- "Discothèque" redirects here. For the U2 song, see Discothèque (song).
Disco is an up-tempo style of dance music that originated in the
early 1970s, mainly from funk and soul music, popular originally with gay and
black audiences in large U.S. cities, and derives its name from the French word
discothèque (meaning a nightclub where the featured entertainment was
recorded music), coined from disc + bibliothèque (library) by La
Discothèque in Rue Huchette (Jones and Kantonen, 1999).
Origins
Like all such musical genres, defining a single point of its development is difficult, as many elements of disco music appear
on earlier records (such as the 1971 theme from the movie Shaft by Isaac
Hayes) (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). In general it can be said that first true disco songs were released in 1973, however, many consider Manu Dibango's
1972 "Soul Makossa" the first disco record (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). Initially, most disco songs catered to a
nightclub/dancing audience only, rather than general audiences such as radio listeners.
Musical influences include funk, soul
music, and salsa and the Latin or Hispanic musics which
influenced salsa.
Social trends that contributed to disco music include the surpassing of white people by racial and ethnic minorities, black
and Hispanic people, in the purchasing of records and sound equipment, the increased independence of women in finance and
leisure, gay liberation, and the sexual revolution. (Jones and Kantonen, 1999)
Brenton Monroe
Wilson once used the term "DISCO" as an alternate meaning of cool.
Influential soul or funk records that influenced disco include:
Philadelphia International
Records defined Philly soul and help define disco (ibid) with records
such as:
Pre/Early-disco TK Records tracks:
- Betty Wright - "Clean Up Woman" (1972) (ibid)
- George McCrae- "Rock Your
Baby" (1974) (ibid)
- Harry Casey - "Get Down Tonight"
(1975) (ibid)
- KC and the Sunshine Band - "That's the Way (I
Like It)" (1975) (ibid)
Early disco hits include:
Popularity
1975 was the year when disco really took off, with hit songs like Van McCoy's "The Hustle" and Donna Summer's
"Love To Love You Baby" reaching the mainstream. 1975 also marked the release of the first disco mix on album, the A side of
Gloria Gaynor's Never Can Say Goodbye (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). Disco's popularity peaked in the so-called Disco era of 1977 - 1980, driven in part by the late-1977 film Saturday Night Fever. Disco also gave rise to an increased
popularity of line dancing and other partly pre-choreographed dances; many line
dances can be seen in films such as Saturday Night Fever which also features the Hustle.
In 1975, the pop star Dalida was the first to
make disco music in France with her song "J'attendrai" that was a big hit there as well as in Canada and Japan in 1976. She also released many other disco hits between 1975
and 1981, including "Monday, Tuesday... Laissez-moi danser" in 1979, translated the same year as "Let Me Dance Tonight" for the USA, where she was their "French diva" since her
late-1978 performance at the Carnegie
Hall). Soon after Dalida's pioneering French disco work, other French artists
recorded disco: Claude François, in 1976 with his song "Cette année-là" (a cover of The Four
Seasons' disco hit "December 1963 (Oh what a night)"), then the famous "yé-yé" french pop singer Sheila, with her group B. Devotion, who had a hit even in
the USA (and that was rare for French artists) with the song "Spacer" in 1979-1980. Many other European artists also recorded disco music.
Popular disco artists
Among the most popular disco artists of the 1970s were Abba, The Bee Gees, Chic, Sister Sledge, The
Jacksons, Donna Summer, Stephanie Mills, Sylvester, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M, The Village People, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Salsoul Orchestra, Thelma
Houston, Taana Gardner,
The Trammps, Barry White,
and Dalida. However, many disco fans would agree that "for every chart hit pounded into
the public's consciousness, fifty far superior tracks from all over the world were being played at some hard-to-find basement
club" (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). Many non-disco artists, from The Eagles to
The Rolling Stones, from Can to The Clash, KISS, The Grateful Dead, Dolly Parton, Cher, Aretha Franklin, Chaka
Khan, Chicago, Electric Light Orchestra, The
Pointer Sisters, Dusty Springfield, Frankie Avalon, Elton John,
James Brown, Barry
Manilow, Bette Midler, Prince, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Charo, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Olivia Newton-John, Rod
Stewart, and many more discofied some of their songs. Even Queen
attempted to emulate the bass guitar riffs of Chic in their hit Another One Bites The Dust. Blondie disappointed many of their existing New Wave fan base
(including R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe) by releasing songs such as "Heart of
Glass", though she picked up an even larger fan base as a result.
