Disco and Young

DISCO drove me crazy as a teenager. I couldn’t escape the music and culture--it was pervasive, it was everywhere, it was like McDonald’s (“Get down, get funky: Disco gets its due,” by Scott Martelle, Nov. 26). Plus, it was gaudy. Put it this way: We thought the whole thing was just gross.

The awful, repetitive slickness of disco music did actually motivate me, though, and for that I will be ever grateful. In the middle of 1977, in desperate search for something real, I impulsively purchased Neil Young’s raggedy “American Stars ‘n Bars” album. Now there’s an “anti-disco” album if there ever was one--full of sad tales, lumbering rhythms and cranky guitars.

And for all of this, disco gets a museum exhibit and “American Stars ‘n Bars” is not even available on CD. There ya go.

Paul Gase

Torrance