Thelma Houston opens up about why she believes “haters” came for disco back in the ’70s, before sharing her thoughts on the recent revival and why it’s still “kickin.'”
Disco is anything but dead!
TooFab spoke with a legend in the genre, Thelma Houston, after she was unmasked as the Clock on The Masked Singer Wednesday night, about making it to the semi-finals, and her thoughts on artists like Beyoncé and Dua Lipa bringing disco back to the forefront.
“For a time, disco in the ’70s — everybody was embracing it because it was fun and people danced to it, and there were some good songs that came out of that period of time,” Houston began. “And then, the haters came in, for whatever reason — and maybe it’s because disco got to be a little crazy, everybody thought, ‘If I put something out and it goes, ‘pst pst pst pst,’ if it has that kind of a beat to it, then that’s disco.'”
She continued, “And it ruined it, I think. And then it made people start hating it. But the actual dance music never went away. I still had an audience, I could still work, it’s just that the PR behind disco kinda bad.”
As for her thoughts on disco’s revival with albums like Renaissance from Beyoncé and Dua Lipa’s Barbie banger, “Dance the Night,” Houston said she loves to see it.
“I think that it’s a good thing,” Houston shared. “Because people like to be able to dance. And it’s a party.”
According to the singer, disco is still “kickin’ … real high!”
With her appearance on The Masked Singer, Houston — who made it through to the semi-finals of the singing competition series — said she wanted to introduce herself to a new generation and is confident she did that and much more.
“I don’t usually do that, read the social [media] commentary, because I don’t want to be getting mad at anybody, but I did see the comments that were coming in, and also from the audience — even though you just had this little thing that you could see through, there were a lot of young people in the audience,” Houston remarked.
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The experience also took Houston out of her comfort zone, and not just because she had to wear a giant clock on her head. Singing songs picked out for her in various vocal ranges and by an array of artists, allowed her to try new things on stage.
“I thought that you can just go in, and you just pick, ‘I want to sing this song and that song,’ and I had gotten my little list together, but it’s not quite like that,” the “Don’t Leave Me This Way” singer quipped. “They have theme nights and they have the Billy Joel night and they had the shower theme night, and so you’re doing songs, some songs that I probably wouldn’t do ordinarily.”
While she initially tried to mask her voice just like she did her identity, Houston learned early on that there are far bigger things to worry about while on TMS than concealing her signature sound — like not tripping while moving across the stage.
“I thought I had to do that to not let my voice be identifiable,” Houston said of her rousing rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” earlier in the season. “But after that Billy Joel song, and trying to negotiate moving and the choreography and all this other stuff, I didn’t have time to try and think about changing my voice.”
“So I just said, ‘Honey, you just let the chips fall where they may,” she added.
Houston said that while she uncomfortable at first, she enjoyed the experience and is even planning to incorporate a Clock setlist to her shows when she goes on tour this summer.”
“Sometimes, audiences might like to be introduced to other material. So, of course they’re going to come and see you do what they know you do, but then you can slide some other stuff in there,” Houston said. “So, now I’m thinking, ‘I’m gonna have to put together a little Clock [set list].'”
“There will be a little piece, and I will have my little theme song in there, a little bit of Billy Joel, a little bit of ‘Singing In the Shower,'” she teased.
For more on Houston’s run on The Masked Singer, watch the video below. The Masked Singer season finale airs next week.
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