][3]

So, as Aristotle points out, saying that a eudaimonic life is a life that is objectively desirable and involves living well is not saying very much. Everyone wants to be eudaimonic; and everyone agrees that being eudaimonic is related to faring well and to an individual's well-being. The really difficult question is to specify just what sort of activities enable one to live well. Aristotle presents various popular conceptions of the best life for human beings. The candidates that he mentions are a (1) life of pleasure, (2) a life of political activity, and (3) a philosophical life.

One important move in Greek philosophy to answer the question of how to achieve eudaimonia is to bring in another important concept in ancient philosophy, aret ('virtue'). Aristotle says that the eudaimonic life is one of "virtuous activity in accordance with reason" [1097b221098a20]; even Epicurus, who argues that the eudaimonic life is the life of pleasure, maintains that the life of pleasure coincides with the life of virtue. So, the ancient ethical theorists tend to agree that virtue is closely bound up with happiness (aret is bound up with eudaimonia). However, they disagree on the way in which this is so.

One problem with the English translation of aret as 'virtue' is that we are inclined to understand virtue in a moral sense, which is not always what the ancients had in mind. For a Greek, aret pertains to all sorts of qualities we would not regard as relevant to ethics, for example, physical beauty. So it is important to bear in mind that the sense of 'virtue' operative in ancient ethics is not exclusively moral and includes more than states such as wisdom, courage and compassion. The sense of virtue which aret connotes would include saying something like "speed is a virtue in a horse," or "height is a virtue in a basketball player." Doing anything well requires virtue, and each characteristic activity (such as carpentry, flute playing, etc.) has its own set of virtues. The alternative translation 'excellence' (or 'a desirable quality') might be helpful in conveying this general meaning of the term. The moral virtues are simply a subset of the general sense in which a human being is capable of functioning well or excellently.

Eudaimonia implies a positive and divine state of being that humanity is able to strive toward and possibly reach. A literal view of eudaimonia means achieving a state of being similar to benevolent deity, or being protected and looked after by a benevolent deity. As this would be considered the most positive state to be in, the word is often translated as 'happiness' although incorporating the divine nature of the word extends the meaning to also include the concepts of being fortunate, or blessed. Despite this etymology, however, discussions of eudaimonia in ancient Greek ethics are often conducted independently of any supernatural significance.

In his Nicomachean Ethics (1095a1522) Aristotle says that eudaimonia means 'doing and living well'.[3] It is significant that synonyms for eudaimonia are living well and doing well. On the standard English translation, this would be to say that 'happiness is doing well and living well'. The word happiness does not entirely capture the meaning of the Greek word. One important difference is that happiness often connotes being or tending to be in a certain pleasant state of mind. For example, when one says that someone is "a very happy person," one usually means that they seem subjectively contented with the way things are going in their life. They mean to imply that they feel good about the way things are going for them. In contrast, Aristotle suggests that eudaimonia is a more encompassing notion than feeling happy since events that do not contribute to one's experience of feeling happy may affect one's eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia depends on all the things that would make us happy if we knew of their existence, but quite independently of whether we do know about them. Ascribing eudaimonia to a person, then, may include ascribing such things as being virtuous, being loved and having good friends. But these are all objective judgments about someone's life: they concern whether a person is really being virtuous, really being loved, and really having fine friends. This implies that a person who has evil sons and daughters will not be judged to be eudaimonic even if he or she does not know that they are evil and feels pleased and contented with the way they have turned out (happy). Conversely, being loved by your children would not count towards your happiness if you did not know that they loved you (and perhaps thought that they did not), but it would count towards your eudaimonia. So, eudaimonia corresponds to the idea of having an objectively good or desirable life, to some extent independently of whether one knows that certain things exist or not. It includes conscious experiences of well-being, success, and failure, but also a whole lot more. (See Aristotle's discussion: Nicomachean Ethics, book 1.101.11.)

Because of this discrepancy between the meanings of eudaimonia and happiness, some alternative translations have been proposed. W.D. Ross suggests 'well-being' and John Cooper proposes 'flourishing'. These translations may avoid some of the misleading associations carried by "happiness" although each tends to raise some problems of its own. In some modern texts therefore, the other alternative is to leave the term in an English form of the original Greek, as eudaimonia.

What is known of Socrates' philosophy is almost entirely derived from Plato's writings. Scholars typically divide Plato's works into three periods: the early, middle, and late periods. They tend to agree also that Plato's earliest works quite faithfully represent the teachings of Socrates and that Plato's own views, which go beyond those of Socrates, appear for the first time in the middle works such as the Phaedo and the Republic.

As with all ancient ethical thinkers, Socrates thought that all human beings wanted eudaimonia more than anything else (see Plato, Apology 30b, Euthydemus 280d282d, Meno 87d89a). However, Socrates adopted a quite radical form of eudaimonism (see above): he seems to have thought that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia. Socrates is convinced that virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy (eudaimon) life. Virtues guarantee a happy life eudaimonia. For example, in the Meno, with respect to wisdom, he says: "everything the soul endeavours or endures under the guidance of wisdom ends in happiness" (Meno 88c).[4]

In the Apology, Socrates clearly presents his disagreement with those who think that the eudaimon life is the life of honour or pleasure, when he chastises the Athenians for caring more for riches and honour than the state of their souls.

Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth or the best possible state of your soul. (29e)[5] ... [I]t does not seem like human nature for me to have neglected all my own affairs and to have tolerated this neglect for so many years while I was always concerned with you, approaching each one of you like a father or an elder brother to persuade you to care for virtue. (31ab; italics added)[6]

It emerges a bit further on that this concern for one's soul, that one's soul might be in the best possible state, amounts to acquiring moral virtue. So Socrates' pointing out that the Athenians should care for their souls means that they should care for their virtue, rather than pursuing honour or riches. Virtues are states of the soul. When a soul has been properly cared for and perfected it possesses the virtues. Moreover, according to Socrates, this state of the soul, moral virtue, is the most important good. The health of the soul is incomparably more important for eudaimonia than (e.g.) wealth and political power. Someone with a virtuous soul is better off than someone who is wealthy and honoured but whose soul is corrupted by unjust actions. This view is confirmed in the Crito, where Socrates gets Crito to agree that the perfection of the soul, virtue, is the most important good:

And is life worth living for us with that part of us corrupted that unjust action harms and just action benefits? Or do we think that part of us, whatever it is, that is concerned with justice and injustice, is inferior to the body? Not at all. It is much more valuable...? Much more... (47e48a)[6]

Here, Socrates argues that life is not worth living if the soul is ruined by wrongdoing.[7] In summary, Socrates seems to think that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia. A person who is not virtuous cannot be happy, and a person with virtue cannot fail to be happy. We shall see later on that Stoic ethics takes its cue from this Socratic insight.

