Disco 
From Singapore Hotels & Singapore Lifestyle
|
Origins
As with all such musical genres, defining a single point of disco's development is difficult, as many elements of disco music appear on earlier records (such as the 1971 theme from the film Shaft by Isaac Hayes) (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). In general it can be said that first true disco songs were released in 1973, however, many consider Manu Dibango's 1972 Soul Makossa the first disco record (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). Initially, most disco songs catered to a nightclub/dancing audience only, rather than general audiences such as radio listeners, but there are many aspects proving opposite tendencies as well; popular radio-hits were being played in discothèques, as long as they had an easy to follow rhythmic base-pattern close to 120 BPM (beats per minute).
Musical influences include funk, soul music, and salsa and the Latin or Hispanic musics which influenced salsa.
Social trends that contributed to disco music include the surpassing of white people by racial and ethnic minorities, black and Hispanic people in the purchasing of records and sound equipment, the increased independence of women in finance and leisure, gay liberation, and the sexual revolution. (Jones and Kantonen, 1999)
Popularity
1975 was the year when disco really took off, with hit songs like Van McCoy's "The Hustle" and Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" reaching the mainstream. 1975 also marked the release of the first disco mix on album, the A side of Gloria Gaynor's Never Can Say Goodbye (Jones and Kantonen, 1999). Disco's popularity peaked in the so-called Disco era of 1977 - 1980, driven in part by the 1977 classic film Saturday Night Fever. Disco also gave rise to an increased popularity of line dancing and other partly pre-choreographed dances; many line dances can be seen in films such as Saturday Night Fever, which also features the Hustle.
In 1975, the pop star Dalida was the first to make disco music in France with her song "J'attendrai" which was a big hit there as well as in Canada and Japan in 1976. She also released many other disco hits between 1975 and 1981, including "Monday, Tuesday... Laissez-moi danser" in 1979, translated the same year as "Let Me Dance Tonight" for the USA, where she was their "French diva" since her late-1978 performance at the Carnegie Hall). Soon after Dalida's pioneering French disco work, other French artists recorded disco: Claude François, in 1976 with his song "Cette année-là" (a cover of The Four Seasons' disco hit "December 1963 (Oh what a night)"), then the famous "yé-yé" French pop singer Sheila, with her group B. Devotion, who even had a hit in the USA (a rarity for French artists) with the song "Spacer" in 1979. Many other European artists also recorded disco music.
References
- Wikipedia.org
Want to know more about the Disco Scene in Singapore. Click on Category-Disco below!
