Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightlife, particularly in African-American, Italian-American, Gay and Latino communities. Its sound features four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pianos, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.

Discothèques, mostly a French invention, were imported to the United States with the opening of Le Club, a members-only restaurant and nightclub at 416 East 55th Street in Manhattan, by French expatriate Olivier Coquelin, on New Year's Eve 1960.

Disco music originated from music popular with African Americans, Latino Americans, and Italian Americans in New York City (especially Brooklyn) and Philadelphia from the late 1960s to the mid-to-late 1970s. Disco can be seen as a reaction by the 1960s counterculture to both the dominance of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music. Several dance styles developed during '70s disco's popularity in the United States, including "the Bump", "the Hustle", "the Watergate", "the Continental", and "the Busstop".

During the 1970s, disco music developed, mainly by artists from the United States and Europe. Well-known artists included the Bee Gees, ABBA, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Giorgio Moroder, Baccara, George Michael, The Jacksons, George Benson, Michael Jackson, The O’Jays, Prince, Boney M, Earth Wind & Fire, Irene Cara, Rick James, ELO, Average White Band, Chaka Khan, Chic, KC and the Sunshine Band, Lionel Richie, The Commodores, Parliament-Funkadelic, Thelma Houston, Sister Sledge, Sylvester, The Trammps, Barry White, Diana Ross, Kool & the Gang, and Village People. While performers gained public attention, record producers played an important behind-the-scenes role in developing the genre. By the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had thriving disco scenes, and DJs would mix dance records at clubs like Studio 54 in Manhattan, popular among celebrities. Nightclub-goers often wore expensive, extravagant outfits, mainly loose, flowing pants or dresses for ease of movement while dancing. The disco scene also had a thriving drug subculture, particularly drugs that enhanced the experience of dancing to loud music and flashing lights, such as cocaine and quaaludes, so common in the disco subculture that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits". Disco clubs were also associated with promiscuity, reflecting the sexual revolution of the era. Films such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) contributed to disco's mainstream popularity.

Disco declined as a major popular music trend in the United States after the infamous Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, and continued its sharp decline in the U.S. during the early 1980s. However, it remained popular in Italy and some European countries throughout the 1980s, also gaining popularity elsewhere, including India and the Middle East, where disco aspects blended with regional folk styles like ghazals and belly dancing. Disco eventually became a key influence in the development of electronic dance music, house music, hip hop, new wave, dance-punk, and post-disco. The style has seen several revivals since the 1990s, with its influence remaining strong across American and European pop music. A revival, underway since the early 2010s, gained great popularity in the early 2020s. Albums contributing to this revival include Confessions on a Dance Floor, Random Access Memories, Future Nostalgia, and Kylie Minogue's Disco. Modern artists like Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Sabrina Carpenter, Bruno Mars and Silk Sonic continue the genre's popularity, introducing it to a younger generation.

Etymology

The term "disco" is short for discothèque, a French word (derived from "bibliothèque") meaning "library of phonograph records." In the 1950s, "discotheque" had this same meaning in English. Discothèque came to refer to a Parisian nightclub in French, after clubs resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, an English magazine also used the term to describe a Parisian nightclub.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Discotheque as "A dance hall, nightclub, or similar venue with recorded music for dancing, typically featuring a large dance floor, elaborate flashing coloured lights, and a powerful amplified sound system. " Its earliest use is as a venue name in 1952; other examples date from 1960. The entry is annotated as "Now somewhat dated". It defines Disco as "A genre of strongly rhythmical pop music mainly intended for dancing in nightclubs and particularly popular in the mid to late 1970s.", with use from 1975, noting its origin as a shortened form of discotheque.

In summer 1964, a short sleeveless dress called the "discotheque dress" was briefly popular in the United States. The abbreviated form "disco" first appeared describing this dress in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964; Playboy used it that September to describe Los Angeles nightclubs.

Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the 13 September 1973 feature article Discotheque Rock '72: Paaaaarty! for Rolling Stone.

Musical characteristics

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The music typically layered soaring, often-reverberated vocals, often doubled by horns, over a background "pad" of electric pianos and "chicken-scratch" rhythm guitars played on an electric guitar. Lead guitar features less frequently in disco than in rock. "The "rooster scratch" sound is achieved by lightly pressing the guitar strings against the fretboard and then quickly releasing them just enough to get a slightly muted poker [sound] while constantly strumming very close to the bridge." Other backing keyboard instruments include the piano, electric organ (during early years), string synthesizers, and electromechanical keyboards such as the Fender Rhodes electric piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, and Hohner Clavinet. Donna Summer's 1977 song "I Feel Love", produced by Giorgio Moroder with a prominent Moog synthesizer on the beat, was one of the first disco tracks to use the synthesizer.Template:Sfn

The rhythm features prominent, syncopated basslines (with heavy use of broken octaves, notes sounded one after the other) played on bass guitar and by drummers using a drum kit, African/Latin percussion, and electronic drums such as Simmons and Roland drum modules. In Philly dance and Salsoul disco, the sound was enriched with solo and harmony parts played by various orchestral instruments, including violin, viola, cello, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, flugelhorn, French horn, English horn, oboe, flute, timpani and synth strings, string section or a full string orchestra.

Most disco songs feature a steady four-on-the-floor beat with a bass drum, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat pattern often including an open, hissing hi-hat on the off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line.Template:Sfn A recording error in the 1975 song "Bad Luck" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, in which Earl Young's hi-hat was excessively loud, reportedly established loud hi-hats in disco.Template:Sfn Other Latin rhythms like the rhumba, samba, and cha-cha-cha also appear in disco recordings; Latin polyrhythms, such as a rhumba beat layered over a merengue, are common. The quaver pattern is often supported by instruments like the rhythm guitar and may be implied rather than explicit.

Songs often use syncopation, the accenting of unexpected beats. Unlike rock or pop songs, disco and other dance music feature the bass drum hitting four to the floor (on every beat, four per measure in 4/4 time). Disco also features a 16th note division of the quarter notes (as shown in the second drum pattern in the picture above, after a typical rock drum pattern).

The orchestral sound known as "disco sound" features string sections and horns playing linear phrases in unison with soaring, often reverberated vocals, or providing instrumental fills, while electric pianos and chicken-scratch guitars create the background "pad" sound defining the harmony progression. Typically, this doubling of parts and additional instrumentation creates a rich "wall of sound". However, more minimalist disco exists with reduced, transparent instrumentation.

Disco music typically features major and minor seven chords, more common in jazz than pop.

Production

The "disco sound" was more costly than most other 1970s popular music genres. Unlike the simpler sound of four-piece funk bands, late 1960s soul music, or small jazz organ trios, disco music often featured a large band, with multiple chordal instruments (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer), various drum and percussion instruments (drumkit, Latin percussion, electronic drums), a horn section, a string orchestra, and diverse classical solo instruments (e.g., flute, piccolo).

Experienced arrangers and orchestrators arranged and composed disco songs, with record producers adding creative touches to the sound using multitrack recording techniques and effects units. Recording complex arrangements, often with many instruments and sections, required a team including a conductor, copyists, record producers, and mixing engineers. Mixing engineers played an important role in disco production, as disco songs used up to 64 tracks for vocals and instruments. Mixing engineers and record producers, under the direction of arrangers, compiled these tracks into a fluid composition of verses, bridges, and refrains, complete with builds and breaks. Mixing engineers and record producers helped develop the "disco sound" by creating a distinctive, sophisticated disco mix.

Early records were the "standard" three-minute version until Tom Moulton devised a way to make songs longer, allowing him to keep club dancers on the floor longer. He found it impossible to make the 45-RPM vinyl singles of the time longer, as they typically held no more than five minutes of good-quality music. With his remaster/mastering engineer, José Rodriguez, he pressed a single on a 10" disc instead of 7". They cut the next single on a 12" disc, the same format as a standard album. Moulton and Rodriguez discovered these larger records could accommodate much longer songs and remixes. 12" single records, also known as "Maxi singles", quickly became the standard format for disco DJs.

Club culture

Nightclubs

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Blue disco quad roller skates.

By the late 1970s, most major US cities had thriving disco club scenes. The largest scenes were primarily in New York City but also in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington, D.C. The scene centered on discotheques, nightclubs and private loft parties.

In the 1970s, notable discos included "Crisco Disco", "The Sanctuary", "Leviticus", "Studio 54", and "Paradise Garage" in New York, "Artemis" in Philadelphia, "Studio One" in Los Angeles, "Dugan's Bistro" in Chicago, and "The Library" in Atlanta.

In the late 1970s, Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan was arguably the best-known nightclub in the world. It was instrumental in the growth of disco music and nightclub culture. Operated by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, it was notorious for its hedonism: its balconies were known for sexual encounters and rampant drug use. Its dance floor featured an image of the "Man in the Moon" with an animated cocaine spoon.

The "Copacabana", another 1940s New York nightclub, revived in the late 1970s by embracing disco; it became the setting for a Barry Manilow song of the same name.

In Washington, D.C., large disco clubs like "The Pier" ("Pier 9") and "The Other Side", originally considered exclusively "gay bars", gained particular popularity among gay and straight college students in the capital area in the late '70s.

By 1979, 15,000-20,000 disco nightclubs existed in the US, many opening in suburban shopping centers, hotels, and restaurants. 2001 Club franchises were the country's most prolific disco club chain. Though many tried to franchise disco clubs, 2001 was the only one to succeed during this period.

Sound and light equipment

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Major disco clubs had lighted dance floors, with the lights flashing to complement the beat.

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The reflective light disco ball was a fixture on the ceilings of many discothèques.