Plato's great work of the middle period, the Republic, is devoted to answering a challenge made by the sophist Thrasymachus, that conventional morality, particularly the 'virtue' of justice, actually prevents the strong man from achieving eudaimonia. Thrasymachus's views are restatements of a position which Plato discusses earlier on in his writings, in the Gorgias, through the mouthpiece of Callicles. The basic argument presented by Thrasymachus and Callicles is that justice (being just) hinders or prevents the achievement of eudaimonia because conventional morality requires that we control ourselves and hence live with un-satiated desires. This idea is vividly illustrated in book 2 of the Republic when Glaucon, taking up Thrasymachus' challenge, recounts a myth of the magical ring of Gyges. According to the myth, Gyges becomes king of Lydia when he stumbles upon a magical ring, which, when he turns it a particular way, makes him invisible, so that he can satisfy any desire he wishes without fear of punishment. When he discovers the power of the ring he kills the king, marries his wife and takes over the throne.[8] The thrust of Glaucon's challenge is that no one would be just if he could escape the retribution he would normally encounter for fulfilling his desires at whim. But if eudaimonia is to be achieved through the satisfaction of desire, whereas being just or acting justly requires suppression of desire, then it is not in the interests of the strong man to act according to the dictates of conventional morality. (This general line of argument reoccurs much later in the philosophy of Nietzsche.) Throughout the rest of the Republic, Plato aims to refute this claim by showing that the virtue of justice is necessary for eudaimonia.

The argument of the Republic is lengthy and complex. In brief, Plato argues that virtues are states of the soul, and that the just person is someone whose soul is ordered and harmonious, with all its parts functioning properly to the person's benefit. In contrast, Plato argues that the unjust man's soul, without the virtues, is chaotic and at war with itself, so that even if he were able to satisfy most of his desires, his lack of inner harmony and unity thwart any chance he has of achieving eudaimonia. Plato's ethical theory is eudaimonistic because it maintains that eudaimonia depends on virtue. On Plato's version of the relationship, virtue is depicted as the most crucial and the dominant constituent of eudaimonia.[9]

Aristotle's account is articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics. In outline, for Aristotle, eudaimonia involves activity, exhibiting virtue (aret sometimes translated as excellence) in accordance with reason. This conception of eudaimonia derives from Aristotle's essentialist understanding of human nature, the view that reason (logos sometimes translated as rationality) is unique to human beings and that the ideal function or work (ergon) of a human being is the fullest or most perfect exercise of reason. Basically, well-being (eudaimonia) is gained by proper development of one's highest and most human capabilities and human beings are "the rational animal". It follows that eudaimonia for a human being is the attainment of excellence (aret) in reason.

According to Aristotle, eudaimonia actually requires activity, action, so that it is not sufficient for a person to possess a squandered ability or disposition. Eudaimonia requires not only good character but rational activity. Aristotle clearly maintains that to live in accordance with reason means achieving excellence thereby. Moreover, he claims this excellence cannot be isolated and so competencies are also required appropriate to related functions. For example, if being a truly outstanding scientist requires impressive math skills, one might say "doing mathematics well is necessary to be a first rate scientist". From this it follows that eudaimonia, living well, consists in activities exercising the rational part of the psyche in accordance with the virtues or excellency of reason [1097b221098a20]. Which is to say, to be fully engaged in the intellectually stimulating and fulfilling work at which one achieves well-earned success. The rest of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to filling out the claim that the best life for a human being is the life of excellence in accordance with reason. Since reason for Aristotle is not only theoretical but practical as well, he spends quite a bit of time discussing excellence of character, which enables a person to exercise his practical reason (i.e., reason relating to action) successfully.

Aristotle's ethical theory is eudaimonist because it maintains that eudaimonia depends on virtue. However, it is Aristotle's explicit view that virtue is necessary but not sufficient for eudaimonia. While emphasizing the importance of the rational aspect of the psyche, he does not ignore the importance of other 'goods' such as friends, wealth, and power in a life that is eudaimonic. He doubts the likelihood of being eudaimonic if one lacks certain external goods such as 'good birth, good children, and beauty'. So, a person who is hideously ugly or has "lost children or good friends through death" (1099b56), or who is isolated, is unlikely to be eudaimon. In this way, "dumb luck" (chance) can preempt one's attainment of eudaimonia.

Pyrrho was the founder of Pyrrhonism. A summary of his approach to eudaimonia was preserved by Eusebius, quoting Aristocles of Messene, quoting Timon of Phlius, in what is known as the "Aristocles passage."

