Disco Reflections: What Exactly Is Disco Polo?

mural_bialystok_zenek-martyniuk-fot-a_sadowska_ag_sa190410_906-2.jpg, default, Mural of Zenek Martyniuk by Rafał Roskowiński, depicted in photo, Białystok, photo: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Gazeta, Disco Reflections: What Exactly Is Disco Polo?

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Intellectuals are horrified that disco polo bands perform in the same concert hall as The Rolling Stones and Miles Davis. But does the phenomenon of disco polo perhaps deserve some serious, not ironic reflection? Two new books and an exhibition give us a closer look at this unique genre of music.

What exactly is disco polo? What is the aesthetic genesis of this genre of Polish dance music? It arose from a fascination with Western electronic music (italo disco, synth pop, new wave, house), but also Soviet pop, gypsy folklore, pre-war street songs and, of course, muzyka biesiadna [festive music commonly played at Polish weddings and banquets, trans.]. This last one was a mixture of polka music from the émigré Polish community in the USA, ‘sound postcards’ containing recordings of pop music hits and folklore bands that had almost nothing in common with traditional folk music.

Disco polo songs have catchy melodies and a simple rhythm, usually with a 4/4 tempo. Essential elements of the early disco polo hits were warm, analogue synthesizers and the ‘gritty’ sound of homemade equipment. The disco polo band Akcent played a Roland E-70, Fanatic played a Roland SH-101 and other bands used Casio, Yamaha or Kawai keyboards. The protagonists of the film Disco Polo, directed by Maciej Bochniak, steal money from a band member’s father in order to buy a Roland JD-800. This is pure fantasy – not only would Polish musicians never have used such professional equipment, but it also would have been nearly impossible to buy it in Poland at that time. Musicians often had to build a mixer themselves or repair broken equipment.

Thumbnail — ‘Polski Bajer’, photo: promotional materials

The roots of the genre have been explored by the authors of two new books on disco polo: Monika Borys in Polski Bajer (Polish Sweet Talk), a collection of essays; and Judyta Sierakowska in Nikt Nie Słucha (Nobody’s Listening), a collection of articles containing interviews with members of the most well-known bands. Perhaps the present-day aesthetic fascination with early disco polo results from the history of a mésalliance – the mixture of ambitious popular music with DIY wedding and party music. Robert Sasinowski, from the first line-up of Boys, recalls that at village parties in the early 1990s they played songs from the album Black Celebration by Depeche Mode – an album that was considered quite dark and gloomy. The members of Boys were also inspired by Depeche Mode’s onstage image; they stood out among the gaudy and colourful wedding musicians with their black clothes accessorised with modest silver pendants. At the extreme opposite end of the disco polo family tree, we can find Mały Władzio – the polka king who conquered listeners’ hearts with his extremely simple and repetitive arrangements. He didn’t receive very positive press, but he had 17 gold and four platinum records in the United States. He even performed for Pope John Paul II. The Pope asked him to keep playing until he had finished blessing all the pilgrims.

In her book, Monika Borys makes use of various examples to illustrate the aesthetics of everyday reality in the early years after the fall of communism in Poland, from which disco polo arose: familiar objects that clumsily followed Western patterns. One such example is the huge, garish, pastel-hued monsters made of plaster and polystyrene that grew out of the popularity of Spielberg’s film Jurassic Park. Several stand in Gredele, the home village of Zenek Martyniuk. Another image from the disco polo universe are bazaars and markets: rough and exotic, far from Western standards, and often multicultural. Tens of thousands of cassette tapes, and later CDs, were sold there. Copyrights weren’t respected, but is that unique to disco polo? This was still a long time before recording music from the radio, copying one’s favourite albums and buying pirated copies of expensive Western records at affordable prices was considered a crime in Poland.

Borys quotes Anna Bimer’s statement in an article for Machina about the first Gala of Popular and Sidewalk Songs: ‘Thanks to disco polo, the type of dance party popular in small villages was warmly welcomed even in the capital’. City dwellers and intellectuals were horrified that disco polo bands performed in the same concert hall as The Rolling Stones and Miles Davis. It’s worth looking at this from a different angle. Although critics and researchers still divide culture into high and low, elite and popular, it often doesn’t accurately reflect the reality around us. An example of this is the famous Gala Piosenki Chodnikowej i Popularnej (Gala of Sidewalk and Popular Songs) – a variety show in Congress Hall, recorded and broadcast by TVP in 1992. Between the concerts, a string quartet appeared on the stage and played the song Biały Miś (White Teddy Bear) in an arrangement stylized on the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This was the first, unofficial performance of Grupa MoCarta – a technically outstanding cabaret string quartet. Precisely 10 years later, in 2002, they performed alongside Bobby McFerrin in the same venue during Warsaw Summer Jazz Days.

Reading the debates between intellectuals about disco polo quoted in Polski Bajer, originally printed in Tygodnik Powszechny, Gazeta Wyborcza and Polityka, one notices, above all, the condescension with which this musical genre adored by millions of Poles was treated. In 1996, Tadeusz Sobolewski complained in Polityka: ‘We lack a reflection, a screen for our inner experiences. Disco polo lurks everywhere. Disco polo is entering the space abandoned by art’. A year later, Robert Leszczyński triumphantly announced in Gazeta Wyborcza: ‘For a few months now, the production of disco polo music tapes has been taking a nosedive! Disco polo is losing to pop music and is once again becoming nothing more than provincial folklore’.