Powerful, bass-heavy hi-fi sound systems were essential to the disco club experience. The Loft host David Mancuso introduced tweeter arrays (small, high-frequency loudspeakers above the floor) and bass reinforcements (ground-level subwoofers) in the early 1970s to boost treble and bass at opportune moments. By the decade's end, sound engineers such as Richard Long amplified the effects of these innovations in venues like the Garage.

Disco dance floor lighting typically includes swirling or flashing multi-colored lights, strobe lights, an illuminated dance floor, and a mirror ball.

DJs

Disco-era disc jockeys (DJs) remixed songs using reel-to-reel tape machines, adding percussion breaks, sections, and sounds. DJs selected songs and grooves based on dancer preferences, transitioning between songs with a DJ mixer and using a microphone to introduce songs and address audiences. DJs added equipment to their basic setup for unique sound manipulations like reverb, equalization, and echo effects unit. Using this equipment, DJs could perform effects like cutting out all but a song's bassline and slowly mixing in another using the DJ mixer's crossfader. Notable U.S. disco DJs include Francis Grasso of The Sanctuary, David Mancuso of The Loft, Frankie Knuckles of the Chicago Warehouse, Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage, Nicky Siano of The Gallery, Walter Gibbons, Karen Mixon Cook, Jim Burgess, John "Jellybean" Benitez, Richie Kulala of Studio 54, and Rick Salsalini.

Some DJs were also record producers who produced disco songs in the recording studio. Larry Levan, for example, was a prolific record producer and a DJ. Because record sales often depended on DJs' dance floor play in nightclubs, DJs also influenced the development and popularization of certain types of disco music produced for record labels.

Dance

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Disco dancers typically wore loose slacks for men and flowing dresses for women, which enabled ease of movement on the dance floor.

Initially, disco dancers adopted a "hang loose" or "freestyle" approach, improvising their own styles and steps. Later in the disco era, popular styles developed, including the "Bump", "Penguin", "Boogaloo", "Watergate", and "Robot". By October 1975 the Hustle reigned. It was highly stylized, sophisticated, and overtly sexual. Variations included the Brooklyn Hustle, New York Hustle, and Latin Hustle.

During the disco era, many nightclubs hosted disco dance competitions or offered free lessons. Some cities had instructors or schools teaching popular disco dances like "touch dancing", "the hustle", and "the cha cha". Karen Lustgarten pioneered disco dance instruction in San Francisco in 1973. Her book The Complete Guide to Disco Dancing (Warner Books 1978) was the first to name, break down, and codify popular disco dances as forms, distinguishing between freestyle, partner, and line dances. The book was a New York Times bestseller for 13 weeks and was translated into Chinese, German, and French.

In Chicago, the Step By Step disco dance TV show launched with Coca-Cola sponsorship. Produced in the same studio as Don Cornelius's nationally syndicated dance/music television show, Soul Train, Step by Step grew successful. Dynamic dance duo Robin and Reggie led the show. The pair spent the week teaching disco dancing in clubs. The instructional show aired Saturday mornings to a strong following. Viewers stayed up Friday nights to be on set Saturday morning, ready to return to the disco Saturday night with the latest personalized steps. Producers John Reid and Greg Roselli routinely appeared at disco functions with Robin and Reggie to scout new dancing talent and promote events like "Disco Night at White Sox Park".

In Sacramento, California, Disco King Paul Dale Roberts danced for the Guinness Book of World Records for 205 hours (8½ days). He briefly held the world record for disco dancing, as other dance marathons followed.

Disco was influenced by art, notably the atypical song Bend It (1969) by British artists Gilbert & George. The song featured special dance moves that unprecedentedly blur the distinction between art and pop culture.

Notable professional dance troupes of the 1970s included Pan's People and Hot Gossip. For many dancers, 1970s disco dancing drew key inspiration from films like Saturday Night Fever (1977), Fame (1980), Disco Dancer (1982), Flashdance (1983), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). Interest in disco dancing also helped spawn dance competition TV shows such as Dance Fever (1979).

Fashion

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Dancers at an East German discothèque in 1977. Due to the constant scarcity of consumer goods in the then socialist part of Germany, particularly more exotic fashion items like disco wear, people often sewed them themselves.

Disco fashions were trendy in the late 1970s. Discothèque-goers often wore glamorous, expensive, and extravagant fashions to disco clubs. Some women wore sheer, flowing Halston dresses or loose, flared pants. Others wore tight, revealing clothes like backless halter tops, disco pants, "hot pants", or body-hugging spandex bodywear or "catsuits". Men wore shiny polyester Qiana shirts with colorful patterns and pointy, extra-wide collars, often open at the chest. Men often wore Pierre Cardin suits, three piece suits with a vest, and double-knit polyester shirt jackets with matching trousers, known as the leisure suit. Men's leisure suits were typically form-fitted at the waist and bottom, while the lower part of the pants flared in a bell bottom style to permit freedom of movement.

During the disco era, men practiced elaborate grooming and chose fashionable clothing, activities considered "feminine" by the era's gender stereotypes. Women wore glitter makeup, sequins, or gold lamé that shimmered under the lights. Bold colors were popular for both genders. Platform shoes and boots were popular for both genders, as were high heels for women. Necklaces and medallions were a common fashion accessory. Less commonly, some disco dancers wore outlandish costumes, dressed in drag, covered their bodies with gold or silver paint, or very skimpy, nearly nude outfits; such attire was more common at invitation-only New York City loft parties and disco clubs.

Drug subculture

The disco club scene, alongside its dance and fashion aspects, also fostered a thriving club drug subculture, especially drugs enhancing the dancing experience to loud, bass-heavy music and flashing colored lights, including cocaine (nicknamed "blow"), amyl nitrite ("poppers"), and the "... other quintessential 1970s club drug Quaalude, which suspended motor coordination and gave the sensation that one's arms and legs had turned to 'Jell-O.Template:'" So popular were Quaaludes at disco clubs that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits".

Paul Gootenberg states "[t]he relationship of cocaine to 1970s disco culture cannot be stressed enough..." During the 1970s, the use of cocaine by well-to-do celebrities led to its "glamorization" and to the widely held view that it was a "soft drug". LSD, marijuana, and "speed" were also popular in disco clubs; their use "...contributed to the hedonistic quality of the dance floor experience." As disco dances were typically held in liquor licensed nightclubs and dance clubs, dancers also consumed alcoholic drinks; some users intentionally combined alcohol with other drugs, such as Quaaludes, for a stronger effect.

Eroticism and sexual liberation

According to Peter Braunstein, the "massive quantities of drugs ingested in discothèques produced the next cultural phenomenon of the disco era: rampant promiscuity and public sex. While the dance floor was the central arena of seduction, actual sex usually took place in the nether regions of the disco: bathroom stalls, exit stairwells, and so on. In other cases the disco became a kind of 'main course' in a hedonist's menu for a night out." At The Saint nightclub, a high percentage of the gay male dancers and patrons would have sex in the club; they typically had unprotected sex, because in 1980, HIV-AIDS had not yet been identified. At The Saint, "dancers would elope to an unpoliced upstairs balcony to engage in sex." The promiscuity and public sex at discos was part of a broader trend towards exploring a freer sexual expression in the 1970s, an era that is also associated with "swingers clubs, hot tubs, [and] key parties."

In "In Defense of Disco" (1979), Richard Dyer claims eroticism as one of disco's three main characteristics. Unlike rock music, whose phallic-centered eroticism focuses on male sexual pleasure, Dyer describes disco as having a non-phallic, full-body eroticism. Through varied percussion instruments, rhythmic playfulness, and endlessly repeating phrases without abrupt cuts, disco achieved this full-body eroticism by restoring it to the entire body for both sexes. This enabled the expression of sexualities not defined by the cock/penis, and erotic pleasure for bodies not defined by a relationship to a penis. The sexual liberation inherent in disco's rhythm is also reflected in the club spaces where disco emerged.

Peter Shapiro, in Modulations: A History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound, discusses eroticism through the technology disco uses to create its audacious sound. The music, Shapiro states, is adjunct to "the pleasure-is-politics ethos of post-Stonewall culture." He explains 'mechano-eroticism'—linking the technology creating disco's unique mechanical sound to eroticism—set the genre in a new dimension beyond naturalism and heterosexuality. Randy Jones and Mark Jacobsen echo this in BBC Radio's "The Politics of Dancing: How Disco Changed the World," describing the loose, hip-focused dance style as "a new kind of communion" celebrating the liberation sparked by the Stonewall riots. With New York state laws against public homosexual behavior, including same-sex dancing, disco's eroticism served as resistance and an expression of sexual freedom.

He cites Donna Summer's singles "Love to Love You Baby" (1975) and "I Feel Love" (1977) to illustrate the link between synthesized bass lines and backgrounds and simulated orgasm sounds. Shapiro likens Summer's echoing voice in the tracks to drug-fervent, sexually liberated disco fans seeking freedom through disco's "aesthetic of machine sex." He sees this influence creating sub-genres like hi-NRG and dub-disco, which further explored eroticism and technology through intense synth bass lines and alternative rhythmic techniques that engage the entire body rather than its obvious erotic parts.