Whoever wants eudaimonia must consider these three questions: First, how are pragmata (ethical matters, affairs, topics) by nature? Secondly, what attitude should we adopt towards them? Thirdly, what will be the outcome for those who have this attitude?" Pyrrho's answer is that "As for pragmata they are all adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), astathmta (unstable, unbalanced, not measurable), and anepikrita (unjudged, unfixed, undecidable). Therefore, neither our sense-perceptions nor our doxai (views, theories, beliefs) tell us the truth or lie; so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather, we should be adoxastoi (without views), aklineis (uninclined toward this side or that), and akradantoi (unwavering in our refusal to choose), saying about every single one that it no more is than it is not or it both is and is not or it neither is nor is not.[10]

With respect to aret, the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus said:

If one defines a system as an attachment to a number of dogmas that agree with one another and with appearances, and defines a dogma as an assent to something non-evident, we shall say that the Pyrrhonist does not have a system. But if one says that a system is a way of life that, in accordance with appearances, follows a certain rationale, where that rationale shows how it is possible to seem to live rightly ("rightly" being taken, not as referring only to aret, but in a more ordinary sense) and tends to produce the disposition to suspend judgment, then we say that he does have a system.[11]

Epicurus' ethical theory is hedonistic. (His view proved very influential on the founders and best proponents of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.) Hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic bad. An object, experience or state of affairs is intrinsically valuable if it is good simply because of what it is. Intrinsic value is to be contrasted with instrumental value. An object, experience or state of affairs is instrumentally valuable if it serves as a means to what is intrinsically valuable. To see this, consider the following example. Suppose a person spends their days and nights in an office, working at not entirely pleasant activities for the purpose of receiving money. Someone asks them "why do you want the money?", and they answer: "So, I can buy an apartment overlooking the ocean, and a red sports car." This answer expresses the point that money is instrumentally valuable because its value lies in what one obtains by means of itin this case, the money is a means to getting an apartment and a sports car and the value of making this money dependent on the price of these commodities.

Epicurus identifies the good life with the life of pleasure. He understands eudaimonia as a more or less continuous experience of pleasure and, also, freedom from pain and distress. But it is important to notice that Epicurus does not advocate that one pursue any and every pleasure. Rather, he recommends a policy whereby pleasures are maximized "in the long run". In other words, Epicurus claims that some pleasures are not worth having because they lead to greater pains, and some pains are worthwhile when they lead to greater pleasures. The best strategy for attaining a maximal amount of pleasure overall is not to seek instant gratification but to work out a sensible long term policy.[12]

Ancient Greek ethics is eudaimonist because it links virtue and eudaimonia, where eudaimonia refers to an individual's well-being. Epicurus' doctrine can be considered eudaimonist since Epicurus argues that a life of pleasure will coincide with a life of virtue.[13] He believes that we do and ought to seek virtue because virtue brings pleasure. Epicurus' basic doctrine is that a life of virtue is the life which generates the most pleasure, and it is for this reason that we ought to be virtuous. This thesisthe eudaimon life is the pleasurable lifeis not a tautology as "eudaimonia is the good life" would be: rather, it is the substantive and controversial claim that a life of pleasure and absence of pain is what eudaimonia consists in.

One important difference between Epicurus' eudaimonism and that of Plato and Aristotle is that for the latter virtue is a constituent of eudaimonia, whereas Epicurus makes virtue a means to happiness. To this difference, consider Aristotle's theory. Aristotle maintains that eudaimonia is what everyone wants (and Epicurus would agree). He also thinks that eudaimonia is best achieved by a life of virtuous activity in accordance with reason. The virtuous person takes pleasure in doing the right thing as a result of a proper training of moral and intellectual character (See e.g., Nicomachean Ethics 1099a5). However, Aristotle does not think that virtuous activity is pursued for the sake of pleasure. Pleasure is a byproduct of virtuous action: it does not enter at all into the reasons why virtuous action is virtuous. Aristotle does not think that we literally aim for eudaimonia. Rather, eudaimonia is what we achieve (assuming that we aren't particularly unfortunate in the possession of external goods) when we live according to the requirements of reason. Virtue is the largest constituent in a eudaimon life.By contrast, Epicurus holds that virtue is the means to achieve happiness. His theory is eudaimonist in that he holds that virtue is indispensable to happiness; but virtue is not a constituent of a eudaimon life, and being virtuous is not (external goods aside) identical with being eudaimon. Rather, according to Epicurus, virtue is only instrumentally related to happiness. So whereas Aristotle would not say that one ought to aim for virtue in order to attain pleasure, Epicurus would endorse this claim.

Stoic philosophy begins with Zeno of Citium c. 300 BC, and was developed by Cleanthes (331232 BC) and Chrysippus (c. 280c. 206 BC) into a formidable systematic unity.[14] Zeno believed happiness was a "good flow of life"; Cleanthes suggested it was "living in agreement with nature", and Chrysippus believed it was "living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature."[14] Stoic ethics is a particularly strong version of eudaimonism. According to the Stoics, virtue is necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia. (This thesis is generally regarded as stemming from the Socrates of Plato's earlier dialogues.)

We saw earlier that the conventional Greek concept of arete is not quite the same as that denoted by virtue, which has Christian connotations of charity, patience, and uprightness, since arete includes many non-moral virtues such as physical strength and beauty. However, the Stoic concept of arete is much nearer to the Christian conception of virtue, which refers to the moral virtues. However, unlike Christian understandings of virtue, righteousness or piety, the Stoic conception does not place as great an emphasis on mercy, forgiveness, self-abasement (i.e. the ritual process of declaring complete powerlessness and humility before God), charity and self-sacrificial love, though these behaviors/mentalities are not necessarily spurned by the Stoics (they are spurned by some other philosophers of Antiquity). Rather Stoicism emphasizes states such as justice, honesty, moderation, simplicity, self-discipline, resolve, fortitude, and courage (states which Christianity also encourages).

The Stoics make a radical claim that the eudaimon life is the morally virtuous life. Moral virtue is good, and moral vice is bad, and everything else, such as health, honour and riches, are merely "neutral".[14] The Stoics therefore are committed to saying that external goods such as wealth and physical beauty are not really good at all. Moral virtue is both necessary and sufficient for eudaimonia. In this, they are akin to Cynic philosophers such as Antisthenes and Diogenes in denying the importance to eudaimonia of external goods and circumstances, such as were recognized by Aristotle, who thought that severe misfortune (such as the death of one's family and friends) could rob even the most virtuous person of eudaimonia. This Stoic doctrine re-emerges later in the history of ethical philosophy in the writings of Immanuel Kant, who argues that the possession of a "good will" is the only unconditional good. One difference is that whereas the Stoics regard external goods as neutral, as neither good nor bad, Kant's position seems to be that external goods are good, but only so far as they are a condition to achieving happiness.

