Dance & Disco

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The Return of Dance Music

At the beginning of the rock revolution, it was assumed that every rock song was supposed to be the backing track to a dance, like "Rock Around the Clock", "Hound Dog", etc.. Then the Beatles and other bands went with styles that were meant for listening and not dancing, so there was of course a split - new frontiers in rock with the Beatles, and a countering dance craze for a few years, with Chubby Checker's "The Twist" being the most famous example. But that died out fairly quickly, and as we've seen, the later jazz-rock and art-rock and progressive-rock styles of the late 60s and early 70s did not invite dance floor gyrations.

In the mid-1970s, a new style emerged - Disco.

Short for Discotheque (a French dance hall of the 1960s, pronounced disco-tech), this was originally from the desire to save money by hiring one DJ to spin records rather than a live band to play night after night. The music and dance club scene made it to the US in underground clubs and soon were playing the sounds of The Spinners, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye, to start off the mid-70s disco fad.

George McCrae released one of the first designed-for-disco songs:

This song was produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch. They formed a nine-member band called KC and the Sunshine Band, with hits in the same style. Simple vocal melodies, consistent rhythm, simple horn lines, all of which are repeated many many times. See this song:

This type of song filled the time better without being distracting from the center stage - the center stage was for the dancing!

In 1975, lead by Studio 54 in New York, discotheques exploded everywhere.

Disco (1975-1980) and artists of note

Donna Summer - her first big hit, Love to Love You Baby, was originally a 4-minute song, but was increased to 17-minutes for disco play.


With a couple of other disco hits, she managed to transition to a few soft rock hits, the most famous being the late 1970s still-disco-style number 1 hit cover of MacArthur Park.

  • MacArthur Park - Donna Summer version - the beat doesn't really pick up till 2 minutes in. The original was first recorded by Richard Harris in 1968.

The Bee Gees - gaining immense popularity in the movie Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees had been struggling as a group. They had a few Top-20 hits in the late 1960s, but didn't get anywhere further until the disco explosion in 1975. They recorded a number 1 hit:

And of course, no discussion of disco could be complete without:

We could go on with other artists like Kool and the Gang, The Village People, Tavares, and Chic, but I want to take a moment to also bring up one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, ABBA.

ABBA

This band is a hard one to classify. They wrote these perfect little pop tunes that could fit in with the dance music scene (Dancing Queen, Waterloo), or mainstream hits like Fernando or Knowing Me, Knowing You. They were a hit act from 1974 till about 1983, essentially bookending the Disco craze. The music has a bit more substance than most Disco, and has more interesting melodies and impact points. They are definitely not Disco, but what are they?


Motown Dance

A band that some would insist be added to the Motown unit is the "Jackson 5". However, Michael Jackson is a cautionary tale for those who seek to tightly control a child and live vicariously through them. Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, insulated young Michael from everything except the stage and show biz. Combined with another very controlling personality, Berry Gordy (to whom we were introduced in the beginning of the Motown unit), the Jackson Five (Michael and his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon) had four consecutive number 1 hits. Michael was the voice that stood out amongst the rest.

Probably the best example of this is the hit:

or a live performance of Who's Loving You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9U9A4_cgyI


Michael was an incredible performer, but was essentially abused by his father so that he would perform a routine perfectly, the first time. In most of his studio recordings, the vocals were done in only one or two takes. But I don't think anyone could see how he transformed, how he lived his life, and how he acted in interviews and not see how this was a disturbed man whose childhood was robbed from him.

There was drama with the Jackson Five, who split from Motown and moved to Epic Records (a subsidiary of Columbia), and were renamed "The Jacksons" and added brother Randy, and sisters LaToya and Maureen.

But more importantly, Michael became a solo star in 1979, with his solo album Off the Wall. Produced by Quincy Jones, this was a big hit with dance / disco oriented numbers like:

But his biggest breakout success was the album Thriller - in fact, this ended up being the biggest selling album of all time. Another work with Quincy Jones, the first hit off the album The Girl is Mine, featuring a duet with former Beatle Paul McCartney. The second big hit was Billie Jean. Michael created the basic drum pattern on a drum machine, and recorded the vocal line in one take. This had some heavier lyrics than normal for Jackson. Next was Beat It, with its incredibly recognizable guitar/bass line, and guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen.

In May of 1983, NBC aired a two-hour salute to Motown on its 25th anniversary. Michael took the stage as a solo act , and introduced the nation to the "moonwalk". Fast forward to 3:40 and 4:35 again for the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR2WFQRbP3g

Unlike many of the pop stars before or since, Michael could actually do these dance numbers and sing at the same time (although the previously linked Motown thing was an obvious lip sync). With this performance, he established himself as a solo pop start. The next hit off the album, title track Thriller, broke new ground for its creativeness and cinematic style in a music video (at 4:06, you can see a meme being born). This one has about 4 minutes of intro and outro on either side of the song.

The follow on album, Bad, had another slew of hits:

Along with other hits Man in the Mirror, Smooth Criminal, etc... These albums, along with further hits, cemented his title as "King of Pop". However, as we all probably know by now, he was accused multiple times of inappropriate contact with children, and had an unfortunate incident where he dangled one of his children off a balcony (returning the child to safety after the horrified screams of the people down below). He died in 2009 caused by an overdose of Propofol - this was administered by his personal physician at Jackson's request. Michael was probably the closest to an Elvis/Beatles megastar since rock fragmented in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Madonna

The most successful female star of the 1980s, her first hits were dance style hits like:

But her super stardom started with the following hits:

Now that she had these hits, she started exploring outside of the Dance styles with Live To Tell and real departures from dance music like acting in films like Desperately Seeking Susan and others.

Madonna modeled herself after Marilyn Monroe and unabashedly projected herself as a sex-object in her work, and a very famous coffee table book titled Sex, but she did it from a position of strength - she was brazen and unapologetic, and made the decisions about clothing or lack thereof on her own terms. She also covered some controversial subjects in her songs, like:

Notice how much her voice has changed from the early hits like Lucky Star or Like a Virgin:

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