Disco genre

Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the
United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats,
syncopated basslines, string sections, horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric
rhythm guitars.

Well-known disco artists include Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Giorgio Moroder,
Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, the Bee Gees, Chaka Khan, Chic, KC and the Sunshine
Band, ABBA, Thelma Houston, Sister Sledge, The Trammps, the Village People, and
Michael Jackson.[2][3][4] While performers garnered public attention, record producers
working behind the scenes played an important role in developing the genre. Films such
as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Thank God It's Friday (1978) contributed to disco's
mainstream popularity.

Disco started as a mixture of music from venues popular with African Americans,
Hispanic and Latino Americans, Italian Americans,[5][6] and gay men[7] in Philadelphia
and New York City during the late 1960s and early 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 disco's popularity in the United States, including "the Bump" and "the
Hustle".

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, and sexy fashions. 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.

Disco declined as a major trend in popular music in the United States following the
infamous Disco Demolition Night, and it continued to decline in popularity in the U.S.
during the early 1980s; however, it remained popular in Italy and certain European
countries throughout the 1980s, and it was 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 newer scenes since the 1990s, and the influence of disco
remains strong across American and European pop music. A current revival has been
underway since the early 2010s, coming to great popularity in the early 2020s during the
COVID-19 pandemic, due to disco's fun and escapist nature (alleviating the mental toll
the pandemic has taken on people). Albums that have contributed to this revival include
Confessions On A Dance Floor, Random Access Memories, The Slow Rush, Cuz I Love
You, Future Nostalgia, Hey U X, What's Your Pleasure?, It Is What It Is, and Kylie
Minogue's album itself titled Disco.[8][9][10][11]

Etymology[edit]

The term "disco" is shorthand for the word discothèque, a French word for "library of
phonograph records" derived from "bibliothèque". The word "discothèque" had the
same meaning in English in the 1950s.[12]

"Discothèque" became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, France, after these
had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some
clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian
nightclub in an English magazine.[12]

In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called "discotheque dress" was briefly
very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form
"disco" described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12,
1964, but Playboy magazine used it in September of the same year to describe Los
Angeles nightclubs.[12]

Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote
the feature article "Discotheque Rock Paaaaarty" that appeared in Rolling Stone
magazine in September 1973.[13][14][15]

Musical characteristics[edit]

The music typically layered soaring, often-reverberated vocals, often doubled by

horns[citation needed], 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 "chicken 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."[16]
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. Synthesizers are also fairly
common in disco, especially in the late 1970s.

The rhythm is laid down by prominent, syncopated basslines (with heavy use of broken
octaves, that is, octaves with the notes sounded one after the other) played on the bass
guitar and by drummers using a drum kit, African/Latin percussion, and electronic drums
such as Simmons and Roland drum modules. The sound was enriched with solo lines
and harmony parts played by a variety of orchestral instruments, such as harp, violin,
viola, cello, trumpet, saxophone, trombone, clarinet, flugelhorn, French horn, tuba,
English horn, oboe, flute (sometimes especially the alto flute and occasionally bass
flute), piccolo, timpani and synth strings, string section or a full string orchestra[citation
needed].

Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat
pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line. Other
Latin rhythms such as the rhumba, the samba, and the cha-cha-cha are also found in
disco recordings, and Latin polyrhythms, such as a rhumba beat layered over a
merengue, are commonplace. The quaver pattern is often supported by other
instruments such as the rhythm guitar and may be implied rather than explicitly present.

Songs often use syncopation, which is the accenting of unexpected beats. In general, the
difference between disco, or any dance song, and a rock or popular song is that in
dance music the bass drum hits four to the floor, at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time
is 4 beats per measure)[citation needed]. Disco is further characterized by a 16th note
division of the quarter notes as shown in the second drum pattern below, after a typical
rock drum pattern.

The orchestral sound is usually known as "disco sound" relies heavily on string sections
and horns playing linear phrases, in unison with the soaring, often reverberated vocals
or playing instrumental fills, while electric pianos and chicken-scratch guitars create the
background "pad" sound defining the harmony progression. Typically, all of the
doubling of parts and use of additional instruments creates a rich "wall of sound". There
are, however, more minimalist flavors of disco with reduced, transparent
instrumentation, pioneered by Chic.

Harmonically, disco music typically contains major and minor seven chords[citation
needed], which are found more often in jazz than pop music.
Production[edit]

The "disco sound" was much more costly to produce than many of the other popular
music genres from the 1970s. Unlike the simpler, four-piece-band sound of funk, soul
music of the late 1960s, or the small jazz organ trios, disco music often included a large
band, with several chordal instruments (guitar, keyboards, synthesizer), several drum or
percussion instruments (drumkit, Latin percussion, electronic drums), a horn section, a
string orchestra, and a variety of "classical" solo instruments (for example, flute, piccolo,
and so on).

Disco songs were arranged and composed by experienced arrangers and orchestrators,
and record producers added their creative touches to the overall sound using multitrack
recording techniques and effects units. Recording complex arrangements with such a
large number of instruments and sections required a team that included a conductor,
copyists, record producers, and mixing engineers. Mixing engineers had an important
role in the disco production process, because disco songs used as many as 64 tracks of
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 to
develop the "disco sound" by creating a distinctive-sounding, sophisticated disco mix.