The New York nightclub The Sanctuary, under resident DJ Francis Grasso, exemplified this sexual liberty. Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, in their history of the disc jockey and club culture, describe the Sanctuary as "poured full of newly liberated gay men, then shaken (and stirred) by a weighty concoction of dance music and pharmacoia of pills and potions, the result is a festivaly of carnality."Template:Sfn The Sanctuary was the "first totally uninhibited gay discotheque in America". While sex was not allowed on the dancefloor, its dark corners, bathrooms, and adjacent hallways were utilized for orgy-like sexual engagements.Template:Sfn

Brewster and Broughton describe the music, drugs, and liberated mentality as a trifecta that formed a festival of carnality, citing these three as stimuli for the dancing, sex, and other embodied movements contributing to the Sanctuary's corporeal vibrations. This supports the argument that disco music facilitated the sexual liberation experienced in discotheques. The recent legalization of abortion and the introduction of antibiotics and the pill shifted sexual culture from procreation to pleasure. This fostered a very sex-positive framework around discotheques.Template:Sfn

In addition to gay sex being illegal in New York state, until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as an illness.Template:Sfn This law and classification together heavily dissuaded the public expression of queerness; as such, the liberatory dynamics of discotheques provided a space for self-realization for queer persons. David Mancuso's club/house party, The Loft, was described as having a "pansexual attitude [that] was revolutionary in a country where up until recently it had been illegal for two men to dance together unless there was a woman present; where women were legally obliged to wear at least one recognizable item of female clothing in public; and where men visiting gay bars usually carried bail money with them."Template:Sfn

History

1940s–1960s: First discotheques

Disco developed largely from popular dance music played in clubs that began using records instead of live bands. The first discotheques primarily played swing music. Later, uptempo rhythm and blues gained popularity in American clubs, and northern soul and glam rock records in the UK. In the early 1940s, nightclubs in Paris resorted to playing jazz records during the Nazi occupation.

Régine Zylberberg claimed to have started the first discotheque and been the first club DJ in 1953 at Paris's "Whisky à Go-Go". She installed a dance floor with colored lights and two turntables to ensure continuous music playback. In October 1959, the owner of the Scotch Club in Aachen, West Germany opted for a record player instead of a live band for the opening night. Patrons were unimpressed until a young reporter, covering the club's opening, impulsively took control of the record player and played his chosen records. Klaus Quirini later claimed to be the world's first nightclub DJ.

1960s–1974: Precursors and early disco music

During the 1960s, discotheque dancing became a European trend enthusiastically embraced by the American press. As discotheque culture gained popularity in the United States, several danceable music genres became popular and evolved into sub-genres: rhythm and blues (originated in the 1940s), soul (late 1950s and 1960s), funk (mid-1960s) and go-go (mid-1960s and 1970s; more than "disco", the word "go-go" originally indicated a music club). Music genres primarily performed by African-American musicians influenced much of early disco.

Also during the 1960s, Motown developed an approach, described as: "1) simply structured songs with sophisticated melodies and chord changes, 2) a relentless four-beat drum pattern, 3) a gospel use of background voices, vaguely derived from the style of the Impressions, 4) a regular and sophisticated use of both horns and strings, 5) lead singers who were halfway between pop and gospel music, 6) a group of accompanying musicians who were among the most dextrous, knowledgeable, and brilliant in all of popular music (Motown bassists have long been the envy of white rock bassists) and 7) a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing (boosting the high range frequencies) to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio." Motown had many hits with disco elements by acts like Eddie Kendricks ("Girl You Need a Change of Mind" in 1972, "Keep on Truckin'" in 1973, "Boogie Down" in 1974).

At the end of the 1960s, musicians, and audiences from the Black, Italian, and Latino communities adopted several traits from the hippie and psychedelia subcultures. They included using music venues with a loud, overwhelming sound, free-form dancing, trippy lighting, colorful costumes, and the use of hallucinogenic drugs. In addition, the perceived positivity, lack of irony, and earnestness of the hippies informed proto-disco music like MFSB's album Love Is the Message. Jimi Hendrix's success helped introduce late 1960s psychedelic rock elements into soul and early funk music, forming the subgenre psychedelic soul. Examples include the music of the Chambers Brothers, George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic collective, Sly and the Family Stone, and Norman Whitfield's productions with The Temptations.

The long instrumental introductions and detailed orchestration in psychedelic soul tracks by the Temptations are also considered cinematic soul. In the early 1970s, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes scored hits with cinematic soul songs composed for movie soundtracks: "Superfly" (1972) and "Theme from Shaft" (1971). The latter is sometimes regarded as an early disco song. From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Philadelphia soul developed as a sub-genre also featuring lavish percussion, lush string orchestra arrangements, and expensive record production. In the early 1970s, Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia soul productions evolved from simpler late-1960s arrangements into a style featuring lush strings, thumping basslines, and sliding hi-hat rhythms. These elements, which would become typical of disco music, are found in several of their early 1970s hits:

• "Love Train" by the O'Jays (backed by MFSB) was released in 1972 and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1973
• "The Love I Lost" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (1973)
• "Now That We Found Love" by The O'Jays (1973), later a hit for Third World in 1978
• "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" by MFSB featuring The Three Degrees on vocals, a wordless theme for Soul Train and a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974

Other early disco tracks that shaped disco and became popular in (underground) discotheques and parties include:

• "Jungle Fever" by The Chakachas was released in Belgium in 1971 and the U.S. in 1972, reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• "Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango, initially released in France in 1972, was picked up by New York's underground disco scene and subsequently given a proper U.S. release, charting at #35 on the Hot 100 in 1973.
• "The Night" by the Four Seasons, released in 1972, was not immediately popular. It later appealed to the Northern soul scene, becoming a UK hit in 1975
• "Love's Theme" by the Love Unlimited Orchestra, conducted by Barry White, an instrumental song originally featured on Under the Influence of... Love Unlimited in July 1973; it was released as a single from the album in November that year, and White later included it on his debut album.
• "Sound Your Funky Horn" by KC and the Sunshine Band in 1974
• "Rock Your Baby" by George McCrae in 1974
• "Do It" by B.T. Express in 1974
• "Boogie Down" by Eddie Kendricks in 1974
• "If You Talk In Your Sleep" by Elvis Presley in 1974.

Early disco was dominated by record producers and labels such as Salsoul Records (Ken, Stanley, and Joseph Cayre), West End Records (Mel Cheren), Casablanca (Neil Bogart), and Prelude (Marvin Schlachter). The genre was also shaped by Tom Moulton, who created the extended mix or "remix" to prolong dance songs, transforming three-minute 45 rpm singles into much longer 12" records. Other influential DJs and remixers who helped establish the "disco sound" included David Mancuso, Nicky Siano, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, and Chicago-based Frankie Knuckles. Frankie Knuckles was an important disco DJ who also helped develop house music in the 1980s.

Disco aired on television, notably on the music/dance variety show Don Cornelius's Soul Train (1971), followed by Marty Angelo's Disco Step-by-Step Television Show (1975), Steve Marcus's Disco Magic/Disco 77, Eddie Rivera's Soap Factory, and Merv Griffin's Dance Fever, hosted by Deney Terrio, who is credited with teaching John Travolta to dance for his role in Saturday Night Fever (1977), as well as DANCE, based out of Columbia, South Carolina.

In 1974, New York City's WPIX-FM premiered the first disco radio show.

Early disco culture in the United States

The 1970s marked the fading of the counterculture of the 1960s, such as the hippie movement. Economic prosperity from the previous decade had declined, with unemployment, inflation, and crime rates soaring. Political issues like the backlash from the Civil Rights Movement, culminating in race riots, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, and the Watergate scandal, left many disillusioned and hopeless. The early 1970s also marked a shift in American consciousness, shaped by the rise of the feminist movement, identity politics, and gangs. Disco music and dancing offered an escape from negative social and economic issues.Template:Sfn Its non-partnered style allowed people of all races and sexual orientations to enjoy the dancefloor atmosphere.

In Beautiful Things in Popular Culture, Simon Frith highlights the sociability of disco and its roots in 1960s counterculture. "The driving force of the New York underground dance scene in which disco was forged was not simply that city's complex ethnic and sexual culture but also a 1960s notion of community, pleasure and generosity that can only be described as hippie", he says. "The best disco music contained within it a remarkably powerful sense of collective euphoria."

The origins of disco are often traced to private dance parties held at New York City DJ David Mancuso's home, which became known as The Loft, an invitation-only non-commercial underground club that inspired many others. His first major party, "Love Saves The Day," was held in his Manhattan home on Valentine's Day 1970. Within months, the parties became weekly, and Mancuso continued holding them regularly into the 1990s. Mancuso required the music to be soulful, rhythmic, and convey messages of hope, redemption, or pride.Template:Sfn

When Mancuso hosted his first informal house parties, The Loft's attendees, largely from the gay community, were often harassed in gay bars and dance clubs, prompting many gay men to carry bail money. But at The Loft and other early, private discotheques, they could dance without fear of police action, thanks to Mancuso's underground, yet legal, policies. Vince Aletti described it "like going to party, completely mixed, racially and sexually, where there wasn't any sense of someone being more important than anyone else," and Alex Rosner added, "It was probably about sixty percent black and seventy percent gay...There was a mix of sexual orientation, there was a mix of races, mix of economic groups. A real mix, where the common denominator was music."Template:Sfn

Film critic Roger Ebert called the popular embrace of disco's exuberant dance moves an escape from "the general depression and drabness of the political and musical atmosphere of the late seventies." Pauline Kael, writing about the disco-themed film Saturday Night Fever, said the film and disco touched on "something deeply romantic, the need to move, to dance, and the need to be who you'd like to be. Nirvana is the dance; when the music stops, you return to being ordinary."

Early disco culture in the United Kingdom

In the late 1960s, uptempo soul with heavy beats and associated dance styles and fashion was adopted by the British mod scene, forming the northern soul movement. Originating at venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, it quickly spread to other UK dancehalls and nightclubs, including the Chateau Impney (Droitwich), Catacombs (Wolverhampton), the Highland Rooms at Blackpool Mecca, Golden Torch (Stoke-on-Trent), and Wigan Casino. As the beat became more uptempo and frantic in the early 1970s, northern soul dancing became more athletic, resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing. Featuring spins, flips, karate kicks, and backdrops, club dancing styles often drew inspiration from the stage performances of touring American soul acts like Little Anthony & the Imperials and Jackie Wilson.