Interest in the concept of eudaimonia and ancient ethical theory more generally had a revival in the 20th century. G. E. M. Anscombe in her article "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958) argued that duty-based conceptions of morality are conceptually incoherent for they are based on the idea of a "law without a lawgiver."[15] She claims a system of morality conceived along the lines of the Ten Commandments depends on someone having made these rules.[16] Anscombe recommends a return to the eudaimonistic ethical theories of the ancients, particularly Aristotle, which ground morality in the interests and well-being of human moral agents, and can do so without appealing to any such lawgiver.

Julia Driver in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains:

Anscombe's article Modern Moral Philosophy stimulated the development of virtue ethics as an alternative to Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Social Contract theories. Her primary charge in the article is that, as secular approaches to moral theory, they are without foundation. They use concepts such as "morally ought", "morally obligated", "morally right", and so forth that are legalistic and require a legislator as the source of moral authority. In the past God occupied that role, but systems that dispense with God as part of the theory are lacking the proper foundation for meaningful employment of those concepts.[17]

Models of eudaimonia in psychology and positive psychology emerged from early work on self-actualization and the means of its accomplishment by researchers such as Erik Erikson, Gordon Allport, and Abraham Maslow (hierarchy of needs).[18]

Theories include Diener's tripartite model of subjective well-being, Ryff's Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being, Keyes work on flourishing, and Seligman's contributions to positive psychology and his theories on authentic happiness and P.E.R.M.A. Related concepts are happiness, flourishing, quality of life, contentment,[19] and meaningful life.

The Japanese concept of Ikigai has been described as eudaimonic well-being, as it "entails actions of devoting oneself to pursuits one enjoys and is associated with feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment."[20]

The "Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being" developed in Positive Psychology lists six dimensions of eudaimonia:[21]

See original here:

Eudaimonia - Wikipedia

The new trailer for The White Lotus season 2 has arrived, and its loaded with sex, drugs and an excessive amount of tension.

The trailer opens up on a sun-glowed Sicily, Italy, where a cast of colorful characters becomes entrenched in interpersonal drama and unexpected twists at the international resort.

Read more:15 of the best A24 movie soundtracks, ranked

Fans of season 1 will be thrilled to see Jennifer Coolidge and Jon Gries as returning characters, but the additions of Aubrey Plaza, Michael Imperioli and F. Murray Abraham, among others, are adding to the hype. Plaza's character Harper Spiller is set to be a standout.

Are these the kind of people were going to be hanging out with now? She asks her husband (Will Sharpe), who recently sold his company, got rich and acquired some new shallow friends.

The new season will also follow a family exploring their Italian roots and an assistant who accompanies Coolidge and Gries on vacation. All in all, the second season looks to be rife with privileged excess and the type of chaos that can only happen abroad.

The White Lotus season 2 premieres Oct. 30 on HBO Max. Watch the trailer below.

Read the original post:

'The White Lotus' season 2 trailer brims with love, murder and a whole lot of hedonism - Alternative Press

Our most recent issue,The Politics of Pleasure, features a forum led by Kate Soper, who argues that a post-growth economy need not be a recipe for austere misery. On the contrary, post-growth life might present an opportunity for greater pleasure while also giving our overtaxed planet a new lease on life. The issue also includes an essay from Lynne Segal about the connections between care work and political optimism.

Segal and Soper have both made significant contributions to the struggle for gender and sex equality, Marxist and socialist thinking, and environmentalism. In this conversation, which took place live as part of our new events series on Philosophy Today, they delve into the finer points of Sopers argument and discuss them in connection with Segals investment in care work. At the end, they are given questions from the audience by Anthony Morgan, editor of the Philosopher.

LYNNE SEGAL: The core of your work is to argue for alternative hedonism. Alternative hedonism is not only going to help us create sustainable consumption, create a better possible future, but also, in the process, it is actually going to bring us greater pleasure, give us more time, enable us to slow down and enjoy life more. Maybe you want to say a little bit about your arguments there before we move on to discuss them.

KATE SOPER: I think probably what I should emphasize is what is particularly distinct about my own argument, because I think a lot of commentary on environmental crisis is going to accept that there cant be any sustainable planetary order that doesnt involve much greater equality, both within and between nations. And I think most environmentalists will also accept that we need a break, ultimately, from growth-driven capitalism and the consumer culture on which it depends. I share both those positions.

We need to prioritize care and downplay the forms of productivity that are not improving our lives at all.

But what is more distinctive to my own viewpoint is the emphasis Ive placed on the downside of the so-called good life associated with consumer culture today. Im talking here about the dominance of the work ethic, the way in which that creates time scarcity for everybody, how car culture and planes are very polluting, create a great deal of congestion, and so on. So there are negative aspects of contemporary ways of living that Im stressing, and Im arguing that if we were to opt for an alternativewhat I called an alternative politics of prosperity, an alternative way of thinking about the pleasures of living wellthen we could not only create a green renaissance of some kind but also, as you say, enjoy ourselves more.

I dont think its been sufficiently emphasized that there is enjoyment to be had from revised ways of living. Very often it is accepted that we need in the future to fly or drive less, for example, or consume less stuff. But that tends to get seen as dutiful belt-tightening or as a problem to be overcome in pursuit of a consumerist way of living that in many respects, I think, is dystopian and anti-hedonist. Theyre too fixated on work and money-making with too little appreciation for the pleasures of having more time, doing more things for oneself, traveling more slowly, and so on.

I think inviting people to consider the benefits to themselves of adopting more ecofriendly ways of living is surely a more effective way of winning their support than instilling yet more panic and alarm over climate change. Or appealing simply to a sense of duty. And since, in fact, many people do now deplore the stress and time scarcity of the work and spend type of existence, the appeal already has some basis in experience. I think that there is a certain amount of disaffection with the so-called consumerist good life. And that feeds into my own concerns to avoid an overly abstract kind of moralizing position, because I think the existence of that emerging structure of antipathy to the consumerist way of living can provide a certain legitimation for what Im calling an alternative hedonist politics, understanding a need to move to an alternative way of thinking about progress and prosperity.

LS: I think you are absolutely right to talk about the miseries of everyday life and of our existing neoliberal capitalism, where so few people have the time to enjoy anything in life. They dont have time to care for each other, care for themselves. So much is absent that they might wish to do, and thats why we see the enormously high levels of depression and isolation. Theres no question about how bad the dynamics are of everyday life today.

