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Subject: First disco song?
Written By: Katluver on 03/20/14 at 1:35 am
I'm thinking the Theme from "Shaft"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kiUAI31rkU
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: gibbo on 03/21/14 at 4:24 am
Jerry Butler's 1972 song "One Night Affair" is listed as the first disco song. However, the first song I heard that I would rate as disco is "Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation (written for their 1973 album, but released as the 2nd single from the album in 1974).
This was also a favourite of mine from that year (and is on my mp3 player).
... and the Bee Gees had Jive Talkin' in 1975.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/21/14 at 3:15 pm
I'm thinking the Theme from "Shaft"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kiUAI31rkU
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Paul on 03/24/14 at 10:48 am
There's literally hundreds of songs that could be rightly nominated (a bit like 'what was the first rock 'n' roll song?'), if it were up to me, Sly's 'Dance To The Music' would be in there as it sounded like nothing before, and still sounds fresh today...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn2PNlhvy8E
But I digress, as it almost, but not quite, matches the typical 'disco' template. The first one that was almost 100% and broke mainstream in a big, big way, was this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxonIMPmnd4
It's still 'not quite' disco as such, but such was its impact that the tag virtually stuck with it from day one. Hard to believe that it will be 40 years old later this year!
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/24/14 at 7:03 pm
What was the last disco song?
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Paul on 03/25/14 at 4:40 am
What was the last disco song?
I'll nominate this as one of the last - Odyssey's 'Use It Up And Wear It Out'. Meant nothing in their homeland, but became their sole chart topper here in Britain in 1980 - certainly out of disco's timeframe, but the production and instrumentation puts it firmly in that camp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPwUBA_YqOw
Compare and contrast with Yarbrough & Peoples' 'Don't Stop The Music' from the same year, which had more of a harder 'club' groove...
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/25/14 at 6:32 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YjmXSyHa8&feature=kp
Lakeside-Fantastic Voyage
This also came out that year for the last disco song, but it didn't sound disco, it sounded more funk than disco.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Katluver on 03/25/14 at 10:22 am
There was also Diana Ross's "Upside Down" from that same year (1980).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GtyMeEcPPE
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Philip Eno on 03/25/14 at 11:59 am
According to wiki (highlight taken from main page on Disco)
Disco is a genre of music that peaked in popularity in the late 1970s, though it has since enjoyed brief resurgences including the present day. The term is derived from discothèque (French for "library of phonograph records", but subsequently used as proper name for nightclubs in Paris). Its initial audiences were club-goers from the African American, gay, Italian American, Latino, and psychedelic communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco also was a reaction against both the domination of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music by the counterculture during this period. Women embraced disco as well, and the music eventually expanded to several other popular groups of the time.
History
By the early 1940s, the terms DJ and Disc Jockey were in use to describe radio presenters. Because of restrictions, jazz dance halls in Occupied France played records instead of using live music. Eventually more than one of these venues had the proper name discothèque. By 1959, the term was used in Paris to describe any of these type of nightclubs. That year a young reporter Klaus Quirini spontaneously started to select and introduce records at the Scotch-Club in Aachen, West Germany. By the following year the term was being used in the United States to describe that type of club, and a type of dancing in those clubs. By 1964, discotheque and the shorthand disco were used to describe a type of sleeveless dress used when going out to nightclubs. In September 1964, Playboy Magazine used the word disco as a shorthand for a discothèque-styled nightclub.
In New York City musicians and audiences from the female, homosexual, black, and Latino communities adopted several traits from the hippies and psychedelia.. They included overwhelming sound, free-form dancing, "trippy" lighting, colorful costumes, and hallucinogens. Psychedelic soul groups like the Chambers Brothers and especially Sly and The Family Stone influenced proto-disco acts such as Isaac Hayes, Willie Hutch and the Philadelphia Sound. In addition, the perceived positivity, lack of irony, and earnestness of the hippies informed proto-disco music like M.F.S.B.'s album Love Is the Message. To the mainstream public M.F.S.B. stood for "Mother Father Sister Brother"; to the tough black areas where they came from it was understood to stand for "Mother fudgein' Son of a Bitch".
Philadelphia and New York soul were evolutions of the Motown sound, and were typified by the lavish percussion and lush strings that became a prominent part of mid-1970s disco songs. Early songs with disco elements include "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (The Supremes, 1966), "Only the Strong Survive" (Jerry Butler, 1968), "Message to Love" (Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys, 1970), "Soul Makossa" (Manu Dibango, 1972), Superstition by Stevie Wonder (1972) Eddie Kendricks' Keep on Truckin' (1973) and "The Love I Lost" by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes (1973). "Love Train" by The O'Jays (1972), with M.F.S.B. playing backup band hit Billboard Number 1 in March 1973, and has been called "disco".