In 1974, an estimated 25,000 mobile discos and 40,000 professional disc jockeys operated in the United Kingdom. Mobile discos were DJs who brought their own equipment to provide music for special events. Glam rock tracks were popular; for example, Gary Glitter's 1972 single "Rock and Roll Part 2" was popular on UK dance floors despite receiving little radio airplay.

1974–1977: Rise to mainstream

From 1974 to 1977, disco music gained popularity, with many songs topping charts. The Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" (1974), a US number-one single and million-seller, was an early disco chart-topper. That year, "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas, produced by Biddu, reached number one in both the UK and US. It became the year's best-selling single and, with 11 million records sold worldwide, one of the best-selling singles of all time. It significantly popularized disco. Another notable disco success that year was George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby": It also became the United Kingdom's first number one disco single.

In the northwestern United Kingdom, the northern soul explosion, which started in the late 1960s and peaked in 1974, made the region receptive to disco, which disc jockeys were bringing back from New York City. Some DJs' shift to newer sounds from the United States split the scene, as some abandoned 1960s soul and pushed a modern soul sound that tended to be more closely aligned with disco than soul.

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Gloria Gaynor in 1976

In 1975, Gloria Gaynor released her first vinyl album, Never Can Say Goodbye, featuring her remake of the Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye", "Honey Bee", and her disco version of "Reach Out (I'll Be There)". The album first topped the Billboard disco/dance charts in November 1974. In 1978, Gaynor's number-one disco hit, "I Will Survive", was seen as a symbol of female strength and a gay anthem, a status shared by her 1983 disco remake of "I Am What I Am". In 1979 she released "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)", a single popular in civil rights movements. Also in 1975, Vincent Montana Jr.'s Salsoul Orchestra released their Latin-flavored orchestral dance song "Salsoul Hustle", which reached number four on the Billboard Dance Chart; their 1976 hits included "Tangerine", a cover of a 1941 song, and "Nice 'n' Naasty".

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Advertisement for Silver Convention's "Fly, Robin, Fly", October 18, 1975

Songs such as Van McCoy's 1975 "The Hustle" and the humorous Joe Tex 1977 "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" named the popular disco dances "the Bump" and "the Hustle". Other notable early disco songs include Barry White's "You're the First, the Last, My Everything" (1974); Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" (1974)'; Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes' "Get Dancin'" (1974); Earth, Wind & Fire's "Shining Star" (1975); Silver Convention's "Fly, Robin, Fly" (1975) and "Get Up and Boogie" (1976); Vicki Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around" (1976); and "More, More, More" (1976) by Andrea True (a former pornographic actress during the Golden Age of Porn, an era largely concurrent with disco's peak).

Formed by Harry Wayne Casey (a.k.a. "KC") and Richard Finch, Miami's KC and the Sunshine Band released disco-definitive top-five singles between 1975 and 1977, including "Get Down Tonight", "That's the Way (I Like It)", "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty", "I'm Your Boogie Man", "Boogie Shoes", and "Keep It Comin' Love". During this period, rock bands like the English Electric Light Orchestra featured a violin sound in their songs that became a staple of disco music, as in the 1975 hit "Evil Woman", though the genre was orchestral rock.

Other disco producers such as Tom Moulton took ideas and techniques from dub music (which came with the increased Jamaican migration to New York City in the 1970s) to provide alternatives to the dominant "four on the floor" style. DJ Larry Levan used styles from dub and jazz and remixing techniques to create early house music, sparking the genre.

Motown turning disco

Norman Whitfield was an influential Motown records producer and songwriter, renowned for creating innovative "psychedelic soul" songs and many hits for Marvin Gaye, The Velvelettes, The Temptations, and Gladys Knight & the Pips. Around the 1968 production of The Temptations' Cloud Nine, he incorporated psychedelic influences and began producing longer, dance-friendly tracks with more elaborate rhythmic instrumental parts. An example is the 1972 psychedelic soul track "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", which appeared as an almost seven-minute single edit and an approximately 12-minute 12" version. By the early 1970s, many of Whitfield's productions increasingly evolved towards funk and disco, as heard on albums by the Undisputed Truth and The Jackson 5's 1973 album G.I.T.: Get It Together. The Undisputed Truth, a Motown act assembled by Whitfield to experiment with his psychedelic soul production techniques, found success with their 1971 song "Smiling Faces Sometimes". Their 1976 disco single "You + Me = Love" (number 43), produced by Whitfield, reached number 2 on the US dance chart.

In 1975, Whitfield left Motown, founding his own label Whitfield records, which also released "You + Me = Love". Whitfield produced further disco hits, including "Car Wash" (1976) by Rose Royce from the soundtrack to the 1976 film Car Wash. In 1977, singer, songwriter, and producer Willie Hutch, signed to Motown since 1970, then signed with Whitfield's new label, scoring a successful disco single with "In and Out" in 1982.

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Diana Ross in 1976

Other Motown artists also embraced disco. Diana Ross embraced disco with her 1976 hit "Love Hangover" from her self-titled album. Her 1980 dance classics "Upside Down" and "I'm Coming Out" were written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic. The Supremes, Ross's former group, scored disco hits without her, notably 1976's "I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking" and, their last charted single before disbanding, 1977's "You're My Driving Wheel".

At Motown's request to produce disco songs, Marvin Gaye released "Got to Give It Up" in 1978 despite his dislike of disco. He vowed not to record songs in the genre and wrote the song as a parody. However, several of Gaye's songs feature disco elements, including "I Want You" (1975). Stevie Wonder released the disco single "Sir Duke" in 1977 as a tribute to Duke Ellington, the influential jazz legend who died in 1974. Smokey Robinson left the Motown group The Miracles for a solo career in 1972 and released his third solo album A Quiet Storm in 1975, which spawned and lent its name to the "Quiet Storm" musical programming format and subgenre of R&B. It contained the disco single "Baby That's Backatcha". Other Motown artists who scored disco hits were Robinson's former group, the Miracles, with "Love Machine" (1975), Eddie Kendricks with "Keep On Truckin'" (1973), the Originals with "Down to Love Town" (1976), and Thelma Houston with her cover of the Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes song "Don't Leave Me This Way" (1976). The label continued to release successful songs into the 1980s with Rick James's "Super Freak" (1981), and the Commodores' "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" (1981).

Several Motown solo artists who left the label found success with disco songs. Mary Wells, Motown's first female superstar with her signature song "My Guy" (written by Smokey Robinson), abruptly left the label in 1964. She briefly charted with the disco song "Gigolo" in 1980. Jimmy Ruffin, the elder brother of the Temptations lead singer David Ruffin, also signed to Motown, releasing his most successful and well-known song "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as a single in 1966. Ruffin left the label in the mid-1970s, but found success with the 1980 disco song "Hold On (To My Love)", written and produced by Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, for his album Sunrise. Edwin Starr, known for his Motown protest song "War" (1970), reentered the charts in 1979 with the disco songs, "Contact" and "H.A.P.P.Y. Radio". Kiki Dee was the first white British singer to sign with Motown in the US, releasing one album, Great Expectations (1970), and two singles "The Day Will Come Between Sunday and Monday" (1970) and "Love Makes the World Go Round" (1971), the latter her first chart entry (number 87 on the US Chart). She soon left, signing with Elton John's The Rocket Record Company, and in 1976 released her biggest and best-known single, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", a disco duet with John. The song was intended as an affectionate disco-style pastiche of the Motown sound, in particular the various duets recorded by Marvin Gaye with Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston.

Many Motown groups who left the label charted with disco songs. The Jackson 5, a premier early 1970s Motown act, left in 1975 (Jermaine Jackson, however, remained with the label) after hits like "I Want You Back" (1969), "ABC" (1970), and the disco song "Dancing Machine" (1974). Renamed 'the Jacksons' (as Motown owned the name 'the Jackson 5'), they found success with disco hits such as "Blame It on the Boogie" (1978), "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" (1979), and "Can You Feel It?" (1981) on Epic.

The Isley Brothers, whose brief tenure produced "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)" in 1966, later released successful disco songs like "It's a Disco Night (Rock Don't Stop)" (1979). Gladys Knight & the Pips, who recorded the most successful version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (1967) before Marvin Gaye, scored successful singles such as "Baby, Don't Change Your Mind" (1977) and "Bourgie, Bourgie" (1980) in the disco era. The Detroit Spinners also signed to Motown, had success with the Stevie Wonder-produced song "It's a Shame" in 1970. They left soon after, on the advice of fellow Detroit native Aretha Franklin, for Atlantic Records, where they had disco songs like "The Rubberband Man" (1976). In 1979, they released a successful cover of Elton John's "Are You Ready for Love" and a medley of the Four Seasons' "Working My Way Back to You" and Michael Zager's "Forgive Me, Girl". The Four Seasons were briefly signed to Motown's MoWest, a short-lived subsidiary for R&B and soul artists based on the West Coast, producing one album, Chameleon (1972) – with little commercial success in the US. However, one single, "The Night", released in Britain in 1975, reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart thanks to popularity from the Northern Soul circuit. The Four Seasons left Motown in 1974 and had a disco hit with "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" (1975) for Warner Curb Records.

Euro disco

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ABBA in 1974.

The most successful Euro disco act was ABBA (1972–1982). The Swedish quartet, singing primarily in English, had hit singles like "Waterloo" (1974), "Take a Chance on Me" (1978), "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" (1979), "Super Trouper" (1980), and their signature hit "Dancing Queen" (1976).

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Italian composer Giorgio Moroder is known as the "Father of Disco".

