| Disco | |
| Stylistic origins | Soul, Funk |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | Early 1970s Philladelphia and New York City, US |
| Derivatives | |
| House, Hip Hop | |
| Subgenres | |
| Electro Disco, Nu-Disco | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Disco-House, Disco-Pop | |
Disco is a style of dance music that first appeared in the early 1970s in Philadelphia and later spread to New York in the mid-1970s and was a precursor to electronic dance music (EDM). Disco was the first style of popular music to adopt the four on the floor beat, with no beats being either accented or de-emphasized. This was often complemented with a kind of bass line played in steady eighth notes, with every other note being played an octave higher, and a characteristic high-hat line in which an open hat is hit on the quarter note beat and then closed on the following eighth note. Most disco music was vocal, although some notable disco tracks were instrumental. Venues that played this form of music featured large dance floors with nattily dressed dancers sometimes performing elaborate choreographed routines. Studio 51 in New York was a well-known disco club of the era.
History[]
At its beginning, there was nothing electronic about disco; all parts were played on conventional instruments, and melody, harmony, and fills were usually done using string sections and horns, in the style of production pioneered by Phil Specter in the 1950s. This all changed in 1977, when Giorgio Moroder produced singer Donna Summer's hit "I Feel Love". Moroder scrapped the Specter-ish wall of sound and replaced it with pulsing sequenced tracks from a modular Moog, and a drum machine covering the drum parts; the only part of the track not done with synths was Summer's vocals and the kick drum. The track was an instant club sensation, and very rapidly, disco producers began adding sequenced synths to their lineup in place of the strings, horns, and bass. This style of electronic disco would later become hi-NRG.
By the late 1970s, disco was the most popular music in America due to the movie 'Saturday Night Fever (1977), but many saw the music as an affront to more traditional American music like country and rock. This came to a head when in July 1979, 'Disco Demolition Night' was held at a baseball game in Chicago. Hundreds of disco records were burned, exploded, and destroyed. This caused a large backlash, and radio stations began to distance themselves from disco. This caused the disco scene to go somewhat underground (many disco songs continued to make the tops of popular song lists but not as prevalently). The event was on the worst end a lashing out by mostly rock listeners who were young white men who felt they were losing the culture of America to minority races and on the best a simple raucous romp that was about how 'disco sucks'. Either way, it had lasting consequences as a sharp decline in disco's relevance happened soon after because radio stations did not want to engage with the controversy. Despite this, disco became a touch point for the mid-1980s bands who developed the first proto-EDM styles, and disco elements could be heard in many of these tracks, e.g., New Order's canonical "Blue Monday" contains the "octave hopping" bass line heard in many disco tracks.
Post-Disco[]
After 'Disco Demolition Night' marked the post-disco era, and despite the sharp decline in disco's prominence, it was still a relevant and evolving style of music. Immediately after the backlash, you saw an aversion to the term disco, so a splintering of the music occurred, and new genres emerged. New artists inspired by the style had to make do with less capital to spend on lavish horn and string sections, so often these sections were replaced with electronic instruments. The genre with the biggest continuation of disco was boogie, but other styles like electro-funk, italo-disco, and hi-NRG were also very much connected and kept the disco flag flying. During the 80s, pop acts like Madonna and Michael Jackson also used funk and disco-inspired music as well. By 1990, disco had run its course, and the genre was finally finished. Even its derivative subgenres, like boogie, could not keep it going. In a way, though disco's death meant other dance genres could emerge as this would be when house, electro, techno, and other EDM styles began to take center stage alongside disco's decline.
Nu-Disco[]
From 1990 until 2010, disco laid dormant. Despite its absence for over 30 years, a new generation took to revitalizing the genre once again. Due to the success of house, many artists wished to go back to the roots and make their own disco. Nu-disco was born and has remained fairly consistent since. This version of disco is even more electronic and boasts new production elements and digital synthesizers that distance it from its mostly analog predecessor.