So wiki says "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by The Supremes in 1966.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/25/14 at 3:51 pm
There was also Diana Ross's "Upside Down" from that same year (1980).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GtyMeEcPPE
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/25/14 at 3:54 pm
disco in 1980 sounded more like funk.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Paul on 03/26/14 at 8:45 am
disco in 1980 sounded more like funk.
By then, the muisc and style had began to adapt with the times, Howard. Disco itself took a rather damaging knock from the 'disco sucks' campaign of the late 70s. But there was always going to be something to take its place...
The earliest use of the word I can pinpoint is Chubby Checker's 'At The Discotheque' - a minor hit of his from 1965. He actually sings 'Disco-tay!' instead of 'Disco-tek!' - I suppose back then, no-one was any the wiser! Before you ask, Howard, it sounded NOTHING like a disco song!
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: whistledog on 03/26/14 at 1:29 pm
The last Disco sounding song to me that was popular (atleast here in Canada) was More Stars on 45 II by Stars on 45 in 1981. In the US, Holland and other countries, it was known as More Stars and in the UK, it was released as Stars on 45 3 by Starsound. It was a medley of ABBA songs
l9j7VK1de6Q
This was not the last Stars on 45 song to chart in North America and the UK. That one was the Stevie Wonder medley in 1982, but the single version (atleast the one I remember) didn't have the Stars on 45 chorus, so it didn't sound as disco-ish as all their previous work
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: warped on 03/26/14 at 3:59 pm
One of the first ones I remember was this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZdE4kpr8lU
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/26/14 at 7:20 pm
By then, the music and style had began to adapt with the times, Howard. Disco itself took a rather damaging knock from the 'disco sucks' campaign of the late 70s. But there was always going to be something to take its place...
So why couldn't these guys leave a good thing alone?
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Paul on 03/27/14 at 5:23 am
In the US, Holland and other countries, it was known as More Stars and in the UK, it was released as Stars on 45 3 by Starsound. It was a medley of ABBA songs
It was known as Stars On 45 (2) here, Jason (or just the 'Abba Medley') - Stars On 45 (3) was a chop up of various introductions...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcyrqpchQBs
This was not the last Stars on 45 song to chart in North America and the UK. That one was the Stevie Wonder medley in 1982, but the single version (atleast the one I remember) didn't have the Stars on 45 chorus, so it didn't sound as disco-ish as all their previous work
Known as 'Stars On Stevie' here and our version DID have the jingle pasted in it somewhere - probably to remind potential buyers who it was!
The last offering that I remember from them was a godawful Andrews Sisters chop-up, of all things! By then, the game was well and truly up!
So why couldn't these guys leave a good thing alone?
Tastes change, Howard...be thankful that you've still got the old stuff to listen to!
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/27/14 at 6:45 am
It was known as Stars On 45 (2) here, Jason (or just the 'Abba Medley') - Stars On 45 (3) was a chop up of various introductions...
Did these people do any other medleys and are they still around like when they break up? ???
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: warped on 03/28/14 at 4:12 pm
So why couldn't these guys leave a good thing alone?
They did leave a good thing alone. They ended disco, and never brought it back, leaving a good thing alone :D
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/28/14 at 4:22 pm
They did leave a good thing alone. They ended disco, and never brought it back, leaving a good thing alone :D
no I meant throwing their disco records on the stadium fields.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: whistledog on 03/28/14 at 4:41 pm
Disco is still around in some shape or form. Alot of today's artists borrow heavily from the genre, which is perhaps best seen in the 2013 Grammy winning 'Get Lucky' by Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: warped on 03/29/14 at 1:51 pm
Disco is still around in some shape or form. Alot of today's artists borrow heavily from the genre, which is perhaps best seen in the 2013 Grammy winning 'Get Lucky' by Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams
Lots of 80s pop songs also bordered on disco (at least for me it did).
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 03/29/14 at 3:04 pm
Lots of 80s pop songs also bordered on disco (at least for me it did).
and some of the 80's sounds were funk and disco influenced.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: 1993 on 04/08/14 at 9:59 pm
FWIW my mother considers this the first disco song, it was an Italian song, mostly gibberish. Supposedly the guy wrote it to make it sound like what English sounds like to non English speakers.E77HpMMbDYc I think this is 1972
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 04/09/14 at 6:17 am
FWIW my mother considers this the first disco song, it was an Italian song, mostly gibberish. Supposedly the guy wrote it to make it sound like what English sounds like to non English speakers.E77HpMMbDYc I think this is 1972
What is he singing? ???