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Donna Summer in 1977

In the 1970s, Munich, West Germany, music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte significantly contributed to disco music with hits for Donna Summer, known as the "Munich Sound". In 1975, Summer suggested the lyric "Love to Love You Baby" to Moroder and Bellotte, who developed it into a full disco song. The song, featuring vocalizations of simulated orgasms, was not initially intended for release. However, when Moroder played it in clubs, it caused a sensation, leading him to release it. The song became an international hit, charting in many European countries and reaching No. 2 in the US. It has been described as a landmark for expressing raw female sexual desire in pop music. A nearly 17-minute 12-inch single was released, which became and remains a standard in discos today.

Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby," which peaked at No.2 on the Billboard charts in 1976, is considered a feminist anthem and genre staple. Billboard recently ranked the song #1 on its "The 34 Top Disco Songs of All Time" list, with Summer holding all top six spots.

In 1976 Donna Summer's version of "Could It Be Magic" brought disco into the mainstream. In 1977, Summer, Moroder, and Bellotte released "I Feel Love" as the B-side of "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)". Its mostly electronic production revolutionized dance music, becoming a massive worldwide success and spawning the Hi-NRG subgenre. Giorgio Moroder was described by AllMusic as "one of the principal architects of the disco sound". Another successful disco project by Moroder then was Munich Machine (1976–1980).

Boney M. (1974–1986) was a West German Euro disco group composed of four West Indian singers and dancers, masterminded by record producer Frank Farian. Boney M. had worldwide hits with songs like "Daddy Cool" (1976), "Ma Baker" (1977), and "Rivers Of Babylon" (1978). Silver Convention (1974–1979) was another successful West German Euro disco act. The German group Kraftwerk also influenced Euro disco.

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Dalida in 1967.

In France, Dalida released "J'attendrai" ("I Will Wait") in 1975, finding success in Canada, Europe, and Japan. She then adapted to disco, releasing over a dozen top 10 hits in Europe. Claude François, the self-proclaimed "king of French disco", released "La plus belle chose du monde", a French version of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts", successful in Canada and Europe. "Alexandrie Alexandra" was posthumously released on his burial day, becoming a worldwide success. Cerrone's early songs—"Love in C Minor" (1976), "Supernature" (1977), and "Give Me Love" (1978)—found success in the US and Europe. French diva Amanda Lear was another Euro disco act, with her Euro disco sound most prominent in "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)" (1978). French producer Alec Costandinos formed the Euro disco group Love and Kisses (1977–1982).

In Italy Raffaella Carrà was the most successful Euro disco act, alongside La Bionda, Hermanas Goggi and Oliver Onions. Her greatest international single, "Tanti Auguri" ("Best Wishes"), became a popular song with gay audiences. The song is also known by its Spanish title "Para hacer bien el amor hay que venir al sur" (referring to Southern Europe, as it was recorded in Spain). Anne Veski performed the Estonian version, "Jätke võtmed väljapoole". "A far l'amore comincia tu" ("To make love, your move first") was another international success, known in Spanish as "En el amor todo es empezar", in German as "Liebelei", in French as "Puisque tu l'aimes dis le lui", and in English as "Do It, Do It Again". It was her only UK Singles Chart entry, reaching number 9, where she remains a one-hit wonder. In 1977, she recorded another successful single, "Fiesta" ("The Party" in English) originally in Spanish, but then recorded it in French and Italian after the song hit the charts. "A far l'amore comincia tu" has also been covered in Turkish by a Turkish popstar Ajda Pekkan as "Sakın Ha" in 1977.

Carrà recently gained attention as the female dancing soloist in a 1974 TV performance of the experimental gibberish song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" (1973) by Adriano Celentano. A remixed video featuring her dancing went viral in 2008. In 2008, a video of her only successful UK single, "Do It, Do It Again", was featured in the Doctor Who episode "Midnight". Rafaella Carrà worked with Bob Sinclar on the single "Far l'Amore", released on YouTube on March 17, 2011. The song charted in several European countries. Also prominent European disco acts are Spargo (band), Time Bandits (band) and Luv' from the Netherlands.

Euro disco evolved within mainstream pop, even as disco's popularity sharply declined in the United States, abandoned by major U.S. labels and producers. Influenced by Italo disco, it also shaped early house music in the early 1980s and later electronic dance music, including early '90s Eurodance.

1977–1979: Pop preeminence

Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)

Released in December 1977, the film Saturday Night Fever was a huge success, and its soundtrack became one of the best-selling albums of all time. The film was inspired by a 1976 New York magazine article, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," which supposedly chronicled mid-1970s New York City disco culture but was later revealed to be fabricated. Some critics said the film "mainstreamed" disco, making it more acceptable to heterosexual white males. Many music historians believe the success of the movie and soundtrack extended the life of the disco era by several years.

Centering on suburban discotheque culture and John Travolta's character Tony Manero (which earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination), Saturday Night Fever recast the dance floor as a site for patriarchal masculinity and heterosexual courtship. This aligned disco with the perceived mass market, specifically targeting suburban and Middle American audiences.

Saturday Night Fever reappropriated the dance floor for straight male culture, turning it into a space for men to showcase prowess and pursue opposite-sex partners. The film popularized the hustle, a Latin social dance, reinforcing the centrality of the straight-dancing couple in the disco exchange. Notably, the soundtrack, dominated by the Bee Gees, risked presenting disco as a new incarnation of shrill white pop, deviating from its diverse and inclusive origins. Its unprecedented success, breaking box office and album sale records, unfortunately had an impact beyond mere popularity. The film established an easily reproducible, yet thoroughly de-queered, disco template. By narrowing the narrative to fit conventional suburban heterosexual ideals, it contributed to a distorted and commodified version of disco.

Disco goes mainstream

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The Bee Gees had several disco hits on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in 1977.

The Bee Gees used Barry Gibb's falsetto to garner hits such as "You Should Be Dancing", "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "More Than A Woman", "Love You Inside Out", and "Tragedy". Andy Gibb, a younger brother to the Bee Gees, followed with similarly styled solo singles such as "I Just Want to Be Your Everything", "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water", and "Shadow Dancing".

In 1978, Donna Summer's multi-million-selling disco single "MacArthur Park" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and earned a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Included as part of the "MacArthur Park Suite" on her double live album Live and More, the album version was eight minutes and 40 seconds. The shorter seven-inch single became Summer's first Hot 100 number one; it omits the balladic second movement. A 2013 remix of "MacArthur Park" by Summer topped the Billboard Dance Charts, marking five consecutive decades with a number-one song. From mid-1978 to late 1979, Summer released singles including "Last Dance", "Heaven Knows" (with Brooklyn Dreams), "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights" and "On the Radio", all reaching the top five or better on the Billboard pop charts.

The band Chic was formed by guitarist Nile Rodgers—a self-described "street hippie" from late 1960s New York—and bassist Bernard Edwards. Their 1978 single, "Le Freak", is regarded as an iconic song of the genre. Chic's other successful songs include the often-sampled "Good Times" (1979), "I Want Your Love" (1979), and "Everybody Dance" (1979). The group saw themselves as the disco movement's rock band, fulfilling the hippie movement's ideals of peace, love, and freedom. Every song they wrote aimed to have "deep hidden meaning" (D.H.M.).

Sylvester, a flamboyant, openly gay singer with a soaring falsetto voice, scored his biggest disco hits in late 1978 with "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)". His singing style reportedly influenced Prince. At the time, disco was a genre especially open to gay performers.

The Village People were a group created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo for disco's gay audience. Known for their costumes depicting male-associated jobs and ethnic minorities, they achieved mainstream success with their 1978 hit song "Macho Man". Other songs include "Y.M.C.A." (1979) and "In the Navy" (1979).

Noteworthy songs include The Trammps' "Disco Inferno" (1976; reissued 1978 following its popularity from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack), Heatwave's "Boogie Nights" (1977), Evelyn "Champagne" King's "Shame" (1977), A Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" (1978), Cheryl Lynn's "Got to Be Real" (1978), Alicia Bridges's "I Love the Nightlife" (1978), Patrick Hernandez's "Born to Be Alive" (1978), Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" (1978) and "Boogie Wonderland" (1979), Peaches & Herb's "Shake Your Groove Thing" (1978), Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" and "He's the Greatest Dancer" (both 1979), McFadden and Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" (1979), Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" (1979), Kool & the Gang's "Ladies' Night" (1979) and "Celebration" (1980), The Whispers's "And the Beat Goes On" (1979), Stephanie Mills's "What Cha Gonna Do with My Lovin'" (1979), Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown" (1980), The Brothers Johnson's "Stomp!" (1980), George Benson's "Give Me the Night" (1980), Donna Summer's "Sunset People" (1980), and Walter Murphy's efforts to bring classical music to the mainstream, especially with his disco hit "A Fifth of Beethoven" (1976), inspired by Beethoven's fifth symphony.

At the height of its popularity, many non-disco artists recorded songs with disco elements, such as Rod Stewart with his "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" in 1979. Even mainstream rock artists adopted elements of disco. Progressive rock group Pink Floyd used disco-like drums and guitar in their song "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" (1979), which became their only number-one single in both the US and UK. The Eagles referenced disco with "One of These Nights" (1975) and "Disco Strangler" (1979), Paul McCartney & Wings with "Silly Love Songs" (1976) and "Goodnight Tonight" (1979), Queen with "Another One Bites the Dust" (1980), the Rolling Stones with "Miss You" (1978) and "Emotional Rescue" (1980), Stephen Stills with his album Thoroughfare Gap (1978), Electric Light Orchestra with "Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train to London" (both 1979), Chicago with "Street Player" (1979), the Kinks with "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" (1979), the Grateful Dead with "Shakedown Street", The Who with "Eminence Front" (1982), and the J. Geils Band with "Come Back" (1980). Even hard rock group KISS jumped in with "I Was Made for Lovin' You" (1979), and Ringo Starr's album Ringo the 4th (1978) features a strong disco influence.

