50 Greatest Song Of Disco Fever Download
Sherlene Hodson
The song is about discovering personal strength after a devastating breakup. It spent three weeks as No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and in 2016, made it to the National Recording Registry through the Library of Congress. Thus, its empowering lyrics and disco-infused arrangement turned heartbreak into a defiant celebration of self.
The world lost two of the great icons of Seventies disco, Donna Summer and Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb, last week. We asked you to name your favorite disco song of all time, and unsurprisingly, Summer and the Bee Gees dominated your picks. Given the enduring popularity of their biggest hits and their close association with the genre, the results for this poll probably would have turned out about the same even if they hadn't just passed away. Click through to see your selections.
The Rolling Stones embraced disco on Some Girls in 1978. "Miss You," the album's biggest hit, ranks among the band's greatest works, seamlessly blending the elegant groove of the disco movement with elements of raw blues and rock that have always been the group's stock in trade.
Donna Summer's most famous songs with producer Giorgio Moroder veered off course from typical disco sounds and textures, but their 1978 hit "Last Dance" is pure disco bliss, with glorious high-hats and orchestration that took the sound of the day and pushed it further toward perfection.
Gloria Gaynor's 1979 smash is one of pop's most enduring tunes. The sound may be very much rooted in peak-era disco, but its sentiment about self-belief and triumph over adversity is evergreen. Seriously, just try to imagine how many times this song gets sung at a karaoke bar in any given week. The mind boggles!
Saturday Night Fever is the high-water mark of the disco movement, and the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" is the high-water mark of Saturday Night Fever. The band's most iconic hit is forever associated with disco's biggest cultural moment, and it's probably one of the first songs that comes to mind when anyone thinks of disco in general.
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 "rooster 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."[19] 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. Donna Summer's 1977 song "I Feel Love", produced by Giorgio Moroder with a prominent Moog synthesizer on the beat, was one of the first disco tracks to use the synthesizer.[20]
Most disco songs have a steady four-on-the-floor beat set by a bass drum, a quaver or semi-quaver hi-hat pattern with an open hissing hi-hat on the off-beat, and a heavy, syncopated bass line.[21][22] A recording error in the 1975 song "Bad Luck" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes where Earl Young's hi-hat was too loud in the recording is said to have established loud hi-hats in disco.[21] 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.
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.[23]
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 the nightclubs, DJs were also influential in the development and popularization of certain types of disco music being produced for record labels.
Also during the 1960s, the Motown record label developed its own approach, described as having "1) simply structured songs with sophisticated melodies and chord changes, 2) a relentless four-beat drum pattern, 3) a gospel use of background voices, vaguely derived from the style of the Impressions, 4) a regular and sophisticated use of both horns and strings, 5) lead singers who were half way between pop and gospel music, 6) a group of accompanying musicians who were among the most dextrous, knowledgeable, and brilliant in all of popular music (Motown bassists have long been the envy of white rock bassists) and 7) a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing (boosting the high range frequencies) to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio."[48] Motown had many hits with disco elements by acts like Eddie Kendricks ("Keep on Truckin'" in 1973[49], "Boogie Down" in 1974).
The long instrumental introductions and detailed orchestration found in psychedelic soul tracks by the Temptations are also considered as cinematic soul. In the early 1970s, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes scored hits with cinematic soul songs that were actually composed for movie soundtracks: "Superfly" (1972) and "Theme from Shaft" (1971). The latter is sometimes regarded as an early disco song.[54] From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Philadelphia soul and New York soul developed as sub-genres that also had lavish percussion, lush string orchestra arrangements, and expensive record production processes. In the early 1970s, the Philly soul productions by Gamble and Huff evolved from the simpler arrangements of the late-1960s into a style featuring lush strings, thumping basslines, and sliding hi-hat rhythms. These elements would become typical for disco music and are found in several of the hits they produced in the early 1970s:
From 1974 to 1977, disco music increased in popularity as many disco songs topped the charts. The Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" (1974), a US number-one single and million-seller, was one of the early disco songs to reach number one. The same year saw the release of "Kung Fu Fighting", performed by Carl Douglas and produced by Biddu, which reached number one in both the UK and US, and became the best-selling single of the year[65] and one of the best-selling singles of all time with 11 million records sold worldwide,[66][67] helping to popularize disco to a great extent.[66] Another notable disco success that year was George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby":[68] it became the United Kingdom's first number one disco single.[69][68]
In 1975, Gloria Gaynor released her first side-long vinyl album, which included a remake of the Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye" (which, in fact, is also the album title) and two other songs, "Honey Bee" and her disco version of "Reach Out (I'll Be There)". The album first topped the Billboard disco/dance charts in November 1974. Later in 1978, Gaynor's number-one disco song was "I Will Survive", which was seen as a symbol of female strength and a gay anthem,[70] like her further disco hit, a 1983 remake of "I Am What I Am". In 1979 she released "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)", a single which gained popularity in the civil rights movements. Also in 1975, Vincent Montana Jr.'s Salsoul Orchestra contributed with their Latin-flavored orchestral dance song "Salsoul Hustle", reaching number four on the Billboard Dance Chart; their 1976 hits were "Tangerine" and "Nice 'n' Naasty", the first being a cover of a 1941 song.[citation needed]
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