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Philip Eno on 04/11/14 at 2:58 am
What is he singing? ???
Something in Italian.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Paul on 04/11/14 at 4:39 am
'Subtitles' to the thing are found in the video found in this thread...
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Philip Eno on 04/11/14 at 4:43 am
'Subtitles' to the thing are found in the video found in this thread...
I thought it looked familiar.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 04/11/14 at 3:27 pm
Something in Italian.
sounds like it.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: 1993 on 04/11/14 at 6:30 pm
You guys have it all wrong. There are no lyrics to it, any subtitles are translations of what somebody THINKS the lyrics are. This is an Italian guy singing English gibberish. They sound like English words but they're not. The song was supposed to be what English sounds to a foreigner who does not understand the language
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: warped on 04/28/14 at 5:58 pm
FWIW my mother considers this the first disco song, it was an Italian song, mostly gibberish. Supposedly the guy wrote it to make it sound like what English sounds like to non English speakers.E77HpMMbDYc I think this is 1972
I remember that one from years ago, yes.
Thanks for reminding me.
Adriano Celentano was a very famous Italian singer and celeb back in the 1960s and 1970s.
You hit the nail on the head. He noticed so many Italians liked 60s and early 70s America/British pop songs, even though they didn't understand any of the words. so he tried to write one...as you said to make sound like what English sounds like to non English speakers.
Success!
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is what it's called
(I use to call it "Freezing cold and dancing my shoes off" lol)
Good rock song..a little disco in there...even early rap.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: the OlLine Rebel on 05/28/14 at 12:57 pm
Can't believe no-one's mentioned "It's Raining Men". 1982? How can you get later than that? I was shocked when i found out it was that late. Apparently not a real big hit but i heard it then some.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 05/28/14 at 2:03 pm
Can't believe no-one's mentioned "It's Raining Men". 1982? How can you get later than that? I was shocked when i found out it was that late. Apparently not a real big hit but i heard it then some.
I think that was more funk that disco.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Philip Eno on 05/29/14 at 1:10 pm
Can't believe no-one's mentioned "It's Raining Men". 1982? How can you get later than that? I was shocked when i found out it was that late. Apparently not a real big hit but i heard it then some.
There were several disco songs in the 1970s long before 1982.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: the OlLine Rebel on 06/02/14 at 1:29 pm
There were several disco songs in the 1970s long before 1982.
Sorry, the thread derailed a bit and I was following the "LAST" disco song (hit?) discussion!
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: music_king on 11/09/15 at 9:43 pm
Growing up in the 70's, the song, "Jive Talkin'" by the Bee Gees first comes to mind. That's because the Bee Gees dominated the disco movement in the mid to late 70's. However, there were disco songs prior to the Bee Gees that were accepted as regular mainstream music. These songs were known as disco:
Kool & the Gang: Jungle Boogie (released 1/73)
B.T. Express: Do it ('Til You're Satisfied) (released 9/74)
Ohio Players: Fire (released 10/74)
Carol Douglas: Doctor's Orders (released 11/74)
Disco Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes: Get Dancin' (released 11/74)
B.T. Express: Express (released 11/74)
Shirley & Company: Shame, Shame Shame (released 12/74)
Van McCoy: The Hustle (released 3/75)
I left out the song, "Rock the Boat" by "The Hues Corporation" (released 9/73) because it was a big, regular mainstream hit, and not identified with disco. The big breakthrough disco hit was, "The Hustle", released a year and a half later. Please don't buy into any talk about Sly & the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, etc. having a disco theme, etc. That was just not true. Disco started with "Jungle Boogie", it overdosed with The Bee Gees, and it ended in 1982 with the horrible song "It's Raining Men" by "The Weather Girls" (released 9/82).
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Cherie70 on 12/28/15 at 3:58 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YjmXSyHa8&feature=kp
Lakeside-Fantastic Voyage
This also came out that year for the last disco song, but it didn't sound disco, it sounded more funk than disco.
I am in total agreement but this song is considered funk.
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Cherie70 on 12/28/15 at 4:07 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVoMJSMgsUM This is the first disco song to me... Machine Gun by the commodores
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 12/29/15 at 2:29 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVoMJSMgsUM This is the first disco song to me... Machine Gun by the commodores
Subject: Re: First disco song?
Written By: Howard on 12/29/15 at 2:32 pm
This would be considered funk.