“Disco is music for dancing, and people will always want to dance” - Giorgio Moroder.
Disco music was THE defining sound of the 1970s and represented a seismic shift in dance music culture - still resonating today. Rooted in the oppression of young black, latino, LGBTQ+, and working-class communities, disco and club culture provided a safe space for free expression away from the prying eyes of the mainstream. The sounds and feeling of disco took people out of their immediate circumstances allowed everyone the opportunity to shine on the dance floor.
Despite its association with the late-1970s, disco music germinated in the 1960s in the US and UK. David Mancuso’s legendary audiophile Loft parties played long rock and soul music to an eclectic crowd of music fans, and early DJs like Nicky Siano revolutionised the role of the DJ by blending two lush soul records into one another to create a sense of limitless sound where the music would never end. In contrast, Northern Soul clubs in the UK played faster, obscure soul records to working-class teenagers high on any number of stimulants and helped created a haven for those who felt left behind by society.
The four to the floor (4/4) drum beat pioneered by drummer Earl Young in the early 1970s not only gave disco its pulse but also afforded DJs the ability to seamlessly mix songs together all night long. Disco music was soulful, danceable, glamorous, energetic, uplifting, beautiful, and above all, fun. Sitting in stark contrast to other progressive rock, punk, and easy-listening acts of the 1970s, the multicultural, sexually liberated disco movement was a truly forward-thinking sound.
From 1977 disco became a key part of the charts and the cultural zeitgeist. With the opening of Studio 54 representing the exclusivity, euphoria, and excess of the music, Donna Summer’s number one sensation ‘I Feel Love’ and the release of Saturday Night Fever all act as markers of disco’s imperial phase.
Despite its burgeoning chart popularity, underground disco sounds continued to expand and avant-garde types gave the music a new edge. Uber-cool labels like ZE Records fused disco with the discordant no-wave, punk, jazz, funk, and hip-hop sounds of the New York streets to create their own ‘mutant-disco’ palettes. The Paradise Garage and its resident demi-god, Larry Levan, brought together disco with electronica, hip-hop, funk and more to drive the sound into the future, while groundbreaking producers such as Patrick Adams brought synthesisers, humour and creative production techniques together to keep disco one step ahead of the herd.
Anything successful will find its critics and the disco backlash came hard and fast. Rock fans’ dislike of the hugely popular, and predominantly black disco sound reached fever pitch in 1979 during the Disco Demolition night at Cominsky Park in Chicago. Fuelled by homophobia, racism and alcohol, thousands of baseball fans burned black records, chanted ‘disco SUCKS’, and stoked a sense of tension and fear around a once proud music.
Disco’s mainstream success didn’t die with the Disco Demolition night, despite acts such as Chic losing their chart dominance. The sound adapted, and pop stars such as Prince, Madonna, Diana Ross, Grace Jones and Michael Jackson released number one hits firmly rooted around the 4/4 beat and disco’s perfected formula.
The sound of disco continued to morph at the start of the 80s, from clean, calculated post-disco, to the bass-forward funk of boogie, the European noir of italo-disco, the electronic minimalism of synth-pop, the queer euphoria of Hi-NRG and its eventual turn to house music in the mid-80s which helped spawn the modern club sound we know today.
Disco’s revolutionary nature never died, and the advent of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and tragic deaths of key disco stalwarts such as Sylvester acted as the catalyst for renewed urgency and drive towards social change.
The Disc Lovers Guide to Disco
