Donna Summers circa 1978 in New York City. Getty Images Disco is a music genre and a subculture born out of a dance floor and pioneered by Black musicians, DJs and producers in the 1970s and early 1980s. The word disco comes from the Italian discoteca, meaning “record collection, record library,” and was popularized by the French discothèque, a “nightclub with recorded music for dancing” in the 1950s. Born out of a response to shifting political, social and sexual revolutions, disco culture and the corresponding underground scene became central to queer and trans liberation movements and post-Civil-Rights racial integration. The disco genre is unique combining elements of soul, funk, gospel and electronic music to make for uptempo danceable rhythms characterized by a song length that extends beyond the traditional 3-to-4-minute timestamp. Top Disco Songs Disco songs like Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” and Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” were played by iconic DJ Larry Levan at the historic Paradise Garage — what some considered to be “the prototype of the modern dance club.” “DJ Larry Levan would play until 10 o’clock in the morning. He could actually feel the pulse of the club. I remember one night, for over 30 minutes all he played was “toot toot, hey, beep beep” [from Donna Summer’s Bad Girls].” From popular artists The Village People, Donna Summer and the Bee Gees, disco is synonymous with the 1970s sound which blended through to the early 1980s and into early music from Michael Jackson, Rick James and The… Click below to read the full story from Forbes
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The 30 Greatest Disco Songs Of All Time