There are negative aspects of contemporary ways of living. If we were to opt for an alternative then we could create a green renaissance and enjoy ourselves more.

But there is a problem many people would raise at once, which is the problem of inequality. So many people surely are not in a position to simply choose alternative lifestyles. They cant escape from the drudgery of their working days, which are often very long, working at what David Graeber would call bullshit jobs. But nevertheless, particularly in the public sector, theyre forced to do so much administration and bureaucratic work, that it is really, really hard for them to escape, other than to give up their jobs altogether. But they cant give up their jobs altogether, because as we know, the cost of living is getting higher and higher. So people might fear that you are only talking to an elite who have a possibility to make these choices. It would be wonderful if more people were in the position to make these choices, but surely many people are not. They are on a treadmill of work, and it is very, very hard for them to get off, even without factoring in inequality, and hence the difficulty of so many people escaping from the hard labors that theyve been forced into.

KS: Im glad youve raised the issue, Lynne. There are two main things that I want to say in response to it. One is that I dont necessarily see participation in a consumerist form of living associated with neoliberal capitalism as something that only elite or more affluent consumers have access to. I see it more as a kind of regime in which were all caught up in one way or another. So one of the ways in which people are caught up in it is that they have far too little time, and time is very important to developing alternative ways of thinking about politics and ways of living.

I think you need to question whether consumerism is a natural way of living, which is often the way it has tended to be thought about. One of my criticisms is over a kind of Marxist approach which rightly emphasizes the purely historical nature of capitalist production, but tends too readily to accept that consumer culture is somehow a natural way of meeting our needs and having pleasurable existence. I want to argue that we need to challenge that sense of it being an inevitable, acceptable way of living and think about an alternative.

The other thing is that Im not really suggesting that alternative hedonism is simply a question of a more affluent group changing their ways of consuming. Im suggesting that we need to connect with the extensive forms of disaffection that you have mentioned yourself as a way of insisting on the need for the articulation of an alternative way of living, an alternative politics of prosperity. And as things stand in this countryand I think this is true of the United States as wellthere is very little reference among the mainstream political parties to the possibility of an alternative way of living, centered not so much on endless growth, which we know is unsustainable, not so much simply on full employment and consumerist ways of gratifying ourselves, but on rethinking what is the point of all this creation of wealth. Who is really being served by this commitment to endless production? In political life at the present time, most political parties in the mainstream are agreeing on the ends of growth, carrying on with raising living standards as currently defined, and full employment. Where they tend to differ is simply about the means to those ends. Im saying we need to challenge those ends. And in doing so, we need to look to the ways in which contemporary ways of living are actually causing a great deal of misery to people, as well as being fundamentally unsustainable.

LS: I certainly agree about the misery thats being caused. On the issue of growth, what exactly do you mean by growth? You know, do you mean technological productivity? One of the biggest increases today is in care jobs. But care jobs are so badly paid. People are working ever longer hours for ever less pay. Yet theres a huge crisis of care, because of the long hours people are working, they dont have time to care, and so were importing people from the Third World to do our caring jobs. So we actually need an increase in care jobs that will enable us to care more and care better.

The left tends to think of growth in terms of productivity, not in terms of care.

That takes us to debates around green growth. I think you tend to be a little critical of the idea of green growth, but it seem to me that growth is a problem in terms of how youre using it and how youre defining it. The left in general, youd be right to point out, tends to think of growth in terms of productivity, not in terms of care. We need a lot more caring jobs, which are actually not destructive of the environment. But we dont organize our politics in the way in which I was arguing with others in The Care Manifesto (2020), which would involve prioritizing care at every level. We have to understand our interdependence and see that our interdependence is not only on each other, but also on the only world we have. And that means beginning from thinking about care and how we provide for each others needs. And how we provide for each others needs will require growth in certain areas, in certain forms of infrastructure. Obviously in hospitals, and in various places that can help us to be able to care for each other better. So what have you got to say to those people who want you to clarify what you mean by growth? And how does the huge need for caring jobs fit into your perspective?

KS: Youre right, one does need to clarify issues around this notion of growth. I think we need to be clear that growth tends be thought of in an essentially economic fashion, as essential to economic order. Now, thats a position that I would disagree with. And if the advocates of green growth or of the Green New Deal would want to argue that we should have indefinite growth of a green kind, I would dispute that. I would argue that the idea that an economy is incapable of functioning without continuous growth is a fundamental mistake. We need to rethink what we mean by wealth and its creation if we are committed to that kind of theory.

Having said that, I completely agree with the view that growth in certain areas would need to be part and parcel of what Im calling a green renaissance. Of course we need the growth and the revaluation of care, and we need to recognize much more fully the interdependence of people. We need to challenge what you call in your article the uber-individualism of our culture, which of course has served the capitalist market very well indeed. I mean, trying to get us all to consume in more individualizing ways means that more goods and services can be sold to us on that basis. When Im arguing for living differently, part of that would be a turn to more collaborative ways of living, more sharing of goods, more use of common networks of providing for ourselves. And that could have all sorts of benefits. Many people who are on the margins would be able to overcome some of the problems that they have from having to live within a market-driven society.

So many people surely are not in a position to simply choose alternative lifestyles.

So I think we need growth in the division of care. We need growth in the division of culture, of the arts, and education, as well as a shift to teaching about how to live more fulfilling lives. But we also need growth in a transition period, in such areas as the infrastructure of renewable energy and so on. So Im not cutting out the need for growth as such, but I am in certain areas. I would like to see a defenseas some of the green parties now put forth, to be fair to themof growth within a transition which no longer says GDP is the only thing that counts in terms of prosperity, that is actually prepared to say that we need to transition to an economy that no longer makes such a solipsism simply of growth. And in the last analysis, why is growth a solipsism? Its because its impossible to realize endless profit if you dont continue to grow.

