Twenty years later came a bombshell. In December 1997 New York magazine published an article in which Cohn confessed that there never was a Vincent. There was no “Lisa”, “Billy”, “John James”, “Lorraine” or “Donna” either. While 2001 Odyssey existed, it wasn’t the way the writer described it in 1976. The whole scene of disco-loving Italians, as mythologised in Saturday Night Fever, was exaggerated. The most bizarre detail was that his disco protagonists were in fact based on mods Cohn had known in London. The writer was “painfully aware” that everything Fever had brought him – the fame, the fortune – was the result of a lie.So, "disco culture" was never a real thing. No kidding. The best part about it, though? The reaction to the fakery of disco was the very real, visceral, primal Punk/New Wave music. The reaction was built on the foundation of truly popular music and carried pop culture into new creative territory.
Two things should have tipped off our media thought-leaders about the artificiality of disco:
1. Every bar and nightclub that shifted to a disco theme went broke, and
2. Comiskey Park, 1979.