Early records were the "standard" three-minute version until Tom Moulton came up with
a way to make songs longer so that he could take a crowd of dancers at a club to
another level and keep them dancing longer. He found that it was impossible to make
the 45-RPM vinyl singles of the time longer, as they could usually hold no more than
five minutes of good-quality music. With the help of José Rodriguez, his
remaster/mastering engineer, 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 that these larger records could have much longer songs and
remixes. 12" single records, also known as "Maxi singles", quickly became the standard
format for all DJs of the disco genre.[17]

Club culture[edit]
Nightclubs[edit]

By the late 1970s most major US cities had thriving disco club scenes. The largest scenes
were most notably in New York City but also in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Miami, and
Washington, D.C. The scene was 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.[18][19]

In the late '70s, Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan was arguably the best known
nightclub in the world. This club played a major formative role in the growth of disco
music and nightclub culture in general. It was operated by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager
and was notorious for the hedonism that went on within; the balconies were known for
sexual encounters, and drug use was rampant. Its dance floor was decorated with an
image of the "Man in the Moon" that included an animated cocaine spoon.

The "Copacabana", another New York nightclub dating to the 1940s, had a revival in the
late 1970s when it embraced disco; it would become the setting of a Barry Manilow
song of the same name.

In Washington, D.C., large disco clubs such as "The Pier" ("Pier 9") and "The Other Side,"
originally regarded exclusively as "gay bars," became particularly popular among the
capital area's gay and straight college students in the late '70s.

Sound and light equipment[edit]

Major disco clubs had lighted dance floors, with the lights flashing to complement the
beat.
The reflective light disco ball was a fixture on the ceilings of many discothèques.

Powerful, bass-heavy, hi-fi sound systems were viewed as a key part of the disco club
experience. "[Loft-party host David] Mancuso introduced the technologies of tweeter
arrays (clusters of small loudspeakers, which emit high-end frequencies, positioned
above the floor) and bass reinforcements (additional sets of subwoofers positioned at
ground level) at the start of the 1970s to boost the treble and bass at opportune
moments, and by the end of the decade sound engineers such as Richard Long had
multiplied the effects of these innovations in venues such as the Garage."[20]

Typical lighting designs for disco dance floors could include multi-coloured lights that
swirl around or flash to the beat, strobe light, an illuminated dance floor and a mirror
ball.

DJs[edit]

Disco-era disc jockeys (DJs) would often remix existing songs using reel-to-reel tape
machines, and add in percussion breaks, new sections, and new sounds. DJs would
select songs and grooves according to what the dancers wanted, transitioning from one
song to another with a DJ mixer and using a microphone to introduce songs and speak
to the audiences. Other equipment was added to the basic DJ setup, providing unique
sound manipulations, such as reverb, equalization, and echo effects unit. Using this
equipment, a DJ could do effects such as cutting out all but the bassline of a song and
then slowly mixing in the beginning of another song 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, 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 created and produced disco songs in the
recording studio. Larry Levan, for example, was a prolific record producer as well as a DJ.
Because record sales were often dependent on dance floor play by DJs in leading
nightclubs, DJs were also influential for the development and popularization of certain
types of disco music being produced for record labels.

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

In the early years, dancers in discos danced in a "hang loose" or "freestyle" approach. At
first, many dancers improvised their own dance styles and dance steps. Later in the disco
era, popular dance styles were 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.[19]

During the disco era, many nightclubs would commonly host disco dance competitions
or offer free dance lessons. Some cities had disco dance instructors or dance schools,
which taught people how to do popular disco dances such as "touch dancing", "the
hustle", and "the cha cha". The pioneer of disco dance instruction was Karen Lustgarten
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
dance forms and distinguish between disco freestyle, partner and line dances. The book
topped the New York Times bestseller list for 13 weeks and was translated into Chinese,
German and French.

In Chicago, the Step By Step disco dance TV show was launched with the sponsorship
support of the Coca-Cola company. Produced in the same studio that Don Cornelius
used for the nationally syndicated dance/music television show, Soul Train, Step by
Step's audience grew and the show became a success. The dynamic dance duo of Robin
and Reggie led the show. The pair spent the week teaching disco dancing to dancers in
the disco clubs. The instructional show aired on Saturday mornings and had a strong
following. The viewers of this would stay up all night on Fridays so they could be on the
set the next morning, ready to return to the disco on Saturday night knowing with the
latest personalized dance steps. The producers of the show, John Reid and Greg Roselli,
routinely made appearances at disco functions with Robin and Reggie to scout out new
dancing talent and promote upcoming events such as "Disco Night at White Sox Park".

In Sacramento, California, Disco King Paul Dale Roberts danced for the Guinness Book of
World Records. Roberts danced for 205 hours which is the equivalent of 8 ½ days. Other
dance marathons took place after Roberts held the world's record for disco dancing for
a short period of time.[21]

Some notable professional dance troupes of the 1970s included Pan's People and Hot
Gossip. For many dancers, a key source of inspiration for 1970s disco dancing was the
film Saturday Night Fever (1977). This developed into the music and dance style of such
films as 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).