Those who remember the bygone days of disco recall a colorful expression of freedom, a musical genre whose sound captivated the world but whose bright star faded quickly.

A call to go wild

Delighting listeners with four-on-the floor rhythm (a steady beat in 4:4 time with the bass drum hit on every beat), as well as the use of electric piano, brass, horns, syncopated basslines, and synthesizers, the genre was developed in the late 1960s. It seemed to be a high-energy response to those who felt that dancing had no place in music – especially from fans of rock, which had dominated airwaves in the 1950s and ‘60s. Disco ushered in the 1970s with a flair that dismissed those naysayers, with dance as one of the pillars of its subculture.

“Disco music in the ‘70s was just a call to go wild and party and dance with no thought or conscience or regard for tomorrow,” singer Martha Reeves once said of the genre.

And the world, it seemed, answered the call, with disco clubs being erected in what seemed like every major city. There, music lovers converged in loose-fitting, colorful clothes that made it easy to dance. They danced the Hustle, the Bump, the Watergate. The speakers poured out the sounds of artists like ABBA, KC and the Sunshine Band, the Village People, Donna Summer, and Diana Ross.
The 1960s were over. The ‘Me’ Decade had arrived – and with it, so had disco.

Saving the day

Like so many other cultural trends, disco was born in New York City. It was early 1970, and a young DJ, David Mancuso, was planning to host a big party in his loft. The party – “Love Saves the Day” – was organized to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Hosted at Mancuso’s home, the venue, which quickly simply became known as ‘The Loft,’ would welcome only a select group of revelers. It was the very first underground dance party, and at its epicenter was Mancuso’s arsenal of high-tech music equipment, which, according to authors Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, had to play music that was “soulful and rhythmic … and impart words of hope, redemption, and pride.”

From its very beginnings, disco was music for the “others” of society, played in music venues for African-Americans, Latino and Hispanic-Americans, Italian-Americans (especially in New York City), and gay Americans.

“Disco gave different communities a safe space to celebrate love and liberation. It was an opportunity to find people who looked like you, thought like you and — perhaps most importantly — danced like you,” according to an article on PBS.org. “This was especially liberating for the LGBTQ+ community. Oppression came from the legal system and friends, neighbors, colleagues, and police; it was illegal for two people of the same sex to dance together, let alone have public relationships. Even when a 1971 law made same-sex dancing legal in New York City, wider society refused to tolerate it. For many, being queer became about looking out for each other — and disco was one way to do that.”

The hits keep comin’

The new sound combined elements of other music genres, from soul and funk to gospel and electronic. In disco clubs, colored tiles lit up on the dance floor to keep time with the beat of the music as mirrored balls shimmered and became physical manifestations of the upbeat tunes spun by disc jockeys night after night.

And in the span of just a few short years, the genre gave birth to some of the decade’s most memorable songs, which include:

• “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer (1979) – “An energetic ode to ladies of the night,” according to forbes.com. Toot toot, hey, beep beep!
• “The Hustle” by Van McCoy (1975) – The number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of ’75, its tune was easy to dance to and its lyrics were easy to follow.
• “Night Fever” by The Bee Gees (1977) – Made famous in “Saturday Night Fever,” it was one of the first disco songs to energize mainstream audiences.
• “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer (1977) – According to Forbes, the song “makes you feel as though you’re on a dance-floor with only the speakers. The synthesized beat contrasted with Summer’s angelic vocals have a transformative effect only love can.”

• “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor (1978) – An anthem of strength, Gaynor’s timeless classic helps you pick yourself up and move on from a bad breakup.
• “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge (1979) – An upbeat tune all about the power of community.
• “Staying Alive” by The Bee Gees (1977) – Perhaps the most well-known mainstream song, forever linked to “Saturday Night Fever.”
• “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave (1976) – With a jazzy beginning, this song had dancers tearing up the dance floor back in the day.

The common theme of these and other disco tunes – the joy found in liberation.

“The heartbeat of the genre can’t be stopped”

As the decade came to a close, so too did the heyday of disco. Long-simmering tensions between producers of rock music and producers of disco music culminated in “Disco Demolition Night” on July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. There, the MLB promotion featured a crate of disco albums being blown up on the baseball field. The field itself was heavily damaged, and large groups of the more than 47,000 attendees stormed the field, sparking a riot.
The genre blazed as brightly as a mirrored ball on the dance floor – and its influence on pop culture is “staying alive” even today.

“The heartbeat of the genre can’t be stopped,” the PBS article notes. “Disco itself may not exist as it once did, but this revolution has had an evolution, and now its impacts are breaking boundaries between genres — much as its original creators did. While the so-called “end” of the era is still disputed, what matters most is that the soul of disco is still alive in speakers, earbuds and dance clubs around the world.”