LS: Its the 1 perecent that are making those endless profits, isnt it? The rewards of productivity are going to ever fewer people. Im glad you mentioned collectivity, because one thing I was thinking about is that a lot of your examples of alternative hedonism seem very much based on the individual and the personal: more cycling, more time to do things, and so on. Whereas in my writing, Im always emphasizing collectivity. When we can manage to secure things with others that are going to be for the benefit of others, we are likely to feel the most joy and the most happiness. I would also link that to politics, inasmuch as I dont know how quickly you can get from a belief in the benefits of alternative hedonism to changing a political structureto get to hegemony around the idea that basically we have to oppose capitalism if were going to stop the push toward endless growth. We just have a new prime minister in the United Kingdom whos pushing us in exactly the wrong direction, is going to deregulate further, is going to do everything the opposite of what were asking for. So we really have to work out how to organize politically. That is crucial, isnt it? And can we really get from a commitment to alternative hedonism to engagement in the struggle to overthrow capitalism?

KS: Well, youve touched on the key issue here, which is the question of agency. I mean, we can say whats wrong with the present order, what needs to be put in its place, but its harder to actually produce a convincing argument about the agents or forces or processes of transformation. And I think thats become harder on the left, because we no longer have quite the same confidence as a more orthodox position would have had in the role of the working class as being the agents of that kind of revolutionary transition.

I dont think I have an answer here at all, but one of the reasons I came around to thinking in terms of what Im calling alternative hedonism was because of the question of agency, really. I had wondered where a new leverage might emerge, and whether a new movement could emerge from the disaffection of people with their existing lifestyle and their preparedness to campaign around an alternative politics of prosperity that could then hook up with a more conventional and militant form of campaigning. In the final analysis, it may be very difficult in an advanced industrial society such as the UK or the United States to build the electoral support for a radical shift in the economy. So how could we find a way to have that be supported by consumer groups that have not usually been counted as the agents within left thinking, in other wordsthose who are actually enjoying the lifestyle, or at least are able to consume it at any rate, whether they enjoy itbecause they are in a position to create a movement, politically, for the kinds of change that we would see as desirable.

Time is very important to developing alternative ways of thinking about politics and ways of living.

But I completely agree about the importance of more collaborative ways of thinking, and indeed my own argument around alternative hedonism and things like cycling is that its not just the pleasures of being out in the fresh air and getting some exercise, but its also the pleasure of knowing you are not contributing to air pollution, that youre actually helping to guarantee a more livable world for your children and grandchildren. So a lot of alternative hedonism is focused on different ways of working, different ways of traveling and so on, to try to open up a more citizenly way of thinking about consumption, which hooks in to what you are arguing, I think, about the need for us to reignite that more citizenly, republican sense of how we need to live. But how do we actually create the momentum for it, and particularly now, because I think as you yourself recognize, although theres quite a lot of voluntary work going onand people have responded to the pandemic, for example, with a surge of caring activities of various kindsat the same time, weve got electorates that are voting for parties that are committed to increasing inequality rather than narrowing the gap between the rich and poor.

LS: Well, our only hope, I think, is that in this country, and I think in the United States, too, overwhelmingly the young did not vote for the Tories. If we had only the under-twenty-five-year-olds voting, wed be solid Labor throughout the country. If we had only the over-sixty-five-year-olds, unfortunately, wed be solid Tory in Britain. And so that would translate to Democratic and Republic, I imagine, in the United States.

What most people are aware of, except for the 1 percent, is time poverty. And so I think emphasizing time poverty, and thinking in terms of a shorter working week, which the Labor movement is beginning to take up here. But also time poverty relating to care, and how we need to prioritize care and downplay the forms of productivity that are not improving our lives at all. What improves our lives is care, our care for each other. It is care workers whove been leading protests lately, you know, for better pay, better conditions, and so on. So I think through the unions and the Labor Party in this country, and within the Democratic Party and the DSA in the United States, that we will need to mobilize around saying weve got all our values wrong. If we want there to be a future at all, you know, we have to begin by looking at our interdependence and thinking about how we care for each other, and how we care for the world. The left has got it wrong in the past by going along with arguments for productivity and not thinking about reproduction rather than production. So for me, its pushing for questions of care at every level. But perhaps we should open up to the floor, because Im sure there are lots of questions that people will have.

ANTHONY MORGAN: Thank you both for that excellent conversation. One question which I think is very interesting is from Chris, who I believe is based in Boston. So Kate, can you address how to translate your ideas into an emotionally driven political message as one has to reach the heart instead of the brain in politics to effect real change? How do we balance the kind of more rational argument with an appeal to the emotions which tends to bring about the kind of political changes required?

KS: I think a lot of the people are already experiencing a sense of alarm. Theyre alarmed about their well-being, and the survival of their own children and grandchildren. They are worried about the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the plight of impoverished people around the globe, which, even if youre not actually afflicted by it yourself, is painful to contemplate. If we dont have any political adjustments, I think we could very well end up in global conflict, which could prove terminal. So its a very dangerous and worrying time. And particularly I think for young people.

One of the reasons people get scared about having more free time is that the only thing that structures their lives is work.

And then I think there are ways, and Lynne and I have touched on them a bit, in which what we are arguing for could generate forms of pleasure, forms of enjoyment. The new forms of solidarity and collective initiative, the energy that comes with that. But Ive also argued in the past that we have to build more emotional momentum, to challenge the monopoly on how the good life is understood. There is a complete monopoly, artistically and by our advertising, on what we count as living well. If we could challenge that it would help enormously to generate a new aesthetic around material culture that no longer is tied to consumerism as the most attractive possibility.

LS: I would begin by emphasizing our shared vulnerability: our shared vulnerability to climate change, our shared vulnerability to global pandemics. The right promises that it can protect people by building wallsand now Biden is continuing with that dreadful wall that Trump startedthat will protect us by cutting off the rest of the world. And that idea really is ludicrous, as surely COVID-19 showed us. But its ludicrous in so many different ways, because we simply are all interconnected. Climate change is not only going to happen in Bangladesh. It is happening in California. It is happening in Sydney. It is happening all around the world. And so if we cant see that weve got to look at this together and protect ourselves together and find new ways of protecting ourselves through changing our way of relating to each other and relating to the world, then our children and grandchildren will not be living on a viable planet. So I do think that interdependency, shared vulnerability, this sort of thing that Judith Butler and so many philosophers now are talking about, is one place to begin. But we have to challenge that sort of paranoid mindset, which is on the rise in Italy and in all sorts of places, and which the right is trying to encourage. Its a real battle to stress the fact that, clearly, humans are interdependent, on each other and on the world.