Artists from other genres also adopted the disco sound, including the 1979 U.S. number one hit "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" by easy listening singer Barbra Streisand in a duet with Donna Summer. To appeal to a more mainstream market, country music artists added pop/disco influences to their music. Dolly Parton successfully crossed over onto the pop/dance charts; her albums Heartbreaker and Great Balls of Fire included disco-influenced songs. A disco remix of "Baby I'm Burnin'" notably peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, ultimately becoming one of the year's biggest club hits. Connie Smith covered Andy Gibb's "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" in 1977, Bill Anderson recorded "Double S" in 1978, and Ronnie Milsap released "Get It Up" and covered blues singer Tommy Tucker's "Hi-Heel Sneakers" in 1979.

Non-disco songs, standards, and TV themes were often "disco-ized" in the 1970s, such as the I Love Lucy theme (recorded by the Wilton Place Street Band as "Disco Lucy"), "Aquarela do Brasil" (recorded by The Ritchie Family as "Brazil"), and "Baby Face" (recorded by the Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps). The rich orchestral accompaniment identified with the disco era recalled the big band era, prompting several artists to record disco versions of big band arrangements, including Perry Como, who re-recorded his 1945 song "Temptation" in 1975, and Ethel Merman, who released The Ethel Merman Disco Album in 1979.

Myron Floren, second-in-command on The Lawrence Welk Show, released "Disco Accordion," a recording of the "Clarinet Polka." Bobby Vinton similarly adapted "The Pennsylvania Polka" into "Disco Polka". Easy listening icon Percy Faith, in one of his last recordings, released the album Disco Party (1975) and a disco version of his "Theme from A Summer Place" in 1976. Even classical music was adapted for disco, notably Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven" (1976, based on the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony) and "Flight 76" (1976, based on Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee"), and Louis Clark's Hooked On Classics series of albums and singles.

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The a cappella jazz group the Manhattan Transfer had a disco hit with the 1979 "Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone" theme.

Many original television theme songs of the era showed a strong disco influence, such as S.W.A.T. (1975), Wonder Woman (1975), Charlie's Angels (1976), NBC Saturday Night At The Movies (1976), The Love Boat (1977), The Donahue Show (1977), CHiPs (1977), The Professionals (1977), Dallas (1978), NBC Sports broadcasts (1978), Kojak (1977), and The Hollywood Squares (1979).

Disco jingles appeared in TV commercials, including Purina's 1979 "Good Mews" cat food commercial and Pittsburgh's Iron City Brewing Company's "IC Light" commercial.

Parodies

The disco style was parodied in various works. Rick Dees, then a Memphis, Tennessee radio DJ, recorded "Disco Duck" (1976) and "Dis-Gorilla" (1977); Frank Zappa parodied disco dancers' lifestyles in "Disco Boy" on his 1976 Zoot Allures album, and "Dancin' Fool" on his 1979 Sheik Yerbouti album. "Weird Al" Yankovic's eponymous 1983 debut album features the disco song "Gotta Boogie", an extended pun on the disco move and the American slang word "booger". Comedian Bill Cosby devoted his 1977 album Disco Bill entirely to disco parodies. In 1980, Mad Magazine released the flexi-disc Mad Disco, featuring six full-length parodies. Rock and roll songs critical of disco included Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" and, especially, the Who's "Sister Disco" (both 1978); however, the Who's "Eminence Front" (four years later) had a disco feel.

1979–1981: Controversy and decline in popularity

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A man wearing a "disco sucks" T-shirt.

By the end of the 1970s, anti-disco sentiment developed among rock music fans and musicians, particularly in the United States. Disco was criticized as mindless, consumerist, overproduced and escapist. The slogans "Disco sucks" and "Death to disco" became common. Rock artists such as Rod Stewart and David Bowie who added disco elements to their music were accused of selling out.

The punk subculture in the United States and the United Kingdom was often hostile to disco, although, in the UK, many early Sex Pistols fans such as the Bromley Contingent and Jordan liked disco, often frequenting nightclubs such as Louise's in Soho and the Sombrero in Kensington. Diana Ross's "Love Hangover", the house anthem at Louise's, was a particular favourite of many early UK punks. The film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and its soundtrack album contained a disco medley of Sex Pistols songs, titled Black Arabs and credited to a group of that name.

However, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, in the song "Saturday Night Holocaust", likened disco to Weimar-era Germany's cabaret culture for its escapism and apathy towards government policies. Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo called disco "like a beautiful woman with a great body and no brains" and a product of the era's political apathy. Experimental filmmaker Wheeler Winston Dixon called disco "absolutely brain dead", its around-the-clock radio "just awful", and found Studio 54 "really dull and elitist" and "everything I was against" (preferring CBGB, his "haven", and New Wave acts like Blondie, The Ramones, and Television). David Byrne, The Talking Heads' lead singer, remarked in the liner notes for the compilation album Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads about their 1979 song "Life During Wartime"'s lyrics ("this ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around")

The line 'This ain't no disco' sure stuck! Remember when they would build bonfires of Donna Summer records? Well, we liked some disco music! It's called 'dance music' now. Some of it was radical, camp, silly, transcendent and disposable. So it was funny that we were sometimes seen as the flag-bearers of the anti-disco movement.

New Jersey rock critic Jim Testa wrote "Put a Bullet Through the Jukebox", a vitriolic screed attacking disco considered a punk call to arms. Steve Hillage, shortly before his transformation from a progressive rock musician into an electronic artist in the late 1970s, inspired by disco, disappointed his rockist fans by admitting his love for disco, with Hillage recalling "it's like I'd killed their pet cat."

Anti-disco sentiment appeared in some television shows and films. The show WKRP in Cincinnati often featured hostility towards disco music. The 1980 comedy film Airplane! features a scene where a wayward airplane slices a radio tower with its wing, knocking out an all-disco radio station. July 12, 1979, became known as "the day disco died" due to Disco Demolition Night, an anti-disco demonstration during a baseball double-header at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Rock station DJs Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, and Michael Veeck, son of Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck, staged the event for disgruntled rock fans between games of a White Sox doubleheader, exploding disco records in centerfield. Before the second game began, the raucous crowd stormed onto the field, setting fires and tearing out seats and turf. The Chicago Police Department made numerous arrests, and extensive field damage forced the White Sox to forfeit the second game to the Detroit Tigers, who had won the first game.

Disco's popularity declined rapidly after Disco Demolition Night. On July 12, 1979, the top six records on the U.S. music charts were disco songs. By September 22, the US Top 10 chart contained no disco songs, except for Herb Alpert's instrumental "Rise", a smooth jazz composition with some disco overtones. Some in the media, in celebratory tones, declared disco dead and rock revived. Karen Mixon Cook, the first female disco DJ, stated that people still pause every July 12 for a moment of silence in honor of disco. Dahl stated in a 2004 interview that disco was "probably on its way out [at the time]. But I think it [Disco Demolition Night] hastened its demise".

Impact on the music industry

The anti-disco movement, along with societal and radio industry factors, changed the face of pop radio in the years following Disco Demolition Night. From the 1980s, country music slowly rose on the pop chart. This rise to mainstream popularity was epitomized by the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy. Disco's decline was also linked to the continued popularity of power pop and the late 1970s revival of oldies; the 1978 film Grease exemplified this trend. Coincidentally, John Travolta starred in both films, having also starred in 1977's Saturday Night Fever, an iconic disco film of the era.

As disco's popularity declined, several record companies folded, reorganized, or were sold. In 1979, MCA Records purchased ABC Records, absorbed some of its artists, and closed the label. Midsong International Records closed in 1980. RSO Records founder Robert Stigwood left the label in 1981, and TK Records closed the same year. Salsoul Records continues primarily as a reissue brand in the 2000s. Casablanca Records released fewer records in the 1980s and was closed in 1986 by parent company PolyGram.

Many groups that were popular during the disco period subsequently struggled to maintain their success—even ones who tried to adapt to evolving musical tastes. The Bee Gees, for instance, retreated from the pop mainstream in the early 1980s and spent the first half of the decade writing and producing successful material for other artists such as Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick, finally returning for 1987's E.S.P which spawned the chart topping hit You Win Again in their home country - whilst in the US, they only had one top-10 entry (1989's "One") and three more top-40 songs, and the band itself had largely abandoned disco in its 1980s and 1990s songs. Chic never hit the top-40 again after "Good Times" topped the chart in August 1979. Of the handful of groups not taken down by disco's fall from favor, Kool and the Gang, Donna Summer, the Jacksons, and Gloria Gaynor in particular, stand out. In spite of having helped define the disco sound early on, they continued to make popular and danceable, if more refined, songs for yet another generation of music fans in the 1980s and beyond. Earth, Wind & Fire also survived the anti-disco trend and continued to produce successful singles at roughly the same pace for several more years, in addition to an even longer string of R&B chart hits that lasted into the 1990s. Some popular disco tracks released after Disco Demolition Night include "Steppin' Out" by Kool and the Gang (1981), "In the Middle" by Unlimited Touch (1981), "I'm Coming Out" by Diana Ross (1980), "My Feet Keep Dancing" by Chic (1980), "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. (1980), "Lady (You Bring Me Up)" by The Commodores (1981) and "All American Girls" by Sister Sledge (1981).

In December 1978, six months before Disco Demolition Night, popular progressive rock station WDAI (WLS-FM) suddenly switched to an all-disco format, disenfranchising thousands of Chicago rock fans and leaving Dahl unemployed. WDAI, which survived changing public sentiment and maintained good ratings, continued to play disco until it flipped to a short-lived hybrid Top 40/rock format in May 1980. Another disco outlet competing against WDAI, WGCI-FM, later incorporated R&B and pop songs into its format, eventually evolving into the urban contemporary outlet it remains today. It also helped bring the Chicago house genre to the airwaves.

