Disco

This article is about the music genre. For the entertainment venue, see Nightclub. For other uses, see Disco (disambiguation).

Disco
Ceiling of a discothèque in Arlington, Texas
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsLate 1960s – early 1970s, Philadelphia and New York City[1]
Derivative forms
Subgenres
Fusion genres
Regional scenes
Local scenes
  • New York City
  • Philadelphia
  • Miami
  • Washington, D.C.
  • San Francisco
  • Los Angeles
  • Montreal
Other topics

Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.

Discothèques as a venue were mostly a French invention, imported to the United States with the opening of Le Club, a members-only restaurant and nightclub located at 416 East 55th Street in Manhattan, by French expatriate Olivier Coquelin, on New Year's Eve 1960.[5]

Disco music as a genre started as a mixture of music from venues popular among African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, gay Americans, and Italian Americans[6] in New York City (especially Brooklyn) and Philadelphia during 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 at the time. Several dance styles were developed during the period of 70s disco's popularity in the United States, including "the Bump", "the Hustle", "the Watergate", and "the Busstop".[7]

During the 1970s, disco music was developed further, mainly by artists from the United States as well as from Europe. Well-known artists included the Bee Gees, ABBA, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Giorgio Moroder, Baccara, The Jacksons, Michael Jackson, Boney M, Earth Wind & Fire, Rick James, ELO,[8] Average White Band, Chaka Khan, Chic, KC and the Sunshine Band, Thelma Houston, Sister Sledge, Sylvester, The Trammps, Barry White, Diana Ross, Kool & the Gang, and Village People.[9][10] While performers garnered public attention, record producers working behind the scenes played an important role in developing the genre. By the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had thriving disco club scenes, and DJs would mix dance records at clubs such as Studio 54 in Manhattan, a venue popular among celebrities. Nightclub-goers often wore expensive, extravagant outfits, consisting predominantly of loose, flowing pants or dresses for ease of movement while dancing. There was also a thriving drug subculture in the disco scene, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine and quaaludes, the latter being so common in disco subculture that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits". Disco clubs were also associated with promiscuity as a reflection of the sexual revolution of this era in popular history. 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 trend in popular music in the United States following the infamous Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, and it continued to sharply decline in popularity in the U.S. during the early 1980s; however, it remained popular in Italy and some European countries throughout the 1980s, and during this time also started becoming trendy in places elsewhere including India[11] and the Middle East,[12] where aspects of disco were blended with regional folk styles such as ghazals and belly dancing. Disco would eventually become a key influence in the development of electronic dance music, house music, hip hop, new wave, dance-punk, and post-disco. The style has had several revivals since the 1990s, and the influence of disco remains strong across American and European pop music. A revival has been underway since the early 2010s, coming to great popularity in the early 2020s. Albums that have contributed to this revival include Confessions on a Dance Floor, Random Access Memories, Future Nostalgia, and Kylie Minogue's album itself titled Disco.[13][14][15][16] Modern day artists like Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars and Silk Sonic have continued the genre's popularity, bringing it to a whole new younger generation.[17][18]

  1. ^ "Disco Music". Sam Houston State University. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  2. ^ Zaleski, Anne (February 26, 2015). "Where to start with '80s U.K. synth-pop". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on February 27, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2015.
  3. ^ "Bernard Edwards, 43, Musician In Disco Band and Pop Producer". The New York Times. April 22, 1996. Archived from the original on April 24, 2019. Retrieved October 10, 2022. As disco waned in the late 70s, so did Chic's album sales. But its influence lingered on as new wave, rap and dance-pop bands found inspiration in Chic's club anthems
  4. ^ "Dance-pop". AllMusic. October 30, 2011. Archived from the original on May 2, 2019. Retrieved October 10, 2022.
  5. ^ Braunstein, Peter (November 1999). "Disco". American Heritage. 50 (7).
  6. ^ Shapiro 2006, pp. 205–206 "'Broadly speaking, the typical New York discothèque DJ is young (between 18 and 30) and Italian,' journalist Vince Lettie declared in 1975. [...] Remarkably, almost all of the important early DJs were of Italian extraction [...]. Italian Americans have played a significant role in America's dance music culture [...]. While Italian Americans mostly from Brooklyn largely created disco from scratch [...]."
  7. ^ Do 1970s busstop dance Archived May 22, 2024, at the Wayback Machine modern-dance.wonderhowto.com. Retrieved 28 December 2023
  8. ^ "45 Years Ago: ELO Slims Down then Goes Disco on 'Discovery'". May 31, 2019.
  9. ^ "Readers' Poll: The Best Disco Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. May 23, 2012. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  10. ^ "The Legacy of Giorgio Moroder, the "Father of Disco"". Blisspop. Archived from the original on October 19, 2020. Retrieved December 14, 2020.
  11. ^ "From Bengal to boogie: Rupa Biswas, India's rediscovered disco diva". TheGuardian.com. June 21, 2019. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  12. ^ "Ihsan Al-Mounzer: The godfather of belly dance disco". Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2021.
  13. ^ "The 50 best albums of 2020: the full list". The Guardian. December 18, 2020. Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  14. ^ FanLabel Staff (April 30, 2020). "2020's Disco Pop Revival | FanLabel Music Scene | Playlist". FanLabel. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  15. ^ Kornhaber, Story by Spencer. "The Eeriness of the 2020 Disco Revival". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825. Archived from the original on January 1, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  16. ^ Sancho, Xavi (August 3, 2014). "Madonna: eterno regreso a la provocación". El País (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain. Archived from the original on December 6, 2014. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
  17. ^ "Could Disco Pave Pop's Future?". Rolling Stone. July 7, 2020.
  18. ^ "Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak take listeners down to the disco with debut LP, 'An Evening with Silk Sonic'". November 16, 2021.