AM: There are two questions which I think play off each other, and theyre basically about the use of time. And this kind of reminds me a little bit of Bertrand Russells essay, In Praise of Idleness, where he offers the worry that if people have too much time on their hand, they would turn to drinking and so on. Brett asks something along those lines saying, Are you afraid that most people would use more free time to pursue, quote, lower pleasures? Would we care what pleasures they pursue? And Elke says: Having more unscheduled time is not enough. Overwhelmingly people with time on their hands were filled with massive boredom and overwhelmingly craved any form of social interaction. Those who pose the questions tend to presume everyone yearns for unassigned time. Im not sure how central the increase in non-instrumentalized free time is to your account, Kate, but do you want to speak about that issue, that if people are presented with more free time, they would either use it pursuing more lowly pleasures, or they would experience it as in some way threatening or unpleasant?

KS: Theres quite a lot of issues involved here. The important thing is to recognize that there will be diversity in the way that people use extra free time. And we shouldnt be too moralizing about how they use it. Theres nothing wrong, I dont think, with simply being idle. We are going to move to a post-work culture, one way or another, because the future is going to be reliant much more on drones and robots to do work. This is a point made by the left, by so-called tech utopians who are delighted that drones will take over everything.

We must see education in a different light, not simply as preparation for work, but as preparation for living well, for enjoying ourselves, for finding diverse ways of engaging.

I would argue against that as a desirable future. I think that we do need to work. All of us want some work, I think. But not as much as weve actually got caught up in through the capitalist work ethic. And many people are indeed time scarce, I think. But if were going to move to a post-work, four-day or even three-day workweek, then I think we need at the same time to shift our way of thinking about use of time, to make work less central to peoples live. And that would mean, I think, transforming our educational system, from primary school right through to higher education, to put more emphasis on education as a preparation for making fulfilling use of leisure. At the moment, I think one of the reasons people get scared about having more free time is that the only thing that structures their lives is work. And that creates its routines and its forms of conviviality and, in the transition away from work, people are going to find that difficult. I wouldnt deny that. But were going to have to find ways of negotiating that shift. And one of the ways of negotiating that is to see education in a different light, not simply as preparation for career or for work, but as preparation for living well, for enjoying ourselves, for finding diverse ways of engaging. And encouraging what I would call a more lucid life, one that isnt committed to a totally instrumental way of thinking about time, but is happy to let people just play more. You know what I mean? Children have got a lot to teach us here. We need to be allowed to play more.

LS: I think its a very strange question, and I dont know where its coming from, actually. I think that people do some of the most destructive behavior precisely because they have very little time, and so they feel they have to reward themselves by drinking heavily or finding other forms of instant gratification. And as for the question of time anyone with any dependentswith children, with old people needing care, with friends who need caredoes not have enough time. I mean, I dont know quite what world these questions are coming from, but all my friends do not have enough time to do the things they would like to do to give support for their friends, to look after their children, to look after their elderly and so on. You know, we do live with huge time poverty, and I find it really, really odd that its thought otherwise. And also, I dont think for a minute that automation is going to replace our care jobs. You know, caring is a hands-on business, where the goal is to enable the other person youre caring for to respond in an interactive and mutual way, so that together you each can have a certain sense of autonomy. Perhaps be able to play together, to share things together, and so on, but the idea that well simply have time on our hands seems to me rather preposterous. If you begin from thinking we should be caring for each other, caring for our environment, caring for the wider world, the idea that thats not going to require us to be doing things is to me rather perverse.

AM: A question from an anonymous attendee is around the role of utopia. This was a phrase that Kate used, and its in the title of your essay, Lynne. What are people talking about these days when they talk about utopia? Its a word where you tend to get laughed out of town if you start even using. People seem more comfortable with dystopias than utopias.

LS: Nothing is selling like dystopias nowadays, if you think of The Hunger Games or Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, theyre all about dystopias, the fact that we know were going to end up starving or eating each other, or someones going to be in control of our reproductive systems. And that is a shift. When I came into politics in the 1960s and 70s, the thinking was much more positive. We did think that we were going to be able to change things together. When feminism comes along at the end of the 1960s, into the 70s, we really think we can transform family life, get more people sharing the caring. We can also make the workplace more compatible with the home. Utopian thinking is imaging a better world, a world thats based on our actual needs and our being able to care for each other. And caring was very much at the heart of feminism. Many of us were young mothers. We were thinking, how can we create a world where you dont have these isolated mothers looking after their children, getting depressed, and their children also suffering from that? We can have public nurseries, public kitchens, we can create community. Utopian thinking is about creating community. Its about sharing. Its about not seeing ourselves as these isolated individuals who every minute should be simply trying to improve ourselves, rather than working for each other to try and improve the conditions for everyone. That is utopian thinking. And without utopian thinking, were not going to survive. It is as simple as that. Were not going to survive, or our children or grandchildren are not going to survive.

KS: I think utopia, in the past, had a sort of bad reputation as being literally the place that never really came to pass, the place thats out of place. Today I think we tend to use the notion of utopia to indicate where we would ideally like to go, socially and politically. Its used to specify the ways of living and organizing the economy that we would prefer to see in place of the existing order. And I agree with Lynne that in that sense, we need as much utopian thinking as we can get. There are obviously going to be different kinds of utopian visions. I mentioned utopia as associated with some of those on the left who are primarily advocating that drones should do the care work, and that we should move to a more automated world in which nobody has to do any work. There would be abundance for everybody, and we will all be driving electric cars. We will all be taking tourist trips to Mars. We will all be living this kind of crazy kind of future, which for me is not only unrealizable but also dystopian.

The point of life is not self-improvement. Its about enjoying sharing this world with those who are on the world with us.