Many disco novelty songs sold well and were popular. Rick Dees, at the time a
radio DJ in Memphis, Tennessee, recorded what is considered
to be one of the most popular parodies of all time, Disco Duck. Stars on 45 were the handiwork of Jaap Eggermont, a former rock drummer
and producer. The series included remakes of songs by Stevie Wonder,
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and many others mixed together over an unwavering bass beat.
Veteran entertainers such as Ethel Merman, Mae West, Eartha Kitt, and Frank Sinatra jumped on the disco bandwagon just for publicity purposes. Their efforts obviously
failed.
DJs and Producers
Disco music diverged from the self-composed and performed rock of the 1960s, seeing a
return (though not universally) to the influence of producers who hired session musicians to produce hits for different artists
whose role was purely to sing and market the songs. This may explain some rock critics vitrolic hate of disco, as it lacks the
same "cred". Top disco music producers/mixers included Patrick Adams, Biddu, Cerrone, Alec R. Costandinos,
Gregg Diamond, Bernard Edwards, Rick Gianatos, Quincy Jones, François Kevorkian, Meco Monardo, Tom Moulton, Kenton Nix, Boris Midney, Vincent Montana Jr, Giorgio Moroder, Rinder and Lewis, Nile Rodgers, and Michael Zager. However, what was seen by some rock critics and fans as a loss of authenticity and
credibility may have marked not a return to producer driven music, but a return to listener driven music, as fans participated
through dancing.
Outside the recording industry proper many DJs, most of whom also eventually worked in studios as producers or mixers, were
hugely influential. Records sales were often dependent, though not guaranteed by, floor play in clubs. Notable DJs include
Jim Burgess, Walter Gibbons, Francis Grasso (Sanctuary), Larry Levan (Paradise Garage), Ian Levine (Heaven), David Mancuso (The Loft), and Tom Moulton.
Backlash
Mainstream American popular culture briefly embraced disco. The popularity of the film "Saturday Night Fever" prompted the
major record labels to mass-produce hits, turning the (largely European and largely Gay-influenced) genre from something vital
and edgy into a safe "product" homogenized for the mass audience. The disco music that caught public attention had its fifteen
minutes of fame, but after the novelty faded, the public lost its taste for disco.
The public seemed to blame the genre as a whole for their dissatisfaction, since the bland, dumbed-down mass-market product
was all they were aware of). Meanwhile, the original Gay, Black and Euro artists continued to produce hits for the dance clubs.
Anti-disco sentiment was marked by an impatient return to rock (loudly encouraged by worried rock radio stations). The public
seemed suddenly embarrassed by its brief flirtation with Gay and Black culture. Disco music and dancing fads were depicted as not
only silly (witness Frank Zappa's satirical song "Dancin' Fool"), but effeminate.
In Britain, however, during the same year as the first American anti-disco demonstrations, see below, The Young Nationalist publication of the British National Party reported that "disco and its melting pot
pseudo-philosophy must be fought or Britain's streets will be full of black-worshipping soul boys," though this had been true for
twenty years with many white male English teens considering themselves "soul freaks".
Disco's core audience
As the minority audiences that originally created and consumed disco watched its appropriation into the mainstream many of
them changed their interests and affiliations to other forms of dance music, sometimes simply disco with a new name.