Factors contributing to disco's decline

The decline of disco in the United States has been attributed to late 1970s economic and political changes, as well as burnout from the hedonistic lifestyles. In the years since Disco Demolition Night, some social critics have described the "Disco sucks" movement as implicitly macho and bigoted, an attack on non-white and non-heterosexual cultures. It was also linked to a wider cultural "backlash", the move towards conservatism, This sentiment also influenced US politics, marked by the 1980 election of conservative president Ronald Reagan, Republican control of the United States Senate for the first time since 1954, and the concurrent rise of the Religious Right.

In January 1979, rock critic Robert Christgau argued that homophobia and most likely racism underlay the movement, a conclusion seconded by John Rockwell. Craig Werner wrote: "The Anti-disco movement represented an unholy alliance of funkateers and feminists, progressives, and puritans, rockers and reactionaries. Nonetheless, the attacks on disco gave respectable voice to the ugliest kinds of unacknowledged racism, sexism and homophobia." Legs McNeil, founder of the fanzine Punk, stated, "the hippies always wanted to be black. We were going, 'fuck the blues, fuck the black experience.'" He also said disco resulted from an "unholy" union between homosexuals and blacks.

Steve Dahl, who spearheaded Disco Demolition Night, denied any racist or homophobic undertones to the promotion, saying, "It's really easy to look at it historically, from this perspective, and attach all those things to it. But we weren't thinking like that," it was "just kids pissing on a musical genre". British punk rock critics of disco supported the pro-black/anti-racist reggae and the pro-gay new romantics movement. Christgau and Jim Testa said there were legitimate artistic reasons to criticize disco.

In 1979, the music industry in the United States faced its worst slump in decades, and disco, despite its popularity, was blamed. The producer-oriented sound struggled to integrate with the industry's artist-oriented marketing system. Harold Childs, senior vice president at A&M Records, reportedly told the Los Angeles Times that "radio is really desperate for rock product" and "they're all looking for some white rock-n-roll".

1981–1989: Aftermath

Birth of electronic dance music

Disco influenced the development of electronic dance music genres like house, techno, and Eurodance. The Eurodisco song I Feel Love, produced by Giorgio Moroder for Donna Summer in 1976, is considered a milestone and blueprint for electronic dance music, as it was the first to combine synthesizer loops with a continuous four-on-the-floor bass drum and an off-beat hi-hat, which became a main feature of techno and house ten years later.

During the first years of the 1980s, the traditional disco sound characterized by complex arrangements performed by large ensembles of studio session musicians (including a horn section and an orchestral string section) began to be phased out, and faster tempos and synthesized effects, accompanied by guitar and simplified backgrounds, moved dance music toward electronic and pop genres, starting with hi-NRG. Despite its decline in popularity, so-called club music and European-style disco remained relatively successful in the early-to-mid 1980s with songs like Aneka's "Japanese Boy", The Weather Girls's "It's Raining Men", Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts", Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", Laura Branigan's "Self Control", and Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy". However, a revival of the traditional-style disco called nu-disco has been popular since the 1990s.

House music displayed a strong disco influence, and due to its immense success in shaping electronic dance music and contemporary club culture, it is often described as 'disco's revenge.' Early house music was generally dance-based, characterized by repetitive four-on-the-floor beats, rhythms mainly provided by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals, and synthesized basslines. While house shared several characteristics with disco, it was more electronic and minimalist, and its repetitive rhythm was more important than the song itself. Additionally, house did not use the lush string sections that were a key part of the disco sound.

Legacy

DJ culture

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Classic DJ Station. A DJ mixer is placed between two Technics SL-1200 MK 2 turntables.

The rising popularity of disco coincided with developments in DJing. DJing evolved from using multiple turntables and DJ mixers to create a continuous, seamless mix of songs, transitioning from one to another without interrupting the dancing. The resulting DJ mix differed from 1960s dance music, which focused on live musician performances. This, in turn, affected dance music arrangement; disco songs typically began and ended with a simple beat or riff, facilitating transitions to new songs. DJing's development was also influenced by new turntablism techniques like beatmatching and scratching, facilitated by new turntable technologies such as the Technics SL-1200 MK 2, first sold in 1978, which featured precise variable pitch control and a direct drive motor. DJs were often avid record collectors, hunting through used stores for obscure soul and vintage funk recordings. DJs helped introduce rare records and new artists to club audiences.

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Disco dance performance at the 30th anniversary of Kontula in Helsinki, Finland, in 1994

In the 1970s, DJs became more prominent; some, such as Larry Levan, resident at Paradise Garage, Jim Burgess, Tee Scott, and Francis Grasso, gained fame in the disco scene. Levan, for instance, developed a cult following, with clubgoers calling his sets "Saturday Mass". Some DJs used reel-to-reel tape recorders to make remixes and tape edits. Some remixing DJs, notably Burgess, transitioned from the DJ booth to record production. Scott pioneered several innovations: he was the first disco DJ to use three turntables as sound sources, simultaneously play two beat-matched records, and use electronic effects units in his mixes. He also innovated by mixing dialogue from well-known movies, typically over a percussion break. These mixing techniques also influenced radio DJs, such as Ted Currier of WKTU and WBLS. Grasso is particularly notable for taking the DJ "profession out of servitude and [making] the DJ the musical head chef."Template:Sfn Once he entered the scene, the DJ's role shifted: they were no longer responsible for waiting on the crowd hand and foot or meeting every song request. Instead, with increased agency and visibility, the DJ could use their technical and creative skills to create innovative mixes, refining their sound and aesthetic, and building their reputation.Template:Sfn

Post-disco

post-disco genres originated in the 1970s and early 1980s as R&B and post-punk musicians explored disco's electronic and experimental aspects, spawning boogie, Italo disco, and alternative dance. Drawing from diverse non-disco influences and techniques, such as the "one-man band" style of Kashif and Stevie Wonder and alternative approaches of Parliament-Funkadelic, it was driven by synthesizers, keyboards, and drum machines. Post-disco acts include D. Train, Patrice Rushen, ESG, Bill Laswell, Arthur Russell. Post-disco influenced dance-pop and bridged classical disco with later forms of electronic dance music.

Early hip hop

The disco sound strongly influenced early hip hop. Most early hip-hop songs were made by isolating disco bass lines and adding MC rhymes. The Sugarhill Gang based their 1979 song "Rapper's Delight" on Chic's "Good Times", widely considered the first song to popularize rap in the United States and worldwide.

Replacing its disco foundation with synthesizers and Krautrock influences, a new genre emerged when Afrika Bambaataa released the single "Planet Rock", spawning a hip hop electronic dance trend including songs like Planet Patrol's "Play at Your Own Risk" (1982), C-Bank's "One More Shot" (1982), Cerrone's "Club Underworld" (1984), Shannon's "Let the Music Play" (1983), Freeez's "I.O.U." (1983), Midnight Star's "Freak-a-Zoid" (1983), and Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You" (1984).

House music and rave culture

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Like disco, house music was based around DJs creating mixes for dancers in clubs. Pictured is DJ Miguel Migs, mixing using CDJ players.

House music, an electronic dance music genre, originated in Chicago in the early 1980s (also see: Chicago house). It quickly spread to other American cities, including Detroit, where it developed into the harder, more industrial techno; New York City (also see: garage house); and Newark – all developing their own regional scenes.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, house music became popular in Europe and major cities in South America and Australia. Early commercial success for house music in Europe came with songs like "Pump Up The Volume" by MARRS (1987), "House Nation" by House Master Boyz and the Rude Boy of House (1987), "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express (1988), and "Doctorin' the House" by Coldcut (1988) reaching the pop charts. Since the early to mid-1990s, house music has been integrated into mainstream pop and dance music worldwide.

House music in the 2010s, while retaining core elements such as the prominent kick drum on every beat, varies widely in style and influence, from soulful and atmospheric deep house to more aggressive acid house or minimalist microhouse. House music has also fused with other genres, creating subgenres, such as euro house, tech house, electro house, and jump house.

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Strobing lights flash at a rave dance event in Vienna, 2005

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, rave culture began to emerge from the house and acid house scene. Like house, it incorporated disco culture's same love of dance music played by DJs over powerful sound systems, recreational drug and club drug exploration, sexual promiscuity, and hedonism. Although disco culture started out underground, it eventually thrived in the mainstream by the late 1970s, and major labels commodified and packaged the music for mass consumption. In contrast, the rave culture started out underground and stayed (mostly) underground. In part, this was to avoid the animosity that was still surrounding disco and dance music. The rave scene also stayed underground to avoid law enforcement attention that was directed at the rave culture due to its use of secret, unauthorized warehouses for some dance events and its association with illegal club drugs like ecstasy.

Post-punk

The post-punk movement originating in the late 1970s supported punk rock's rule-breaking yet rejected its return to raw rock music. Post-punk's forward-moving mantra fostered openness and experimentation with disco and other styles. Public Image Limited is considered the first post-punk group. The group's second album Metal Box embraced disco's "studio as instrument" methodology. John Lydon, the group's founder and former Sex Pistols lead singer, told the press disco was the only music he cared for then.

No wave was a subgenre of post-punk centered in New York City. For shock value, James Chance, a notable member of the no wave scene, penned an article in the East Village Eye urging his readers to move uptown and get "trancin' with some superradioactive disco voodoo funk". His band James White and the Blacks wrote a disco album titled Off White. Their performances resembled those of disco performers (horn section, dancers and so on). In 1981 ZE Records led the transition from no wave into the more subtle mutant disco (post-disco/punk) genre. Mutant disco acts such as Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Was Not Was, ESG and Liquid Liquid influenced several British post-punk acts such as New Order, Orange Juice and A Certain Ratio.

