If I Can’t Have You, I Don’t Want Nobody, Baby or It’s Like Studio 57 Up in Here
by Amelia G : April 22nd, 2009
How is it possible that a pop treacle show like American Idol can suck at disco? When collegiate-cutie-marketable-to-preteens Kris Allen did a slowed-down version of Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money”, I thought he totally owned it because Kris Allen is not a guy anyone would really see doing disco and the song was still enjoyable. I liked it the same way I liked Adam Lambert’s industrial world music take on Ring of Fire. Only, ya know, less so. Because I really really liked Adam Lambert performing “Ring of Fire” and would listen to that again repeatedly on purpose. Unfortunately, almost all the American Idol contestants tonight failed to do disco. What is the point of having a theme, if nobody does anything which really fits it?
Then again, this is a show where they inexplicably added an actual judge who can confuse Saturday Night Fever aka the movie which made disco a phenomenon with NBC’s successful comedy sketch show of the last three decades Saturday Night Live and the revered and legendary disco nightclub Studio 54 with Studio 57 aka the imaginary nightclub in her otherwise less-than-full head. (PS Dear Kara DioGuardi, the guy from Saturday Night Fever is actually John Travolta and Clark Kent is really Superman.) I understand that Kara DioGuardi is otherwise very accomplished and live television is very difficult, but . . .
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I read the lyrics to “She works hard for the money” and it sounds like she works in a peep show booth.
Are the peep booths usually a daytime gig?
I think a lot of peep places are 24/7 so the girls probably work in shifts – like 9-5. I have never been to one, so this is all based on hearsay.
God, make me feel old…my first legitimate–as in actually on someone’s payroll–job was at a disco the year Saturday Night Fever came out. At the time I was not into disco, I was still under the influence of David Bowie, T Rex and the New York Dolls, it was just a job I could do at night so I could do art school during the day. I ‘went out’ with the DJ–who also worked for Dick Clark Productions (American Bandstand)–for several years, until he became a reborn christian and renounced all forms of music as tools of the devil. I still have some of his ‘club play’ albums and will periodically pull them out and give them a spin on the turntable. Did you know that Charo had a disco album? It was released on hot pink vinyl.
In an old interview with Donna Summer she claims that the She Works Hard for the Money was inspired by a bathroom attendent working at a club she attended. She found the attendent asleep from sheer exahaustion due to having to work multiple jobs around the clock so she could feed and clothe her kids. If you see the video Donna Summer made for the song the women depicted are everyday women, from cleaning ladies to lawyers, who just work hard. There is a song about actual prostitution on the Bad Girls album–obviously titled Bad Girls–and Hot Stuff is about the joys of female on female love.