Rock vs Disco
Avid disapproval of disco among some rock fans, who perceived rock as more serious and valuable, existed throughout the disco
era, growing as disco's influence grew, such that the expression "Disco Sucks" was common
by the late 1970s.
Riots
One example of this backlash occurred in 1979, when a Chicago rock radio station staged
a promotional event with an anti-disco theme, "Disco
Demolition Night", between games at a major league baseball doubleheader. The event involved exploding disco records with a
bomb, and ended in a near-riot. The second game of the doubleheader had to be forfeited.
Descendents, influence, and revival
In the early 1980s, George
Benson, Patrice Rushen,
Brothers Johnson, Commodores, The
S.O.S. Band, and many other artists created disco classics. After 1981, however, disco
music morphed into other forms, including house and Hi-NRG.
In the 1990s a revival of the original disco style began and is exemplified by such
songs as "Spend Some Time" by Brand New Heavies (1994), "Cosmic
Girl" by Jamiroquai (1996), "Never Give Up on the Good Times" by The Spice Girls (1997), and "Strong Enough" by Cher (1998) who had also released disco songs in the seventies.
During the first half of the 2000s, there were disco releases by a number of artists
including "Spinning Around" by Kylie Minogue (2000), "I Don't Understand
It" by Ultra Nate (2001), "Love Foolosophy" by Jamiroquai (2001), "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor (2001), and "Love Invincible" by Michael Franti
and Spearhead (2003).
Instrumentation
Instruments commonly used by disco musicians included the rhythm guitar, bass, strings (violin, viola, cello), string synth (a type of organ), trumpet, saxophone, trombone, piano, and drums (sometimes using an auxiliary percussionist as well as somebody on a drum kit). Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat (sometimes using a 16-beat pattern on the
hi-hat cymbal, or an eight-beat pattern with an open hi-hat on the "off" beat) and a
heavy, syncopated bassline. Disco also had a characteristic electric
guitar sound, usually from the heavy use of the wah-wah pedal.
Generally, the difference between a disco, or any dance song, and a rock or popular song is that in dance music the bass hits
"four to the floor", at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time is 4
beats per measure), while in rock the bass hits on one and three and lets the snare take the lead on two and four. (Michaels,
1990) Disco is further characterized by a sixteenth note division of the quarter notes established by the bass as shown in the
second drum pattern below, after a typical rock drum pattern:
This sixteenth note pattern is often supported by other instruments, and may be implied rather than explicitly present, often
involving syncopation. As a simpler example, bass lines often use the
following rhythm:
Format
Initially singles were released on 7-inch 45-rpm records, 45s, which were shorter in
length and of poorer sound quality than 12-inch singles. Tamla Motown
was the first to market these through their Eye Cue label, but these and other 12-inch singles were the length of the original
45s until Scepter/Wand released the first 12-inch extended version single in 1975: Jesse Green's "Nice and Slow" b/w Sweet Music's "I Get Lifted" (engineered by
Tom Moulton). The single was packaged in collectable picture sleeves, a relatively new concept at the time. 12-inch singles
became commercially available after the first crossover, Tavares' "Heaven Must Be
Missing an Angel." 12-inch singles allowed longer dance time and formal
possibilities. (Jones and Kantonen, 1999)
Discos
Open from about 1975 to 1980, Ones Discotheque at 111 Houston St. in NYC advertised itself as having the "world's biggest sound system".
Tuesday nights were "reggae night". Studio 54 in New York is perhaps the best
known of the 70s disco venues internationally. The disco song "Le Freak" by Chic includes
the lines "So come on down/ To the 54/ Find a spot/ Out on the floor..."
Other notable discos:
Sources
- Michaels, Mark (1990). The Billboard Book of Rock Arranging. ISBN 0823075370.
- Jones, Alan and Kantonen, Jussi (1999). Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco. Chicago, Illinois: A Cappella
Books. ISBN 1556524110.
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