![]() Candi Staton – “Looking for Love” (1980)Ĭandi had many floor-filling discotheque bombs. While not a huge commercial chart topper by any means, “Underwater” is a classic example of how instrumental disco can be super dramatic and cinematic without leaning on a huge vocal.Ħ. German synth wiz Harry Thumann dips his toes into the spacier and more cosmic sides of Euro disco in this piece that almost feels like a medley. Pitched up vocals and a sense of humor have made this curio an underground staple to this day. Patrick Adams is a legendary American producer whose Bumblebee Unlimited project was a conceptual group singing disco songs and ballads from the perspective of members of phylum Arthropoda. But here, with “Ma Baker,” he made probably the most prominent disco song about a notorious criminal, famed American gang matriarch Ma Barker (who was also the inspiration for Momma Fratelli in The Goonies).Ĥ. A decade later, he would go on to pop culture infamy as the brains behind Milli Vanilli. German producer Frank Farian (white dude) made a killing off writing some great songs, while hiring black musicians to pretend to play his music. ![]() is one of those stories that never gets old. This was released as a B-side to “TSOP” (the theme of Soul Train), but “Love Is the Message” still trounces them all.īoney M. If there were a great, accurate scripted film about disco (there isn't), this should be its theme. The quintessential “Philly Sound” - lilting strings and soulful horns - is on full display here. This sleazy, smokey single is prime morning music. He would later move to San Francisco and collaborate with the likes of Patrick Cowley and Divine and pal around with Harvey Milk. was, like many in the disco scene, raised in a gospel choir-singing family. The Queen of Disco lays it on strong in this slinkier, slower number. Sylvester – “I Need Somebody to Love Tonight” (1979) As journalist Danny Broker wrote in NME in the '70s, “How can you critique this music sitting down?”ġ. And one more caveat: If you're going to give disco or this list a fair chance, do it standing. Some great and obvious choices were criminally and intentionally omitted. We made an effort to include records on a sliding scale of recognizability, avoiding anything that might be featured on a generic wedding playlist. Here are some influential and quality records from disco's first decade(ish), a mix of Euro and American productions of varying shapes and sizes. It influenced everything in its wake and produced an endless sea of remixes, re-edits, and interpolations over the last 40 years. Disco's initial ethos has survived and permeated and perverted its way through a variety of over- and underground cultures. Disco breaks were the basis of hip-hop, and disco samples were the foundation of house. But in reality, disco was always defiant, avant-garde, deviant, and more punk than punk.Įven when disco became over-commercialized, disco demolition - an obvious product of racism and homophobia - demolished nothing. The first things most people think of when they think of disco are typically from the mainstream period, films like Saturday Night Fever (based on a wildly inaccurate piece of faux-journalism) and clubs like Studio 54 (in glaring ways, the antithesis of disco's inclusive roots). Disco spawned the remix and the 12-inch single, and solidified nightclubbing as a lucrative industry. It took “we blew it” and flipped it into a message of liberation and expression. Its sound was defined in New York and Philadelphia in the early '70s by predominantly black, Hispanic and queer performers, producers and DJs before mutating abroad into various European sub-genres.ĭisco started in a deep recession - during Vietnam, after Stonewall, and after the '60s imploded. Oft-derided now and throughout the decades, the disco sound is a melange of Latin, funk, soul and rock. Rockists, wallflowers and squares of all stripes: You may want to stop reading now, because the adults are talking disco.
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