AM: Were pretty much at the end. Lynne, do you have any final words?

LS: Well, I can see some people thought that I was being rather didactic or dismissive in saying were not simply going to have time on our hands if were going to think about how to care for each other and care for the world. Were going to have to be pretty active. A caring world is a world in which Im afraid automatons are not going to be doing everything for us. Were going to have to be interacting with each other. I guess thats the world Im passionately fighting for and committed to. We dont only need to be cared for. Part of happiness is being able to care for others. We do need to be able to care for others, and get off this treadmill of thinking that the point of life is self-improvement. No. Its about enjoying sharing this world with those who are on the world with us.

AM: Kate, any final words? Any topics that you would have liked to have touched on that didnt come up in the short time we have available?

KS: I understand Lynnes emphasis on care and a kind of altruism that should govern us much morekind of a new sense of citizenship that we need to developI do see the need to present the case for alternative consumption in terms of a sense of duty to others. But it is also something that we can have a self-interest in as well. In other words, I think that moving to an alternative hedonist way of thinking about the future could be defended both as providing a more sustainable worldintroducing forms of caring and responsibility that have not been forwarding in our current culture at allbut also something that could be more personally gratifying, and therefore that the politics that takes us there should be appealing to self-interest and the potential that it could restore to us ways of thinking about ourselves that have been eroded by seeing ourselves purely as consumers.

Follow this link:

Reconsidering the Good Life - Boston Review

Still enjoying the post-pandemic momentum of the fundamental need to socialise, lockdown-driven savings and revenge conviviality, alcoholic drinks has been witnessing a strong bounce-back across all its key channels and markets. As Euromonitor International analysis had predicted, the industry roared back, staging an intoxicating rebound that underscored its fundamental adaptability and strategic effervescence. Registering total volume growth of 4.5% in 2021 following the nigh apocalyptic decline of 6.7% in 2020 is testament to its underlying resilience.

However, seemingly shielded from the intensifying macroeconomic headwinds, the industry is currently crossing over the stagflationary cliff. Suspended in mid- air, could this be the moment just before gravity ultimately takes hold?

Stagflation: A stiff chaser after the pandemic hangover?

Parallels to the legendary roaring 20s (a decade synonymous with hedonism and indulgence, that followed the Spanish flu pandemic and the end of World War I) will continue fuelling the resurgent on-trade, but mounting economic challenges will inevitably, and at least partially, derail that narrative.

Unprecedented inflationary pressures are severely limiting discretionary incomes, creating a negative feedback loop in consumer sentiment. Within alcoholic drinks, the vast majority of key players have increased prices and are planning to continue to do so, even if anecdotal evidence suggests that the rises are relatively more subdued than in other industries. This strategy will have a cost, but some losses in share of throat and volumes will be a price worth paying in order to maintain brand equity and secure longer-term aspirational credentials especially within the premium sphere.

Beer, off-trade channels, local specialities and economy products generally tend to be the most resilient and could benefit from cross-category movements, but drinking rituals, occasions and historic consumption patterns are different in every market. In addition, wider macroeconomic dynamics and underlying government and social support schemes (or lack thereof) have the potential to soften the blows or make them more devastating.

Beyond black swan events (and we need to remember that COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine both fall in this territory) the spectre of stagflation a toxic mix of sustained, stubbornly-high inflationary pressures and slower or stagnating growth is looking increasingly likely. If it was to materialise and become embedded, this would be detrimental to the recovery narrative. According to Euromonitor Internationals latest forecast, global total volume growth for 2022 will be 2.3%, a figure that now looks likely to be downgraded moderately if the current trajectory is maintained.

Nevertheless, as was proven in previous recessionary cycles, alcoholic drinks might not be fully recession-proof, but it is definitely recession-resilient. Macroeconomic challenges will most likely translate into a slowdown in the short term, and will mainly take the form of channel shifts, primarily from the on-trade to the off-trade, and trading down/trading across, rather than a wholesale curtailing of consumption. Just like the eponymous cartoon character, the industry will survive the fall, pick itself up again and get back to what it does best chasing the heady highs of expansion and premiumisation.

Source: Euromonitor International

See the original post:

Alcoholic Drinks and the Spectre of Stagflation; A Wile E. - Euromonitor International

The Weeknd has always been a provocateur. Whether hes headlining the Super Bowl LV Halftime Show in bloodied-up gauze or crooning about cocaine at the 2016 Kids Choice Awards, Abel Tesfaye is no stranger to the dark underbelly of LA. In the third trailer for his HBO Max series, The Idol, premiering in 2023, The Weeknd shines a light on the glamour and intoxication of showbiz, reintroducing the modern rockstars trifecta: sex, money, and drugs.

Shop the best of The Weeknd on vinyl, and more.

Created alongside nightlife entrepreneur Reza Fahim and Euphorias Sam Levinson, the Weeknd has created the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood. After serenading his listeners with the Beauty Behind the Madness, Tesfaye is starring alongside Lily-Rose Depp, portraying a nihilistic master of the industry, guiding a young pop star towards her dreams of stardom.

With Tesfaye as the self-help guru and Depp as a struggling dancer wanting to make it big, the latest trailer for The Idol hints at the price of fame, from dealings with paparazzi to toxic hedonism to plain violence. After years of performing his lyrics onstage, the Weeknd has finally found his calling as an auteur, ready to translate his musical worldview to the screen.

Abels been secretively working on The Idol since 2021, and following the official announcement in 2021, hes ready to step away from his onstage persona. The Weeknd has been on the run of his life.

In 2020, his single Blinding Lights topped the Billboard Top 100 for four weeks, spending the most weeks of any song in history in both the Top 5 and the Top 5; After Hours later became the Top R&B album of 2020; and his latest project, DAWN FM, had 24 songs from the Toronto artist make Billboards Global 200 chart, the most of any solo male artist. Its safe to say that if anyone is qualified to make a show about fame (and its pitfalls), the Weeknd is the obvious choice.

Listen to the best of The Weekend on Apple Music and Spotify.

Original post:

The Weeknd Brings Sex, Money, and Drugs to His New Series: The Idol - uDiscover Music