Disco music's sub-genre's (some help please)

[PeaceFroggy]

Thanks for that perspective Nano. Perhaps the hostility was more between the rock crowd and the disco crowd. Only my music teacher mentioned that he was an ex-punk and he used to wear teeshirts with things like "death before disco" written on them.

[JussiK]

As a matter of fact the gang who hung around the Sex store of Vivienne Westwood all frequented discos as well as punk clubs. My good mate a London film journalist used to be part of that scene and has written about it all in recent works on Punk. After a Sex Pistols gig they'd stagger out in torn t-shirts, wipe of the snot and beer and be off to Soho to boogie to Meco. After a couple of years they'd lose all interest in punk and become total disco freaks full time.

[Leanmean]

Peace-Froggy -

Whatever you do, don't follow the advice to include the Bee-Gees as a disco group. They were a POP group who did a few disco-like songs. Those songs probably sold more than any of their pop hits combined, but that does not make them a disco group. At the height of disco fever, "everyone" did "disco": Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, Barbara Streisand, Cher. None of these were "disco artists" yet each rode the $$$$bandwagon.

If you're doing musicians from the era of course there's
Donna Summer
Chic
Gloria Gaynor
Bionic Boogie

I agree with QUINNY: Back then (in the United States, too) we did not sub-label the music. At first, it wasn't even called disco. It was just whatever the DJ played in the gay bars that we danced to. You couldn't necessarily say that Parliament Funkadelics' "Shit, Goddamn, Get Off Your Ass & Jam" was disco, yet our DJ mixed it in and we danced to it (1976 or 1977).

If I was you, I would stick to the years 1974 through 1979 because you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what constituted disco before or after that. Besides, looking back at 1980 to present is when people started sub-dividing the music. We all have our opinion as to what song was the very FIRST "disco" song looking back. Oh, was it Eddie Kendrick's "Girl, You Need a Change of Mind" or was it Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "Bad Luck"? Or Earth Wind & Fire's "Mighty, Mighty"? Or something else altogether? Who knows? It's subjective.

Not all disco used real instruments either. Some of it used electronic violin elements, which sounded exquisite: Donna Summer and Silver Convention come to mind.

Another book for you to check out is "Last Night a DJ Saved my Life." It has a good timeline and explanation for all the genres and sub-genres.

I'll bet this post will raise the ire of someone or two people on this board, but really we all have a common bond - We love disco!
Good luck.

[BrunoRepublic]

Originally Posted by Leanmean

Not all disco used real instruments either. Some of it used electronic violin elements, which sounded exquisite: Donna Summer and Silver Convention come to mind.

Which Silver Convention tracks used electronics? Most of what I've heard from them is all conventional instrumentation.