Nu-disco

Nu-disco is a 21st-century dance music genre drawing from renewed interest in 1970s and early 1980s disco, mid-1980s Italo disco, and synthesizer-heavy Euro disco. The moniker appeared in print as early as 2002 and, by mid-2008, was adopted by record shops like online retailers Juno and Beatport. These vendors often associate it with re-edits of original-era disco music, as well as with music from European producers who make dance music inspired by original-era American disco, electro, and other genres popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is also used to describe the music on several American labels who were previously associated with the genres electroclash and French house.

Revivals and return to mainstream success

1990s resurgence

In the 1990s, following a decade of backlash, disco and its legacy gained acceptance among pop music artists and listeners, spurred by the release of more songs, films, and compilations referencing the genre. This was part of a wave of 1970s nostalgia in popular culture at the time. Some commentators attributed the genre's revival to frequent use of disco music in fashion shows.

Disco-influenced songs of this period include Deee-Lite's "Groove Is in the Heart" (1990), U2's "Lemon" (1993), Blur's "Girls & Boys" (1994) and "Entertain Me" (1995), Pulp's "Disco 2000" (1995), and Jamiroquai's "Canned Heat" (1999), while films such as Boogie Nights (1997) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) primarily featured disco soundtracks.

2000s resurgence

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Students from Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico City dancing to disco during a cultural event on campus

In the early 2000s, an updated genre of disco called "nu-disco" began breaking into the mainstream. A few examples like Daft Punk's "One More Time" and Kylie Minogue's "Love at First Sight" and "Can't Get You Out of My Head" became club favorites and commercial successes. Several nu-disco songs were crossovers with funky house, such as Spiller's "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" and Modjo's "Lady (Hear Me Tonight)", both songs sampling older disco songs and both reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2000. Robbie Williams's disco single "Rock DJ" was the UK's fourth best-selling single the same year. Jamiroquai's song "Little L" and "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor were hits in 2001. Rock band Manic Street Preachers released a disco song, "Miss Europa Disco Dancer", in the same year. The song's disco influence, which appears on Know Your Enemy, was described as being "much-discussed". In 2005, Madonna immersed herself in the disco music of the 1970s and released her album Confessions on a Dance Floor to rave reviews. One of the singles from the album, "Hung Up", which samples ABBA's 1979 song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", became a major club staple. In addition to Madonna's disco-influenced attire to award shows and interviews, her Confessions Tour incorporated various elements of the 1970s, such as disco balls, a mirrored stage design, and the roller derby. In 2006, Jessica Simpson released her album A Public Affair inspired by disco and the 1980s music. The first single of the album, "A Public Affair", was reviewed as a disco-dancing competition influenced by Madonna's early works. The video of the song was filmed on a skating rink and features a line dance of hands.

Music critic Tom Ewing described the early 2000s' "nu-disco" revival as more interpersonal than 1990s pop: "The revival of disco within pop put a spotlight on something that had gone missing over the 90s: a sense of music not just for dancing, but for dancing with someone. Disco was a music of mutual attraction: cruising, flirtation, negotiation. Its dancefloor is a space for immediate pleasure, but also for promises kept and otherwise. It's a place where things start, but their resolution, let alone their meaning, is never clear. All of 2000's great disco number ones explore how to play this hand. Madison Avenue seek to impose their will, setting terms and roles. Spiller is less rigid; 'Groovejet' accepts the night's changeability, sacrificing certainty for an amused smile and a few great one-liners."

2010s resurgence

In 2011, K-pop girl group T-ara released Roly-Poly from their EP John Travolta Wannabe. The song had over 4,000,000 digital downloads, becoming the highest-downloaded K-pop girl group single on the Gaon Digital Chart in the 2010s. In 2013, as several 1970s-style disco and funk songs were released, the pop charts featured more dance songs than at any point since the late 1970s. The biggest disco song of the year was "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk, featuring Nile Rodgers on guitar. Its parent album, Random Access Memories, won Album of the Year at the 2014 Grammys. Other disco-styled songs that made it into the top 40 that year were Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (number one), Justin Timberlake's "Take Back the Night" (number 29), Bruno Mars' "Treasure" (number five) Arcade Fire's Reflektor featured strong disco elements. In 2014, disco music could be found in Lady Gaga's Artpop Among other releases was Katy Perry's "Birthday". Other disco songs from 2014 include "I Want It All" by Karmin, 'Wrong Club" by the Ting Tings, "Blow" by Beyoncé, and the William Orbit mix of "Let Me in Your Heart Again" by Queen.

In 2014, Brazilian Globo TV, the world's second-largest television network, aired Boogie Oogie, a telenovela set during the Disco Era (1978–1979), from its peak to its decline. The show's success sparked a Disco revival nationwide, bringing local disco divas like Lady Zu and As Frenéticas back to the stage and Brazilian record charts.

2015 Top-10 entries like Mark Ronson's disco groove-infused "Uptown Funk", Maroon 5's "Sugar", the Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face", and Jason Derulo's "Want To Want Me" also featured a strong disco influence. Disco mogul and producer Giorgio Moroder reappeared in 2015 with his album Déjà Vu, a modest success. Other 2015 songs like "I Don't Like It, I Love It" by Flo Rida, "Adventure of a Lifetime" by Coldplay, "Back Together" by Robin Thicke, and "Levels" by Nick Jonas also featured disco elements. In 2016, disco or disco-styled pop songs maintained a strong chart presence, possibly as a backlash to the 1980s-styled synthpop, electro house, and dubstep that had dominated charts. Justin Timberlake's 2016 song "Can't Stop the Feeling!", featuring strong disco elements, became the 26th song to debut at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100. The 2015 film The Martian extensively uses disco music as its soundtrack, though for main character astronaut Mark Watney, there's only one thing worse than being stranded on Mars: it's being stranded there with nothing but disco music. "Kill the Lights", featured on the HBO series "Vinyl" (2016) with Nile Rodgers' guitar licks, hit number one on the US Dance chart in July 2016.

2020s resurgence

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British singer Dua Lipa has been credited by music critics with leading the revival of disco following the widespread international success of her single "Don't Start Now" and her album Future Nostalgia.

In 2020, disco remained a prominent mainstream trend in popular music. In early 2020, disco-influenced hits like Doja Cat's "Say So", Lady Gaga's "Stupid Love", and Dua Lipa's "Don't Start Now" found widespread global chart success, reaching numbers 1, 5, and 2 respectively on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. A day after her retro and disco-influenced album Future Nostalgia was released on March 27, 2020, Billboard declared Lipa was "leading the charge toward disco-influenced production". By late 2020, multiple disco albums were released, including Adam Lambert's Velvet, Jessie Ware's What's Your Pleasure?, and Róisín Murphy's discothèque mixtape, Róisín Machine. In early September 2020, South Korean group BTS debuted at number 1 in the US with their English-language disco single "Dynamite", selling 265,000 downloads in its first US week, the biggest pure sales week since Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" (2017).

In July 2020, Australian singer Kylie Minogue announced her fifteenth studio album, Disco, for release on November 6, 2020. Preceded by two singles, 'Say Something' (released July 23 and premiered on BBC Radio 2) and 'Magic' (released September 24), both received critical acclaim. Critics praised Minogue's return to disco roots, prominent in her albums Light Years (2000), Fever (2001), and Aphrodite (2010).

See also

• Club Kids
• List of number-one dance singles of 1977 (U.S.)
• List of number-one dance singles of 1978 (U.S.)
• List of number-one dance singles of 1979 (U.S.)
• Roller disco
• Stealth disco

Further reading

• Andrea Angeli Bufalini & Giovanni Savastano (2014). La Disco. Storia illustrata della discomusic. Arcana, Italy. Template:ISBN
• Angelo, Marty (2006). Once Life Matters: A New Beginning. Impact Publishing. Template:ISBN.
• Beta, Andy (November 2008). "Disco Inferno 2.0: A Slightly Less Hedonistic Comeback Charting the DJs, labels, and edits fueling an old new craze" Template:Webarchive. The Village Voice.
• Campion, Chris (2009). "Walking on the Moon:The Untold Story of the Police and the Rise of New Wave Rock". John Wiley & Sons. Template:ISBN
• Echols, Alice (2010). Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. Template:ISBN.
• Flynn, Daniel J. (February 18, 2010). "How the Knack Conquered Disco". The American Spectator.
• Gillian, Frank (May 2007). "Discophobia: Antigay Prejudice and the 1979 Backlash against Disco". Journal of the History of Sexuality, Volume 15, Number 2, pp. 276–306. Electronic Template:Issn, print Template:Issn.
• Hanson, Kitty (1978) Disco Fever: The Beat, People, Places, Styles, Deejays, Groups. Signet Books. Template:ISBN.
• Jones, Alan and Kantonen, Jussi (1999). Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco. Chicago, Illinois: A Cappella Books. Template:ISBN.
• Lawrence, Tim (2004). Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979. Duke University Press. Template:ISBN.
• Lester, Paul (February 23, 2007). "Can you feel the force?". The Guardian.
• Michaels, Mark (1990). The Billboard Book of Rock Arranging. Template:ISBN.
• Narvaez, Richie (2020), Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco. Pinata Books. Template:ISBN
• Reed, John (September 19, 2007). "DVD Review: Saturday Night Fever (30th Anniversary Special Collector's Edition)Template:-". Blogcritics.
• Rodgers, Nile (2011). Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny. Spiegel & Grau. Template:ISBN.
• Sclafani, Tony (July 10, 2009). "When 'Disco Sucks!' echoed around the world" Template:Webarchive. MSNBC.

External links

• Disco Hall of Fame
• Template:Sister-inline