The reverse of these elite discussions is presented by Sierakowska in Z Tym Trzeba Się Urodzić (You Have to Be Born With This), in which she describes disco polo fans. Artur Wróbel from Orneta has been running the Disco Polo Fan Club for over twenty years – its members pray for Zenek Martyniuk every day. Despite his physical disability, Wróbel attends most of the important festivals and smaller events in Warmia. Everyone in the industry knows him; he no longer has to buy any records for himself – record labels send them to him. He managed to arrange a performance for Zenek in his hometown. Ania Malon, who suffers from hydrocephalus, befriended Marcin Miller – the vocalist of the disco polo band Boys. He calls her his biggest fan, and he always greets her when he sees her in the audience. The rest of his fans aren’t very happy about that, for they would also like to attract their idol’s attention. Katrinka from Suwałki follows disco polo bands all around Poland; she befriended the singer Etna and knows many musicians personally. Sławomir Skręta, founder of the famous Blue Star record label, said:

A letter that stands out in our memory was written by a young girl from a small town. She had a large family that was struggling financially because her dad had recently lost his job and her mum was raising the children. She asked if we could help her. We sent her cassette tapes and various materials. After receiving the package notification, she ran to the post office. Then she went home and found out that her dad had found a job and their cow had given birth to three calves that very day. When we read this letter out loud, even the stock clerk who works in the warehouse here cried.

Monika Borys did excellent research, quoting dozens of interesting, sometimes bizarre articles from newspapers and magazines. By interpreting song lyrics and music videos, a coherent and intriguing picture of the fantasy of a bygone era comes into focus – it was an era that yearned for colour, exoticism and wealth. While searching for these values, Shazza – the most popular female disco polo singer – built an image for herself that evoked visions of ancient Egypt. Borys strives to understand and present all the social and cultural circumstances of the people she writes about, but sometimes she comes off as slightly too condescending – for example, when she describes the satin outfit worn by the vocalist of Bayer Full, in which she perceives ‘a style in the manner of a contemporary Sarmatian proudly trying to hide a provincial inferiority complex so as to get closer to greatness in the kitschiest way possible’.

In her interviews with musicians and organisers of disco polo events, Judyta Sierakowska unearthed a great deal of information that hadn’t been published in the press. This is particularly evident in the chapter describing the connections between disco polo and the mafia or the world of politics. In Borys’s book, we can find only commonly known facts on these topics, while history seems a lot more exciting in Sierakowska’s book. Jerzy Ślubowski, from the band Fanatic, recalls how members of competing gangs were seen at the headquarters of the Blue Star record label. And Miller reveals that his wife, while watching TV programmes about the mafia, often told him: ‘Marcin, you spoke with this or that person, you sat with this guy, you shook that guy’s hand’. The singer maintains that he didn’t pay any attention to them. In the chapter devoted to politics, we learn, among other things, that the band Top One never got paid by the election campaign of Aleksander Kwaśniewski, for whom he recorded the unforgettable song Ole Olek!; they weren’t even thanked. They were very bitter about it, all the more so because Sylwester Raciborski, who wrote the song’s lyrics, privately supported Lech Wałęsa.

Sierakowska approaches some issues, especially those related to business, in extreme detail. I’m not sure, however, if this abundance of information is necessary for general disco polo fans and non-professionals. It should be included in an academic study rather than in such a collection of articles. In her book, the disco polo artists sometimes utter total clichés. Sierakowska is a sociologist by education, so I understand why she quotes them verbatim, without cutting anything out – at least that’s how it seems from a reader’s perspective. Well, sometimes it’s worth taking pains to enter more deeply into a world which nobody has given enough attention.

'Disco Relax' at the Ethnographic Museum [gallery]

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display gallery as slider

In 2019, the world of disco polo even made its way to the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. An exhibition designed by Bartosz Wójcik and Monika Borys titled Disco Relaks explored disco polo as an aesthetic and social system and examined the changes in social mores that it triggered. After all, disco polo is a child of the political transformation in Poland; it could only have been created in a free market not controlled by anyone. In addition to disco polo iconography and music videos – the classic ones as well as those that put a new spin on disco polo such as Discopolka by the band Gang Śródmieście – the exhibition included objects from the museum’s collection (for example, paintings by Teofil Ociepka). The exhibited objects didn’t make direct reference to disco polo music but rather commented on the spirit of those times. Everyday life blended with imagination: armchairs from that period were placed next to a small shrine in which a statuette of the Virgin Mary was surrounded by seashells. The exhibition was far from being a historical reconstruction, and this can be seen in the fact that a great deal of emphasis in its narrative was placed on works by women. After all, the telling of the past can also be a kind of intervention in history – ‘feminopolo’ has always been a minor genre on the periphery.

New disco polo songs are very similar to each other. After all, they’re created with the same computer programs offering identical samples. Nobody immerses themselves in the sound of old synthesizers anymore; new Polish dance music is boring and predictable. Furthermore, the lyrics are usually just about parties, money and girls. Women are treated as sex objects in these songs – classic disco polo was much more romantic. Both books lack the authors’ personal stories and the sources of their interest in disco polo. Admittedly, we can find fragments of Sierakowska’s personal story in her book, but they’re definitely not enough to paint a full picture.

On the margins of the discussion of disco polo and research into its meaning and history, it’s worth remembering that many of the aesthetically interesting songs released in the 1990s can be appreciated without any irony. Someone who is very aware of this is DJ Duch (also known as DJ Ryan R) – a Wrocław-based music producer and collector of musical curiosities. A record label called The Very Polish Cut Outs has just released a mixtape dedicated to underground electronic music and the peripheries of popular music. It is ideal supplementary material for a discussion about the first decade of the Third Polish Republic.

Translated by Scotia Gilroy

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