Some may remember the 1979 ‘disco demolition’ concert in Chicago. A garish event planned for between the games of a White Sox baseball double-header which invited people to attend with their disco records and have them detonated on the field with explosives (this actually happened).

What ensued was a spontaneous outpouring of disgust against the ubiquitous musical style that had grown to become a lifestyle and taken over much of the popular culture in the West.

As tens of thousands of average people poured into the stadium, it was clear that organiser, a popular local radio ‘disc jockey’, had captured the rising...